Ernst lubitsch criterion

The following year, Lubitsch made “The Oyster Princess,” again starring the gleefully anarchic Oswalda. The plot is standard-issue operetta material—an American millionaire’s daughter woos an impoverished European prince—but the visual invention is electrifying. In one scene, the prince’s servant is kept waiting in a palatial room at the millionaire’s mansion. Out of boredom, he becomes absorbed in an elaborate pattern in the floor, and amuses himself by balletically prancing across it. As in the comedies of Jacques Tati, quizzical mischief warms up a cold environment. Later, a stuffy wedding party is overcome by a “foxtrot epidemic.” The exquisitely choreographed chaos—couples kicking their legs in mass formation, the kitchen staff joining in while balancing trays, a bandleader wiggling his butt—is a convulsively musical experience, even without music.

Several other films from Lubitsch’s German period display avant-garde features: surrealist sets, geometrical manipulations of the screen image, self-referential cameos by the director. At the same time, he was devising lavish cost

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