To Be or Not to Be

“From Down by Law To Be or Not to Be, the Ernst Lubitsch version. My favorite comedy is To Be or Not to Be, and that’s even though I’m the man who greenlit Something About Mary. But this… this is nearly perfect. And here’s what’s interesting about it: this movie was a big failure when it came out. Satirizing the Nazis wasn’t cool, but Lubitsch was way ahead of his time, and it’s now a classic.”

“Here there's one that I have to take too that is To Be or Not to Be. I remember there was a student of mine in Buenos Aires, a big fan of Lubitsch. I remember the experience of watching To Be or Not to Be and I thought that the movie was just like beginning and it ended and it was amazing how the flow... I do films around Shakespeare... I call this sort of genre the Shakespeare-ates. To Be or Not to Be, it's not an adaptation, it's a masterpiece.”

“This is fantastic. To Be or Not to Be, Lubitsch. A must-see, and re-see and re-see and re-see forever. It’s absolutely wonderful. I think what I like about these kind of movies is that... It’s one in a kind, so it’s not a kind of movie, but... Is the idea to bring something very politic, but, underneath, comedy.”

“Now, having said that, I want to move to a comedy. One of my favorite comedies of all times is Ernst Lubitsch’s To Be or Not to Be. And it was made in the middle of the Second World War, and yet it has this enduring idea that art, and particularly comedy, the hitting the ‘yes’ and ‘no’ at the same time, can help to mitigate and reconcile and transcend this particular horror. And so I pick Jack Benny and Carole Lombard and Robert Stack... And Ernst Lubitsch, To Be or Not to Be.”

“And To Be or Not to Be, yes, nice, nice.”