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Event [1938] appeared on Finnish TV.
The German cinema of the twenties and early thirties
produced several masterpieces. Living in Berlin, were you
impressed by any of the films of the period? Do you today feel
any sense of affinity with directors such as Fritz Lang and
Josef von Sternberg? The former would have been the ideal
director for Despair {1934}, the latter, who did The
Blue Angel, perfect for Laughter in the Dark and
King, Queen, Knave {1928], with its world of decor and
decadence. And if only F. W. Murnau, who died in 1931, could
have directed The Defense {1930}, with Emil Jannings as
Luzhin!
The names of Sternberg and Lang never meant anything to
me. In Europe I went to the corner cinema about once in a
fortnight and the only kind of picture I liked, and still like,
was and is comedy of the Laurel and Hardy type. I enjoyed
tremendously American comedy-- Buster Keaton, Harold Lloyd, and
Chaplin. My favorites by Chaplin are The Gold Rush
[1925], The Circus [1928], and The Great Dictator
[1940]-- especially the parachute inventor who jumps out of the
window'- and ends in a messy fall which we only see in the
expression on the dictator's face. However, today's Little Man
appeal has somewhat spoiled Chaplin's attraction for me. The
Marx Brothers were wonderful. The opera, the crowded cabin
{A Night at the Opera, 1935], which is pure genius . . .
[Nabokov then lovingly rehearsed the scene in detail,
delighting particularly in the arrival of the manicurist.] I
must have seen that film three times! Laurel and Hardy are
always funny; there are subtle, artistic touches in even their
most mediocre films. Laurel is so wonderfully inept, yet so