Lubitsch Can`t Wait: A Collection of Ten Philosophical Discussions on Ernst Lubitsch`s Film Comedy, Novak Ivana

Ernst Lubitsch, the great author of Hollywood comedy and pioneer of such genres as the sophisticated romantic comedy, the musical, and the screwball comedy, is a relatively overlooked figure in mainstream film theory. In this collection, renowned world thinkers and philosophers position Lubitsch as the premium director of subversive cinema, reflecting on his attitude toward love and politics which correspond to contemporary issues.Followers of the Hegelian, Marxist, Freudian, Lacanian, and Deleuzian traditions discuss thephilosophical, political, and ethical dimensions of Lubitschs late Hollywood work. They focus on love as stealing, the ethics of style, and comedy in times of austerity in the directors masterpiece, Trouble in Paradise (1932); answer the question of why comedy is always polygamous; discuss links between masochism, melancholia, and ideology in Ninotchka(1939); celebrate the ethical gesture of comedy in To Be or Not to Be (1942); and promote the revolutionary comic spirit of Lubitschs last directorial effort, Cluny Brown (1946). These essays witty, subversive, and provocative approaches highlight Lubitschs unique understanding of love, sex, comedy, and politics and idiosyncratic conception of totalitariannightmares and capitalistic paradise, countering the non-dialectic and politically correct discourse of mainstream and independent cinema today.