Ninotchka story
Ninotchka is a 1939 American romantic comedy film made for Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer by producer and director Ernst Lubitsch and starring Greta Garbo and Melvyn Douglas. It was written by Billy Wilder, Charles Brackett, and Walter Reisch, based on a story by Melchior Lengyel. Ninotchka marked the first comedy role for Garbo, and her penultimate film; she received her third and final Academy Award nomination for Best Actress. In 1990, Ninotchka was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant". In 2011, Time also included the film on the magazine's list of "All-Time 100 Movies".
23 total · 3 choice · 11 major · 9 minor
| Theme | Level | Motivation |
|---|---|---|
| communism | choice | Ninotchka defended Soviet ideology with a fervor, but was gradually seduced by the bacchanalian antics of her adversaries in Paris. |
| contraposed political ideologies | choice | The political and economical system of the Soviet Union was compared and contrasted with that of the United States and its Western allies. |
| romantic love | choice | The film is an unlikely love story between a patriotic Soviet agent and a pro-capitalist count. |
| capitalism | major | Ninotchka and the three Soviet envoys commented endlessly on the capitalistic ways of the French and how these ways compared to their own communist ways. |
| character metamorphosis | major | Ninotchka was a stern killjoy who never allowed herself to crack a smile until she fell in love with Léon. From then on, she became a new person who enjoyed life. |
| human character stereotype | major | Ninotchka started out as a stereotypical Bolshevik: a frugal, humorless, hard-working party zealot with a photo of Lenin on her nightstand. [Bolshevik] |
| legal occupation | major | The duchess, Swana, enlisted a lawyer, Léon, to try and get the jewels she considered hers returned. The story is about how her adversary Ninotchka became romantically involved with Léon. |
| life in late modern Europe | major | The story compares and contrasts 1930s life in the City of Lights, with that of life in Communist Russia. |
| life in the Soviet Union | major | Ninotchka spoke of growing up during the Russian revolution, and the life of common people thereafter. Part of the story was set in Moscow. |
| love vs. career | major | Ninotchka was forced to choose between Léon on the one hand, and a number of things on the other. Choosing Léon would have made her a traitor to Communist Russia and, undoubtedly, ended her bureaucratic career there. |