A Few Random Reasons to Love Billy Wilder

Billy Wilder is one of those filmmakers I wish I knew more about. Because I have only seen six of his films (and half of The Private Life of Sherlock Holmes) I feel terribly inadequate trying to say anything substantial about him for the Billy Wilder Blog-a-thon that Jeff is hosting over at Filmscreed. So, I am simply going to post a few (totally random and highly personal) reasons I've come up with to love Billy Wilder.


-DOUBLE INDEMNITY'S MAIN TITLES

I saw Alfred Hitchcock's Sabotuer for the first time the other day and was struck by this opening image:

The titles appear over the shot of a hangar wall as the shadow of a man wearing a trenchcoat and hat is cast on it. The credits continue and the man's shadow grows larger and larger until it is looming quite ominously over the director's name. It reminded me of the opening title sequence for Billy Widler's Double Indemnity (one of my favorites) where a silhouetted man in a hat hobbles towards the camera on a pair of crutches:

As it turns out, Hitchcock's film came out only two short years before Wilder's. Does that mean that Wilder was deliberately referencing Hitchcock? Not necessarily. It could just be a coincidence. If it is a conscious reference, though, I am sure it is an affectionate one. Just one great director paying homage to another great director.


-READY FOR THE CLOSE-UP

The main titles of Sunset Blvd. also happen one of my favorite opening credit sequences, but it is the closing image (Norma Desmond, now having completely lost her mind, approaching the camera) that people tend to remember.

It's certainly very disturbing and Gloria Swanson looks incredibly creepy, but as I reveiewed the film again recently I happen to notice something, as Swanson was saying her final unforgettable lines, that escaped my attention the first time I saw it.

"And I promise you I'll never desert you again because after 'Salome' we'll make another picture and another picture. You see, this is my life! It always will be! Nothing else! Just us, the cameras, and those wonderful people out there in the dark!... All right, Mr. DeMille. I'm ready for my close-up!"

As she says those lines to all of the newsreel cameras around her (which she imagines are film cameras) there is a moment when she actually looks into Wilder's camera and refers to us ("all those wonderful people out there in the dark"); not just in the vague sense of movie audiences in general, but quite specifically as the people watching this very film right now. In other words, she almost breaks the fourth wall.*

I say "almost" because she doesn't completely break it. She doesn't turn into Ferris Bueller and actually address the audience (in fact, I would argue that if she had, it would lose its effect; it's the ambiguity that actually contributes to the scene's eeriness). There's still an element of reality to the moment because at this point in the story her character is crazy. Within the world of Sunset Blvd. she still hasn't violated the "rules" (much like the opening shot of Godard's Contempt or a similar moment in Wolfgang Peterson's The Neverending Story) but I would imagine it was still rather unsettling to filmgoers in 1950 who saw it in the theatre... "in the dark."

I don't mean to to relate this to Hitchcock yet again but it's sort of like this moment in Rear Window:

Or perhaps this moment in Psycho:

To this day all of these shots send shivers down my spine.


*This phenomenon of "almost breaking the fourth wall" in movies may turn out to be the subject of one of my upcoming posts.


-THE LUBITSCH TOUCH

Apparently Wilder's idol and mentor was German director Ernst Lubitsch. Wilder even kept a sign hanging in his office that asked, "How would Lubitsch do it?" I just saw my first two Lubitsch films about a month ago (Trouble In Paradise and Shop Around the Corner; they were both marvelous) and can clearly see the influence he has had on Wilder's work.



-ABSOLUTE BEAUTY

Any director who can give us this shot...


..deserves our respect.


-ISN'T IT DELICIOUS?

Of course we can't forget that in The Seven-Year Itch, Wilder created one of cinema's most indelible images and gave Marilyn Monroe her most iconic moment (even if it did drive the final nail into the coffin of her already dying marriage).



-THE SCHINDLER'S LIST CONNECTION

Given the high regard I hold for this film (and its director) and how much I know about the making of it, I can't believe I didn't discover this until yesterday.

Apparently Wilder collaborated closely with Steven Spielberg on the script for Schindler's List, and was one of several filmmakers (including Roman Polanski, Martin Scorsese and Sidney Lumet) being considered to direct it. Although Wilder strongly considered directing the film he felt that he was a little too old (he had already retired) and that the subject was almost too personal (both his mother and grandmother were killed in the Holocaust). Although he has said that if he had done it then it would've been his most personal film, he ultimately convinced Spielberg that he should be the one to direct it.

Billy, we ALL owe you thanks for that.




-NOBODY'S PERFECT!

You have to love the last 60 seconds of Some Like it Hot (SPOILER obviously)




And finally...


-HAVING THE LAST LAUGH

Having seen the above clip, you gotta love this too!