The Lubitsch Touch
"The Lubitsch Touch" is a phrase long used to describe the unique style and cinematic trademarks of director Ernst Lubitsch.
Village Voice writer Farran Smith Nehme noted that " The Lubitsch Touch" was “the brainchild of a go-getter in the Warner Brothers publicity department named Hal Wallis, when Ernst Lubitsch was under contract at the studio in the 1920s. Thus did future producer Wallis invent one of the few PR slogans ever to be turned by critics into a philosophical debate, to be defined and redefined ever since."
Here are a few of the "definitions" provided by film historians and critics attempting to shed some light on the meaning of the fabled Touch:
"The Lubitsch Touch" is a brief description that embraces a long list of virtues: sophistication, style, subtlety, wit, charm, elegance, suavity, polished nonchalance and audacious sexual nuance." -- Richard Christiansen
"The subtle humor and virtuoso visual wit in the films of Ernst Lubitsch. The style was characterized by a parsimonious compression of ideas and situations into single shots or brief scenes that provided an ironic key to the characters and to the meaning of the entire film." -- Ephraim Katz
"A subtle and souffle-like blend of sexy humor and sly visual wit." -- Roger Fristoe
"A counterpoint of poignant sadness during a film's gayest moments." -- Andrew Sarris
" . . . The Lubitsch Touch, with its frequent Freudian overtone of revealing previously hidden motivations, the sexual story, by an adroit bit of business or a focus on a significant object. The Lubitsch Touch signals to the audience that the old interpreter is at it again, letting us in on a privileged perspective, embracing the audience as a co-conspirator of interpretation, an accomplice in the director's and the camera's knowingness." -- Leo Braudy
"It was the elegant use of the Superjoke. You had a joke, and you felt satisfied, and then there was one more big joke on top of it. The joke you didn't expect. That was the Lubitsch Touch...." -- Billy Wilder
" . . . a blend of costumed Ruritania and Berliner sexuality toned down for American tastes." -- Kevin Starr
"It was as famous a monicker in its day as Hitchcock's 'Master of Suspense,' although perhaps not as superficial. The phrase does connote something light, strangely indefinable, yet nonetheless tangible, and seeing Lubitsch's films - more than in almost any other director's work - one can feel this certain spirit; not only in the tactful and impeccably appropriate placement of the camera, the subtle economy of his plotting, the oblique dialogue which had a way of saying everything through indirection, but also -- and particularly -- in the performance of every single player, no matter how small the role." -- Peter Bogdanovich
"A style that is gracefully charming and fluid, with an . . . ingenious ability to suggest more than it showed . . ." -- Leland A. Poague
" . . . a style that hinted at sex, that was playfully adult in its themes, without ever crossing the invisible boundary line that separated smut from genius."
-- Saul Austerlitz
“It appears to be a quality of visual and verbal grace that cannot be reduced to any particular aspect of production. As far as I can tell, no writer has mentioned that, whatever it means, it summons the tactile sense, what is never present for any moviegoer except by imagination. Lubitsch loved to evoke that missing sensual element by suggestion—especially the play and pleasure of human sexuality.” -- Siri Hustvedt
" 1) A specifically Eastern European capacity to represent the cosmopolitan sophistication of continental Europeans to Americans -- and with a double edge, as becomes clear in the 'American understood' gag; 2) A critical affection for flawed individuals who operate according to double standards; 3) A graceful way of handling music as an integral part of a film's construction." -- Jonathan Rosenbaum
"The Lubitsch Touch" can be most concretely seen as deriving from a standard narrative device of the silent film: interrupting the dramatic interchange by focusing on objects or small details that make a witty comment on or a surprising revelation about the main action." -- Greg S. Faller
"In its broadest sense, this meant going from the general to the particular, suddenly condensing into one swift, deft moment the crystallization of a scene or even the entire theme.....the idea of utilizing the power of the metaphor by suddenly compressing the quintessence of his subject in a sly comment - a visual comment, naturally - that said it all." -- Herman G. Weinberg
"The Lubitsch Touch" is a phrase long used to describe the unique style and cinematic trademarks of director Ernst Lubitsch.
