Oh Lubitsch, Du Schuft

Heaven can wait

He did it again. He makes me laugh and cry, with a fairytale with generic characters, so unbelievable but so likable and funny that you cannot help but feel touched. His protagonists talk like Thomas Mann’s Felix Krull and act like Wilder’s screwball comedies. This is the humor of Jewish-German farces and it is absolutely incomparable. I feel like I grew up with it, even though I saw the first one when I was perhaps 18, and I cannot help but feel drawn to it.

You might or might not have noticed that I changed the subtitle to this blog to “How would Wilder do it?” While I was contemplating about watching “Heaven can wait”, in the process of Wikipedia-esque random browsing, I saw an article on “Menschen am Sonntag” and then I stumbled upon Wilder’s “How would Lubitsch do it?” Hence the subtitle. Lubitsch is the kind of guy who likes to tell funny stories, Wilder is the kind of guy who likes to tell us that the world should be taken with a grain of salt. In that respect, I’d like to be someone who finds the salt at all times.

I have seen Gene Tierney in “Laura” before, but while she was an awesome actress in that movie, she feels kind of bland here. I blame the character.
It’s Henry van Cleve who is the really interesting character. Lately, I have been complaining about what the French call a “bon vivant”. Eating a lot means you are a gourmand, drinking to the point of alcoholism means that you can enjoy a good wine and cheating on your wife means that you appreciate beautiful women. They are so amazing at turning everything bad into a seeming virtue, and call all those vices “enjoying life”. I never gave it many thoughts besides finding it a little bit amusing. But now I am not sure anymore. I really don’t think gluttony, alcoholism or playing around with women is a good thing; but I understand what is likable about such people. If, despite all egoism, you can make somebody else happy, how bad can you really be?

“Heaven can wait” is mundane, almost pointless story about a character who ultimately doesn’t matter. The decor feels outdated, cinematography or direction don’t seem like anything special and the costumes are a parody in themselves, hence utterly ridiculous looking. The protagonist and his environment are human to such an exaggerated point that they feel stereotypical. All of them practically do nothing but provide comical relief. The whole film would be fairly stupid and almost forgettable if it weren’t a Lubitsch.

But this is Lubitsch, the only director who has 2 movies in my favorites list. You have to be into his persiflage of humanity, but if you are like me, he is the incomparable master. “To be and not to be” and “Ninotchka” are still his most important masterpieces, but “Heaven can wait” is not bad either. Sadly, I doubt he would have liked the commercial for the war bonds.