Monday, March 20, 2006

"I think Ernst Lubitsch was the greatest movie director who ever lived, with Akira Kurosawa following close behind."

Wagstaff: If Kurosawa could put away his Japanese humility for a moment (and not insist that John Ford and countless others are his superiors, too) - he would likely agree. I'd include Ozu as right behind Lubitsch, too, but Lubitsch is still the greatest. Nobody matches him in creating the film language, maintaining a prolific, extremely high consistency or generating film magic.

3 comments:

Wagstaff said...

With Lubitsch, there is just a staggering amount of invention. He anticipated darn near every style that came after. That goes for Ozu, Hitchcock by way of Lang, of course Billy Wilder, and a myriad others. "Trouble in Paradise" is the Citizen Kane of screwball pictures. Silents like "The Marriage Circle" are as expressive as anything in Bergman. In fact, it's hard to talk about Lubitsch in terms of other filmmakers. You have to jump over to other art forms. Mozart and Beaumarchais come to mind. Mr. Lubitsch touches my special sweet spot all right, and makes me cry out "please don't stop!" Uh... I guess we should get a room.

Jeffrey Hill said...

I'll go halvsies with you for a room. Lubitsch is going to be there, right?

Edward Copeland said...

Not that this relates directly to Lubitsch or Kurosawa, but they are planning a blog-a-thon for March 27 on Abel Ferrara (whom I have nothing to say about) but now they are also planning one for April 19 on Angie Dickinson. Details here