Village Voice writer Farran Smith Nehme noted that " The Lubitsch Touch" was “the brainchild of a go-getter in the Warner Brothers publicity department named Hal Wallis, when Ernst Lubitsch was under contract at the studio in the 1920s. Thus did future producer Wallis invent one of the few PR slogans ever to be turned by critics into a philosophical debate, to be defined and redefined ever since."
Here are a few of the "definitions" provided by film historians and critics attempting to shed some light on the meaning of the fabled Touch:
"The Lubitsch Touch" is a brief description that embraces a long list of virtues: sophistication, style, subtlety, wit, charm, elegance, suavity, polished nonchalance and audacious sexual nuance." -- Richard Christiansen
"The subtle humor and virtuoso visual wit in the films of Ernst Lubitsch. The style was characterized by a parsimonious compression of ideas and situations into single shots or brief scenes that provided an ironic key to the characters and to the meaning of the entire film." -- Ephraim Katz
"A subtle and souffle-like blend of sexy humor and sly visual wit." -- Roger Fristoe
"A counterpoint of poignant sadness during a film's gayest moments." -- Andrew Sarris
" . . . The Lubitsch Touch, with its frequent Freudian overtone of revealing previously hidden motivations, the sexual story, by an adroit bit of business or a focus on a significant object. The Lubitsch Touch signals to the audience that the old interpreter is at it again, letting us in on a privileged perspective, embracing the audience as a co-conspirator of interpretation, an accomplice in the director's and the camera's knowingness." -- Leo Braudy
"It was the elegant use of the Superjoke. You had a joke, and you felt satisfied, and then there was one more big joke on top of it. The joke you didn't expect. That was the Lubitsch Touch...." -- Billy Wilder
" . . . a blend of costumed Ruritania and Berliner sexuality toned down for American tastes." -- Kevin Starr
"It was as famous a monicker in its day as Hitchcock's 'Master of Suspense,' although perhaps not as superficial. The phrase does connote something light, strangely indefinable, yet nonetheless tangible, and seeing Lubitsch's films - more than in almost any other director's work - one can feel this certain spirit; not only in the tactful and impeccably appropriate placement of the camera, the subtle economy of his plotting, the oblique dialogue which had a way of saying everything through indirection, but also -- and particularly -- in the performance of every single player, no matter how small the role." -- Peter Bogdanovich
"A style that is gracefully charming and fluid, with an . . . ingenious ability to suggest more than it showed . . ." -- Leland A. Poague
" . . . a style that hinted at sex, that was playfully adult in its themes, without ever crossing the invisible boundary line that separated smut from genius."
-- Saul Austerlitz
“It appears to be a quality of visual and verbal grace that cannot be reduced to any particular aspect of production. As far as I can tell, no writer has mentioned that, whatever it means, it summons the tactile sense, what is never present for any moviegoer except by imagination. Lubitsch loved to evoke that missing sensual element by suggestion—especially the play and pleasure of human sexuality.” -- Siri Hustvedt
" 1) A specifically Eastern European capacity to represent the cosmopolitan sophistication of continental Europeans to Americans -- and with a double edge, as becomes clear in the 'American understood' gag; 2) A critical affection for flawed individuals who operate according to double standards; 3) A graceful way of handling music as an integral part of a film's construction." -- Jonathan Rosenbaum
"The Lubitsch Touch" can be most concretely seen as deriving from a standard narrative device of the silent film: interrupting the dramatic interchange by focusing on objects or small details that make a witty comment on or a surprising revelation about the main action." -- Greg S. Faller
"In its broadest sense, this meant going from the general to the particular, suddenly condensing into one swift, deft moment the crystallization of a scene or even the entire theme.....the idea of utilizing the power of the metaphor by suddenly compressing the quintessence of his subject in a sly comment - a visual comment, naturally - that said it all." -- Herman G. Weinberg
