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Lubitsch’s Angel

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Who's on First?
This chapter is in the book Who's on First?
184Lubitsch’s AngelIt may be hard to remember, but there was once a time when Hollywood (or some people in Hollywood) could take for granted from the audience a certain level of cultural knowledge.Art. Literature. Classical music.Take a film called Angel, directed in 1937 by Ernst Lubitsch, much admired for his inimitable “touch”—a film now mostly overlooked.The glamorous heroine, Marlene Dietrich, is married to a British diplomat (the touchingly stolid Herbert Marshall) who devotes more time to the League of Nations than to his attractive wife.She loves him, but she’s frustrated by how much his desire to save the world has blinded him to his need to save their marriage.So she slips off to Paris to re-visit a social club where she was once, before her marriage, a particularly social member.On this impulsive visit, she meets dashing Melvyn Douglas, who instantly falls for her.Hard.He thinks she’s royalty.He wants to see her again.That night!
© 2021 University of Chicago Press

184Lubitsch’s AngelIt may be hard to remember, but there was once a time when Hollywood (or some people in Hollywood) could take for granted from the audience a certain level of cultural knowledge.Art. Literature. Classical music.Take a film called Angel, directed in 1937 by Ernst Lubitsch, much admired for his inimitable “touch”—a film now mostly overlooked.The glamorous heroine, Marlene Dietrich, is married to a British diplomat (the touchingly stolid Herbert Marshall) who devotes more time to the League of Nations than to his attractive wife.She loves him, but she’s frustrated by how much his desire to save the world has blinded him to his need to save their marriage.So she slips off to Paris to re-visit a social club where she was once, before her marriage, a particularly social member.On this impulsive visit, she meets dashing Melvyn Douglas, who instantly falls for her.Hard.He thinks she’s royalty.He wants to see her again.That night!
© 2021 University of Chicago Press

Chapters in this book

  1. Frontmatter i
  2. Contents v
  3. Acknowledgments ix
  4. From These People (1981)
  5. Who’s on First? 3
  6. Hannah 7
  7. Mug Shots 8
  8. A Philosophical Problem 11
  9. The Wanderer 15
  10. 78’s 21
  11. The Recital 22
  12. Self-Portrait 25
  13. From Goodnight, Gracie (1992)
  14. Leaves 29
  15. Gisela Brüning 31
  16. In the Mist 39
  17. House Hunting 40
  18. At the Window (from “Crossing the Rockies”) 50
  19. Fourteen People 53
  20. Goodnight, Gracie 62
  21. Love 65
  22. Pseudodoxia Epidemica 68
  23. Simple Questions 73
  24. From Cairo Traffic (2000)
  25. A True Poem 83
  26. Friendly Song (“Cançao Amiga”) 85
  27. She Forgets 86
  28. The Two Horses (A Memory) 89
  29. He Tells His Mother What He’s Working On 93
  30. The Two Churches (A Dream) 95
  31. Pornography 100
  32. Proverbs from Purgatory 107
  33. The Dream During My Mother’s Recuperation 111
  34. No Orpheus 114
  35. Her Waltz 117
  36. Nostalgia (The Lake at Night) 118
  37. Song 121
  38. Renato’s Dream 122
  39. Temple of Dendur, Metropolitan Museum of Art (from “Cairo Traffic”) 123
  40. From Little Kisses (2017)
  41. Little Kisses 127
  42. My Other Grandmother 131
  43. Lost Causes 133
  44. The Conductor 137
  45. Goldring 139
  46. Crossword 145
  47. Six Words 146
  48. Is Light Enough? 148
  49. New Name 149
  50. La Valse 150
  51. Tehran Spring 151
  52. Small Airport In Brazil 156
  53. In Flight 158
  54. To My Oldest Friend, Whose Silence Is Like A Death 160
  55. Jerry Garcia in a Somerville Parking Lot 162
  56. New Poems (2001–2021)
  57. Vermeer’s Pearl 167
  58. Escher: Still Life With Mirror (1934) 170
  59. The World 171
  60. God Hour (Eric Lundquist: In Memoriam) 172
  61. Harvest 179
  62. In Emily Dickinson’s Bedroom 181
  63. My Doctor’s Death 182
  64. Lubitsch’s Angel 184
  65. Ralph Hamilton’s Faces 188
  66. Titian’s Marsyas 191
  67. The Rehearsal 193
  68. Astronomer 195
  69. Notes 201
Readers are also interested in:
https://doi.org/10.7208/chicago/9780226795119-057

Chapters in this book

  1. Frontmatter i
  2. Contents v
  3. Acknowledgments ix
  4. From These People (1981)
  5. Who’s on First? 3
  6. Hannah 7
  7. Mug Shots 8
  8. A Philosophical Problem 11
  9. The Wanderer 15
  10. 78’s 21
  11. The Recital 22
  12. Self-Portrait 25
  13. From Goodnight, Gracie (1992)
  14. Leaves 29
  15. Gisela Brüning 31
  16. In the Mist 39
  17. House Hunting 40
  18. At the Window (from “Crossing the Rockies”) 50
  19. Fourteen People 53
  20. Goodnight, Gracie 62
  21. Love 65
  22. Pseudodoxia Epidemica 68
  23. Simple Questions 73
  24. From Cairo Traffic (2000)
  25. A True Poem 83
  26. Friendly Song (“Cançao Amiga”) 85
  27. She Forgets 86
  28. The Two Horses (A Memory) 89
  29. He Tells His Mother What He’s Working On 93
  30. The Two Churches (A Dream) 95
  31. Pornography 100
  32. Proverbs from Purgatory 107
  33. The Dream During My Mother’s Recuperation 111
  34. No Orpheus 114
  35. Her Waltz 117
  36. Nostalgia (The Lake at Night) 118
  37. Song 121
  38. Renato’s Dream 122
  39. Temple of Dendur, Metropolitan Museum of Art (from “Cairo Traffic”) 123
  40. From Little Kisses (2017)
  41. Little Kisses 127
  42. My Other Grandmother 131
  43. Lost Causes 133
  44. The Conductor 137
  45. Goldring 139
  46. Crossword 145
  47. Six Words 146
  48. Is Light Enough? 148
  49. New Name 149
  50. La Valse 150
  51. Tehran Spring 151
  52. Small Airport In Brazil 156
  53. In Flight 158
  54. To My Oldest Friend, Whose Silence Is Like A Death 160
  55. Jerry Garcia in a Somerville Parking Lot 162
  56. New Poems (2001–2021)
  57. Vermeer’s Pearl 167
  58. Escher: Still Life With Mirror (1934) 170
  59. The World 171
  60. God Hour (Eric Lundquist: In Memoriam) 172
  61. Harvest 179
  62. In Emily Dickinson’s Bedroom 181
  63. My Doctor’s Death 182
  64. Lubitsch’s Angel 184
  65. Ralph Hamilton’s Faces 188
  66. Titian’s Marsyas 191
  67. The Rehearsal 193
  68. Astronomer 195
  69. Notes 201
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