Movie Discussion: To Be or Not To Be (1942) by Ernst Lubitsch
Details
As nervy as it is hilarious, this audacious screwball masterpiece from Ernst Lubitsch stars Jack Benny and Carole Lombard as Shakespearean actors in Nazi-occupied Warsaw who become entangled in a dangerous spy plot. The actors turn to impersonating Nazi officers in order to outwit the enemy and protect the resistance. To Be or Not To Be is a Hollywood film of the boldest black humor, which went into production right before the U.S. entered World War II. Lubitsch manages to brilliantly balance political satire, romance, slapstick, and wartime suspense in a comic high-wire act that has never been equaled.
"Lubitsch's work often illustrates the lesson that people are only able to see what they absolutely need to see; rarely were the terms of these lessons more grave." (Slant)
"One of the most profound, emotionally complex comedies ever made." (Chicago Reader)
"It is madness, you can not do a better comedy I think." (Slavoj Žižek)
"Almost no line of dialogue is without a barbed secondary implication; jokes comment knowingly on the jokes that preceded them, adding elements of ironic awareness too discreetly and rapidly for a single viewing to suffice." (Criterion)
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Let's discuss the 1940s movie classic To Be or Not To Be directed, produced, and co-written by the German-American master of comedy Ernst Lubitsch, recently voted the 114th greatest movie of all time in Sight & Sound's international survey of film critics and scholars. The Slovenian philosopher and cultural critic Slavoj Žižek has called the film his favourite comedy of all time. We previously discussed Lubitsch's comic masterpiece The Shop Around the Corner (1940) in this group — highly recommended!
Please watch the movie in advance (99 minutes) and bring your thoughts, reactions, and queries to share with us at the meeting. You can stream it here (check the player settings for subtitles and to adjust quality) or rent it through Criterion or other streaming platforms (for best quality).
Fun fact: A genetic study last year found that Hitler likely had micro-penis. Popular World War II songs often mocked the dictator's anatomy but lacked a scientific basis.
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Check out other movie discussions in the group, currently happening about 2 or 3 times a month.
This link here is a spreadsheet of the approximately 200 movies we've watched in this group and my ratings for each. You're invited to share your ratings too if you've watched a bunch of these movies with us. (I can add your list here if you send me a link. You can make your own list on sites like Letterboxd or by copying my spreadsheet and filling in your own values. Note that my list doesn't include every movie that Yorgo hosted on cause I didn't watch them all.)