Language:
English
Year of publication:
1996
Titel der Quelle:
Prooftexts; a Journal of Jewish Literary History
Angaben zur Quelle:
16,3 (1996) 209-244
Keywords:
Lubitsch, Ernst,
;
Holocaust, Jewish (1939-1945), in motion pictures
Abstract:
Ernst Lubitsch was a Jew of European origin who created films in the U.S. from the mid-1920s. His "To Be or Not to Be" (1942) was one of the few American films of the period to make any allusion to the situation of the Jews of Europe. Describes how in "To Be or Not to Be, " a comedy about the Nazis' occupation of Poland, Lubitsch implicitly depicted Jews and the Jewish situation at a time when he and other American film producers were subject to self and external censorship which barred the presentation of these subjects. In the character of the stage-actor Greenberg, who delivers Shylock's famous speech, Lubitsch was alluding to the doubly vanished Jew: the Jew who was then disappearing from Europe, and the Jew who had all but vanished from the American cinema screen.
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