Madame DuBarry
“I think it's outrageous that the king is carrying out his affairs of state here in his mistress's pleasure palace.” With this gem from 1919, Ernst Lubitsch found the cloak of historical accuracy enough to mask his salacious tendencies before a prudish public. Madame DuBarry is a lavish, bedroom-bound epic which created such a demand for German cinema that nervous Hollywood studios promptly set about courting the director and his star Pola Negri, lest their product would be sidelined without the pair's involvement.
Madame DuBarry shows the young Lubitsch as an artist of great range and points toward his later, better-known achievements. In Negri, meanwhile, we find an electrifying screen presence on par with Louise Brooks and perhaps even Marilyn Monroe. The movie’s sexual politics may be of their time, but, as Negri exchanges favours with Emil Jannings’ smirking King Louis XV, it’s clear that a primitive magic is taking place. [Lewis Porteous]