Lubitsch and the rise of German cinema were almost the same thing. It used to be said that it was to him that German cinema owed its worldwide recognition. Mary Pickford, «America’s sweetheart», was a shrewd business woman who knew her job. She brought him to Hollywood in 1922, at a time in which the Prussians were insufferable. Not tall, and not blond, «he doesn’t even seem German», Pickford apparently stated. His eyes were dark as raisins, with a large Jewish nose, like Punchinello. «In Berlin – Lubitsch recounts – we thought Hollywood was a city made of wooden beams on the extreme frontier of the Wild West». Still in 1976, Mary Pickford was long from overcoming her delusion over Lubitsch: a stocky, greasy sort, and an unflappable consumer of German fried potatoes; furthermore, for Lubitsch, doors were always more important in a film than persons. Rosita is set in Seville during the carnival, the short period of time in which the people were in command. The crowd is alive, the sets are alive, the whole is alive. The star is nothing but a part of the whole.

Frieda Grafe (1979), now in Luce negli occhi, colore nella testa. Scritti di cinema 1961-2000, edited by Mariann Lewinsky and Enno Patalas, Bologna / Recco, Cineteca del Comune di Bologna / Le Mani, 2002