How Would Lubitsch Do It?

S5E09a - Lubitsch and Poland with Mateusz Pacewicz [Feat. David Neary]

Screenwriter Mateusz Pacewicz (Corpus Christi, The Hater) joins us to discuss the films of Lubitsch from a Polish perspective. We coverTo Be Or Not To Be’s depiction of Warsaw, the history of Lubitsch’s collaborators such as Pola Negri, the dynamics of European immigrants in twentieth-century America, the nature of dark comedy and ‘lightness’, the nature of performance, lies, truth, identity, and nationality, and the tall tales of Andrzej Krakowski.
David Neary also stops by for an encore discussion of Heaven Can Wait.
Edited by Griffin Sheel.
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NEXT WEEK:
In our penultimate episode, Cahiers du Cinéma deputy editor Charlotte Garson joins us for a retrospective!
WORKS CITED:
Ernst Lubitsch in Warsaw - April 26, 1936, Kino no. 17

S5E8.75 - Wes Anderson and The Grand Budapest Hotel [2014] with Matt Severson

Matt Severson returns to discuss Wes Anderson and The Grand Budapest Hotel. We discuss Lubitsch’s clear influence on the film, Anderson’s use of fabulist distancing techniques, common attitudes about Anderson’s supposed emotional remoteness, and our own emotional connections to the film.
Edited by Eden Cote-Foster.
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Listen on: Apple Podcasts | Spotify
NEXT WEEK:
Screenwriter Mateusz Pacewicz joins us to discuss Ernst from a Polish perspective!
WORKS CITED:
The Wes Anderson Collection: The Grand Budapest Hotel by Matthew Zoller Seitz
Video Essay on The Grand Budapest Hotel by Matthew Zoller Seitz
Devan’s review of To Be Or Not To Be on Letterboxd
 

S5E8.5- Billy Wilder's One, Two, Three [1961] with Noah Isenberg

Author Noah Isenberg joins us to discuss Billy Wilder and his 1961 comedic epic One, Two, Three. We cover Wilder’s early life as a reporter, a dancer-for-hire, and publicist; his lifelong ability to adapt to his circumstances; the question of his cynicism (or is it frustrated romanticism?); and his fraught relationship with Germany. Later on, we cover the fascinating production of One, Two, Three, the manners in which the film echoes his earlier work, and Jimmy Cagney’s superhuman verbal stamina.
Edited by Eden Cote-Foster.
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Listen on: Apple Podcasts | Spotify
NEXT WEEK:
Matt Severson joins us to discuss Wes Anderson and The Grand Budapest Hotel. For information as to where to find this film, check out our resources page.
WORKS CITED:
On Sunset Boulevard: The Life and Times of Billy Wilder by Ed Sikov
Wilder on Assignment: Dispatches from Weimar Berlin and Interwar Vienna by Noah Isenberg

S5E08.25 - Freundschaft by Samson Raphaelson

A reading of Samson Raphaelson’s Freundschaft, as published on May 11, 1981, in The New Yorker.
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NEXT WEEK:
Noah Isenberg joins us to discuss Billy Wilder and his cold war comedic epic One, Two, Three. For information as to where to find this film, check out our resources page.
WORKS CITED:
Freundschaft by Samson Raphaelson

S5E08 - Dragonwyck, A Royal Scandal, That Lady In Ermine, and the Death of Ernst Lubitsch with David Cairns

David Cairns returns to discuss the end of Ernst Lubitsch’s career and life: a period in which, after a heart attack left him debilitated, he produced a series of films directed by the likes of Joseph L. Mankiewicz and Otto Preminger. We cover Dragonwyck, cinema’s foremost depiction of the Dutch patroonship system in what is now upstate New York; A Royal Scandal, a remake of Forbidden Paradise; andThat Lady in Ermine, Lubitsch’s final unfinished project later completed to little effect by Otto Preminger.
Throughout the episode, we discuss the gap in worldviews between Lubitsch and Preminger, our dream Lubitsch/actor pairings that never came to pass, Billy Wilder’s tall tales, Ernst Lubitsch’s death, and what comes next.
Edited by Brennen King.
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Listen on: Apple Podcasts | Spotify
NEXT WEEK:
A reading of Freundschaft, Samson Raphaelson’s eulogy for Ernst Lubitsch.
WORKS CITED:
The World and Its Double: The Life and Work of Otto Preminger by Chris Fujiwara

S5E07.5 - Otto Preminger's Laura [1944] with Eloise Ross

Writer and film historian Eloise Ross joins us to discuss noted Lubitsch disciple Otto Preminger and his 1944 noir Laura. We cover Preminger’s past and parallels with Lubitsch, the tumultuous story of Laura’s production, the film’s highly unusual tone, its memorable characters and dialogue, and the majesty of Clifton Webb.
Edited by Brennen King
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Listen on: Apple Podcasts | Spotify
NEXT WEEK:
David Cairns returns to discuss A Royal Scandal, Dragonwyck, That Lady in Ermine, and the death of Ernst Lubitsch.
WORKS CITED:
The World and Its Double: The Life and Work of Otto Preminger by Chris Fujiwara

