>During filming, although he was still the nominal star of the film (with top billing), Jannings could see the growing closeness between Sternberg and Dietrich and the care the director took in presenting her, and the actor became jealous, engaging in histrionics and threatening to quit the production. The Blue Angel was to be his last great cinematic moment; it was also one of UFA's last successful films.(22)(23) Film historian Andrew Sarris comments on this double irony:

>

> "The ultimately tragic irony of The Blue Angel is double-edged in a way Sternberg could not have anticipated when he undertook the project. The rise of Lola Lola and fall of Professor Immanuel Rath in reel sic life is paralleled in the real life by the rise of Marlene Dietrich and the fall of Emil Jannings..."(9)(24)

>

> 22, 23 Baxter, John, 1971. The Cinema of Josef von Sternberg. London: A. Zwemmer / New York: A. S. Barnes & Co. P.74, 75, 63

> 9 Sarris, Andrew, 1966. The Films of Josef von Sternberg. New York: Doubleday P25

> 24 Sarris, Andrew. 1998. "You Ain't Heard Nothin' Yet." The American Talking Film History & Memory, 1927–1949. Oxford University Press. P220

>"The tragedy of Immanuel Rath was not that he lost his head over a woman, but that he could not reconcile the loss of power with the acquisition of freedom." When Rath is forced to relinquish "his authority over his students, he sinks into alienated apathy…Rath's failure to grasp the chance opened to him…is portrayed in terms of his increasing silence, as he sinks more and more sullenly into the guise of the ridiculous, ironically named clown…In the end, the authoritarian master of language is bereft of articulate speech", finally erupting into a "paraoxysmic cockscrow" when he discovers that he has been cuckolded by Lola.(34)

> Baxter, 1993. p. 124

> 「イマヌエル・ラスの悲劇は、女性のために頭を失ったことではなく、権力の喪失と自由の獲得を調和させることができなかったことである」。ラスが「生徒に対する（自分の）権威」を放棄することを強いられたとき、彼は疎外された無気力に沈む...ラスが開かれたチャンスをつかみ損ねたことは、彼がますます沈黙し、皮肉にもピエロと名づけられた馬鹿げた装いにますます不機嫌に沈むという形で描かれる...」と。 結局、権威主義的な言葉の支配者は明瞭な言葉を失い」、ローラに寝取られたことを知ったとき、ついに「パラオキシズミック・コックスクロウ」となって噴出するのである。