Overview

Ernst Lubitsch (1982-1947) was one of the most successful and influential German filmmakers in American film comedy. In this volume, Rick McCormick argues for a more transnational view of Lubitsch's career and films with respect to nationality, ethnicity, migration, class, sexuality, and gender. McCormick focuses on Lubitsch's Jewishness, which is inseparable from the distinct transnational character of the director, categorizing his early films as ""Jewish comedies"" where Lubitsch strikes a tenuous balance between Jewish humor, antisemitic jokes, stereotypes, and the incorporation of antifascist subjects into his popular films. Above all, the larger political issues at stake in Lubitsch's work are brought forward: German-Jewish perspectives and experiences, the subtle treatment of covert political and social messages, and the relationship of comedy, especially sexual comedy, to emancipatory politics and, in particular, to the turbulent politics of Europe and the United States in the first half of the twentieth century. The book discusses in depth the following films by Lubitsch: The Pride of the Firm (1914), Shoe Palace Pinkus (1916), Meyer From Berlin (1918), I Don't Want to Be a Man (1918), The Oyster Princess (1919), Madame Dubarry (1919), The Doll (1919), Sumurun (1920), The Wildcat (1921), The Marriage Circle (1924), The Student Prince in Old Heidelberg (1927), The Love Parade (1929), The Man I Killed (1932), Trouble in Paradise (1932), Design for Living (1933), Ninotchka (1939), The Shop Around the Corner (1940), and To Be or Not to Be (1942).

Full Product Details

Author:   Richard W. McCormick
Publisher:   Indiana University Press
Imprint:   Indiana University Press
ISBN:  

9780253048332

ISBN 10:   0253048338
Pages:   372
Publication Date:   02 June 2020
Audience:   Professional and scholarly ,  Professional & Vocational
Format:   Hardback
Publisher's Status:   Active
Availability:   In Print  
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Table of Contents

Acknowledgments Introduction: Transnational Jewish Comedy I. Berlin: Sex, Spectacle, and Anarchy 1. From the Jewish ""Bad Boy"" to the ""Bad Girl"": Early Comedies, 1914–1919 2. Bad Girls and the Costume Epics: 1919–1922 3. Bad Girls Untamed: Anarchic/Fantastic Comedies (1919–1922) II. Hollywood: From European Sophistication to Anti-Fascist Screwball 4. Sex & Sophistication: Comedies & Operettas, 1924–1934 5. Pushing the Boundaries in Pre-Code Hollywood, 1931–1934 6. Screwball Politics: American Populism & European Politics, 1935–41 7. Coming Out as Jewish: To Be or Not to Be (1942) Epilogue: Twilight of a Cosmopolitan, 1943–47 Bibliography Filmography Index

Reviews

Given its emphasis on identites sexual and ethinc, queerness and Jewishness, and its power to reveal the resistant potential of a mainstream artist, McCormick's work is ideally conceived for today's intellectual priorities. -- Alan Lareua, University of Wisconsin-Oskosh * Monatshefte *

Author Information

Rick McCormick is a Professor of German at the University of Minnesota. He is author of Gender and Sexuality in Weimar Modernity: Film, Literature, and ""New Objectivity"" and Politics of the Self: Feminism and the Postmodern in West German Literature and Film.

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