S5E07 - Heaven Can Wait [1943] with Willa Ross

Willa Ross returns for a lively discussion about Heaven Can Wait. We cover Lubitsch and Raphaelson’s opposing views on the film’s unusual protagonist, its counterintuitive structure and elisions, the film’s theological implications, argue about whether or not the production code negatively impacted the film, and discuss what happened at Fox in the early 1970s and why it matters for technicolor pictures such as this.
Edited by Griffin Sheel.
We have a Discord!
Listen on: Apple Podcasts | Spotify
NEXT WEEK:
Writer and film historian Eloise Ross joins us to discuss Otto Preminger and his 1944 noir Laura. For information as to where to find this film, check out our resources page.
WORKS CITED:
Eloise Ross's Writeup for HEAVEN CAN WAIT in Senses of CInema
Heaven Can Wait: The Simple Act of Living by William Paul
Robert Harris’s “KNIGHTS OF FILM PRESERVATION” Forum Post

S5E06b - To Be Or Not To Be [1942] with Peter Labuza

Peter Labuza returns for the second of two episodes on To Be Or Not To Be. We discuss the film’s production history, the way in which the film both fulfills and frustrates conventions of comedic structure, Lubitsch’s specific habits in directing actors, the film’s unusual tonal arc, the film’s depiction of fascist ideology, and Rudolph Mate’s cinematography.
Edited by Eden Cote-Foster.
We have a Discord!
Listen on: Apple Podcasts | Spotify
NEXT WEEK:
Willa Ross returns to discuss Heaven Can Wait. For information as to where to find this film, check out our resources page.
WORKS CITED:
Bosley Crowther’s Review of TO BE OR NOT TO BE in the New York Times
Ernst Lubitsch's Response
Independent Stardom: Freelance Women in the Hollywood Studio System by Emily Carman
Five Came Back: A Story of Hollywood and the Second World War by Mark Harris

S5E06a - To Be Or Not To Be [1942] with Dara and Gary Jaffe

Returning guest Dara Jaffe and first-time guest Gary Jaffe join us for the first of two episodes on To Be Or Not To Be. In this episode, we cover the interplay between theatre and film, and of improvisation and comedy; the many dimensions of the film’s relationship with Jewish identities; the use of empathy and humanism as anti-fascist tools; Lubitsch’s self-reflexive approach to diegetic reality; the key character of Greenberg, and Felix Bressart’s performance; the history of performances of William Shakespeare’s The Merchant of Venice; and the film’s influence on contemporary cinema.
Recorded at the Margaret Herrick Library in Beverly Hills, CA by Anna Citak-Scott.
Edited by Griffin Sheel.
We have a Discord!
Listen on: Apple Podcasts | Spotify
NEXT WEEK:
Peter Labuza returns for the second of two discussions on To Be Or Not To Be. For information as to where to find this film, check out our resources page.
WORKS CITED:
Production Code Administration notes on To Be Or Not To Be
Hollywood's Other Great Anti-Nazi Movie by Thomas Doherty
David Kalat’s Commentary on the Criterion Edition of To Be Or Not To Be
Adrian Martin’s Review of To Be Or Not To Be.
To Be Or Not To Be (A Jew) by Dorian Stuber and Marianne Tettlebaum

S5E05.75 - Ernst Lubitsch's American Comedy with William Paul

We return from our brief hiatus with our most in-depth episode yet, culled from five hours of discussions recorded over a period of several months with William Paul, author of the essential critical study Ernst Lubitsch’s American Comedy.
We discuss Paul’s friendship with frequent Lubitsch collaborator Samson Raphaelson, Raphaelson’s sometimes-harsh retrospective criticism of his own work, the linguistic tics that unite Lubitsch’s filmography, their methods of adapting obscure Hungarian plays, Raphaelson’s recollections of Alfred Hitchcock's very different working methods, and Suspicion’s shocking alternate ending.
Later on, we discuss the neuroscientific mechanisms of comedy, the biological purpose of laughter, the relationship of To Be Or Not To Be and the idea of “passing”, and engage in some record-correction as to whether or not the film was as controversial as is widely believed.
Edited by Brennen King and Eden Cote-Foster.
We have a Discord!
Listen on: Apple Podcasts | Spotify
NEXT WEEK:
Dara and Ryan Jaffe join us for the first of two discussions on To Be Or Not To Be For information as to where to find this film, check out our resources page.
WORKS CITED:
Ernst Lubitsch’s American Comedy by William Paul