![]() ![]() There's another reason these early silents by Lubitsch are interesting: They were made prior to the expressionist movement in German cinema. In a way that makes them all the more riotously entertaining, but it also deprives them of that wink-of-the-eye style of suggestive humor that was Lubitsch's greatest asset as a filmmaker. The restrictions placed on filmmakers in the late 1910s in Germany were clearly even slacker than those in Hollywood's pre-code era, and so many of these early German silents by Lubitsch are more forthright and candid in their treatment of controversial subject matter than his American films were. "I Don't Want To Be a Man" is a good example of this. Without some degree of censorship, his films would probably lack some of the qualities he's now famous for. The waggish innuendo that was Lubitsch's bread and butter was necessitated by the presence of censorship. And so Lubitsch was forced to express things implicitly that he might otherwise have expressed more explicitly, to much lesser effect. The standards were much looser, but there were standards, nonetheless. ![]() The Hays Code obviously involved far too much of it, but even before '34 when the code really kicked in, there was still censorship. I think a little bit of censorship, however, was good for Lubitsch. Of course, he made some good films after that - "To Be or Not To Be" and "Heaven Can Wait" came in the early '40s, and were both quality films - but Lubitsch would never again be able to make films that genuinely reflected his true nature as a filmmaker, and his unique sensibilities as an artist. Lubitsch's gift was to make comedy out of contentious subject matter, and so for a director who thrived off of suggestion and sexual innuendo, the Hays Code was effectively the end of Lubitsch. ![]() That lattermost film was made in 1933, the last year before the Hays Code was enforced, and therefore, the last year that Lubitsch would ever be able to be the filmmaker he was born to be. Most of us know Lubitsch from either his run of musicals - "The Love Parade", "Monte Carlo", "The Smiling Lieutenant", and "One Hour With You" - or his subsequent non-musicals, "Trouble in Paradise" and "Design for Living". His influence on American cinema is as great as anyone's since Griffith. He pioneered the cinematic musical, making the first ever truly modern musical with "The Love Parade" in '29. He brought with him his sophistication, his innuendo, and his playful mischievousness. ![]() Lubitsch left Germany and came to Hollywood in 1923, and the American film industry would never be the same. And any you do see will certainly not have Lubitsch's inimitable gift for tackling such controversial material with such a light, innocuous hand ("the Lubitsch touch", as they call it). In fact, you won't see many 2010s films like it. No one who's familiar with his films could ever be surprised to see the myriad of taboo subjects covered in "I Don't Want To Be a Man", but even I was flabbergasted a few times in this one. Homoeroticism, transvestitism, gender confusion, dominance and submission, borderline pedophilia - there has never been another, and certainly will never be another like Ernst Lubitsch. ![]()
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