Romeo und Julia im Schnee (2025 La Cinémathèque française)

Ernst Lubitsch: Romeo und Julia im Schnee (DE 1920) mit Lotte Neumann (Juliet) und Gustav von Wangenheim (Romeo). Photo: Maxim Film. Postcard: Ross Verlag, no. 636/4. From: European Film Star Postcards.

Ernst Lubitsch: Romeo und Julia im Schnee (DE 1920) with Lotte Neumann. La Cinémathèque française.

Roméo et Juliette dans la neige

Ernst Lubitsch / Allemagne / 1920 / 49 min / 35 mm / INT.FR. deutsche Zwischentitel / Copie unique

D'après la pièce Roméo et Juliette de William Shakespeare.

Avec Jakob Tiedtke, Marga Köhler, Lotte Neumann, Gustav von Wangenheim.

E-sous-titres français n.c.

Grand piano par Sinan Asiyan (classe d'improvisation de Jean-François Zygel)

Vu lundi, le 14 avril 2025, La Cinémathèque française, Rétrospective Ernst Lubitsch, Salle Georges Franju, 51 Rue de Bercy, 75012 Paris, M° Bercy Lignes 14, 6

La Cinémathèque française: " Pastiche de la pièce de Shakespeare, Roméo et Juliette dans la neige fait partie de la série « montagnarde » de Lubitsch. Transformés en rustres bavarois, les Capulethofer et les Montekugerl s'affrontent à coup de batailles de boules de neige et de procès farfelus. "

AA: Revisited Romeo und Julia im Schnee, the second of Ernst Lubitsch's Shakespeare parodies which he shot during a Schwarzwald winter holiday in 1919-1920. Channeling The Taming of the Shrew, Kohlhiesels Töchter turned into Lubitsch's biggest comedy hit in Germany. Romeo und Julia im Schnee failed to get equal attention since it overlapped with the Kapp-Putsch.

Again Lubitsch returned to the simplest kind of farce (the guests slipping one after another on the same icy spot). The farce extends to satire (bribed with sausages, the village judge weighs them on the scales of justice). Starting as stock characters, the actors grow in subtlety and convey true emotion by the time of a happy ending which does not dilute the revelation of the original tragedy. Julius Falkenstein is unique and poignant as Paris, the son on an autism spectrum disorder, dressed as an angel with oversized wings.

The copy on display is amazingly bad. I had never before seen a bad print of this movie. The first Lubitsch retrospective I visited was in 1981 in Stockholm, and a good Svenska Filminstitutet print of Romeo and Julia im Schnee was screened. The same print we used to program in Helsinki, including in our 1988 Lubitsch retrospective. Twenty years later, we were able to screen a newly accessible fantastic toned and tinted 2008 restoration-in-progress of Romeo and Julia im Schnee from Filmarchiv Austria. Finally I saw the delicious 2015 Filmarchiv Austria / Bundesarchiv restoration of Romeo und Julia im Schnee at the opening gala of Le Giornate del Cinema Muto. I hope it will be made available for future screenings!