The Earnest Turn in Ernst’s Historiography

This chapter examines Broken Lullaby (1932) and To Be or Not to Be (1942) as paradigmatic shifts in Lubitsch’s engagement with historical representation. Through a theoretical lens shaped by Walter Benjamin and Giorgio Agamben, the chapter argues that Lubitsch transitions from playful anachronism to earnest historiographical critique in these films. Broken Lullaby stages a pacifist response to World War I through quiet moral seriousness, while To Be or Not to Be offers a metatheatrical satire of Nazi ideology and wartime performance. Both films reconfigure the temporality of history by foregrounding affect, ethical rupture, and theatricality. The chapter contends that Lubitsch’s later films enact a philosophical reckoning with violence and memory, using cinematic form to reimagine history’s tragic and comic contours.