Chelsea the Cinéaste

Billy Wilder, by way of dubious compliment, says of the master of early humane comedy: “Ernst Lubitsch, who could do more with a closed door than most of today’s directors can do with an open fly, would have had big problems in this market.” [i] The time was 1975 and Wilder’s observation betrays his concealed repugnance at the contemporary film scene. As is natural to the law of history, the past decays and whatever that has been salvaged from complete obliteration is bound to seem a little peculiar to the posterity. Wilder in the 1970s was coming to terms - although not without certain resentment - with the expected depletion of creative ideas brought on by old age and a growing sense of alienation from the prevailing cultural climate. Lubitsch, on the other hand, had his name and legacy established but his films in a steady process of obsolescence.  There is a misplaced tendency nowadays to view those films, which enjoy a resurgence of interest, as lighthearted and slightly whims...

“Less is more” is a difficult balance to negotiate when dealing with proscribed subjects. There is always the concern that the illicit will no longer be as such if subjected to too much attenuation; or if the expression is couched in too abstract a language. Coarseness is at the nucleus of matters like sex and violence- attempt at over-refinement would be as ineffectual and absurd as giving a solemn speech to a table of revellers. In this case, less is definitely advisable, but only under the condition that it contains promises of the more. As with Noel Coward’s  Design for Living , there is barely any need for overexplicitness. The play centers on a ménage  à  trois in Paris 1932, during the period of  Les années folles , or the “Crazy Years,” which saw the city’s artistic culture reaching an insuperable peak. Characters were drawn from real life: Coward indebted the play to his actor friends, Alfred Lunt and Lynn Fontanne, whose long marriage was bedevil...