SOURCE: “Von Sternberg, Lubitsch, and Lang in the Work of Manuel Puig,” in Literature/Film Quarterly, Vol. 22, No. 3, 1994, pp. 181-86.

In the following essay, Hall traces the influence of filmmakers Josef von Sternberg, Ernst Lubitsch, and Fritz Lang on Puig's work.

As is well known, the work of Manuel Puig has been greatly influenced by the cinema. Critical literature has often noted the debt of Puig to the work of certain actresses as well as to Alfred Hitchcock and, less frequently, to Jacques Tourneur, a director for Val Lewton; but less work has been done on the nature of his indebtedness to Josef von Sternberg, Ernst Lubitsch, and Fritz Lang.

Puig has said that “Even when writing I think of Lubitsch lightness, or von Sternberg fog curtain laces—lace curtains [sic]” (Katz, Symposium 11). The influence of von Sternberg is indeed striking. The decor of much of the narrative...