|
 Ernst
Lubitsch
b. Jan.
29, 1892, Berlin. d. Nov. 30, 1947, Hollywood. The son of a
prosperous tailor, he was drawn to the stage while participating in plays
staged by his high school, which he quit at 16. To satisfy both his own
urge to act and his father's desire that he take over the family business,
he began leading a double life, working as a bookkeeper at his father's
store by day and appearing in cabarets and music halls by night.
In 1911 he joined Max Reinhardt's famous Deutsches Theater, where
he rapidly advanced from bit parts to character leads. To supplement
his income, he took a job in 1912 as an apprentice and general-purpose
handyman at Berlin's Bioscope film studios. The following year he began
appearing in a series of film comedies, emphasizing ethnic Jewish humor,
in which he played a character named Meyer. He became very
successful as a comedian and soon began writing and directing his own
films. Gradually, Lubitsch abandoned acting to concentrate on
directing and in 1918 he made his mark as a serious director with Die
Augen der Mummie Ma (The Eyes of the Mummy), a tragic drama starring
Pola Negri. That same year he scored an international box-office hit with
Carmen (Gypsy Blood), also starring Negri. But these early
achievements could not compare with his great triumph of 1919, Die
Austernprinzessin (The Oyster Princess), a sparkling satire
caricaturizing American manners.
For the first time he
demonstrated the subtle humor and the virtuoso visual wit that would in
time become known as "the Lubitsch Touch.'' The style was
characterized by a parsimonious compression of ideas and situations into
single shots or brief scenes that provided an ironic key to the characters
and to the meaning of the entire film. Lubitsch subsequently
alternated between escapist comedies and grand-scale historical dramas; he
enjoyed great international success with both. His reputation as a
grand master of world cinema reached a new peak after the release of his
spectacles Madame Du Barry (Passion, 1919) and Anna Boleyn
(Deception, 1920). In December of 1921, Lubitsch made his first
trip to America, to promote his film Das Weib des Pharao (The Loves of
Pharaoh).
Late the following year he arrived in the US again,
this time at the request of Mary Pickford, who wanted him to direct her in
Dorothy Vernon of Haddon Hall. Upon arrival, he rejected the project
and directed her instead in Rosita (1923). While deemed a failure
from her point of view, it was enthusiastically received by critics.
Lubitsch's next American project, The Marriage Circle (1924), was a
resounding triumph and the progenitor of a long succession of commercial
and critical hits that made "the Lubitsch Touch'' a household
phrase. Lubitsch grasped the American psychology with an amazing
accuracy and focused his satire on two main themes -- sex and money. With
characteristic laconic wit, he depicted sex as a frivolous pastime, a
sophisticated game moneyed people play to occupy their hours of leisure.
To be safe, he set his plots against foreign backgrounds -- Paris, Vienna,
Budapest -- or some mythical land, but the implication was clearly
American and audiences rarely failed to recognize themselves or their
friends, their manners, their foibles, their weaknesses. Lubitch's
success in Hollywood was astounding. He directed an uninterrupted
string of hits surpassing his previous achievement each time. His
influence grew with every production, and his sophisticated comedy style
was widely imitated by other directors. But none could duplicate
Lubitsch at his best -- his incisive pictorial detail, his perfect timing,
the nuances of gesture and facial expression that enabled his performers
to reveal in a single brief shot the psychology of the characters they
were playing.
His chain of triumphs during the silent period --
Forbidden Paradise, Kiss Me Again, Lady Windermere's Fan, The Student
Prince, etc. -- remained unbroken even during the delicate transition
to sound. If anything, witty dialogue and appropriate music and songs gave
additional grip to the Lubitsch Touch. The Love Parade, Monte
Carlo, and The Smiling Lieutenant were hailed by critics as
masterpieces of the newly emerging musical genre. To everyone's
surprise, Lubitsch's next film was a somber offbeat drama, The Man I
Killed (later retitled Broken Lullaby), a fierce antiwar
document, but he soon returned to his favorite haunt, the sophisticated
comedy. While most of Lubitsch's silent films had been made for
Warner Bros., most of his early sound pictures were for Paramount.
In 1935 he was appointed that studio's production manager and subsequently
produced his own films and supervised the production of films of other
directors.
In 1939, Lubitsch scored, at MGM, one of the greatest
triumphs of his career with Ninotchka, a scintillating
political-sexual romp starring Greta Garbo. In 1942 he caused some
controversy with his anti-Nazi comedy To Be or Not to Be. The
following year he signed a producer-director's contract with 20th
Century-Fox, but his work was curtailed by failing health. In late
1944 he had to hand over the direction of A Royal Scandal to Otto
Preminger although remaining on the project as the nominal producer.
In March of 1947 he was awarded a special Academy Award for his "25-year
contribution to motion pictures.'' He died later that year of
a heart attack, his sixth. His last film, That Lady in
Ermine, was completed by Otto Preminger and released posthumously in
1948. At Lubitsch's funeral, Billy Wilder is said to have pined, "No
more Lubitsch,'' William Wyler responded, "Worse than that -- no more
Lubitsch films.''
From: The Film
Encyclopedia by Ephraim Katz. An excellent basic reference guide
available from: Amazon.com |
