Take this paragraph about The Lost Weekend, a film I haven’t seen:
“The Lost Weekend does not show that alcohol brings about a harmful disconnection from reality, but that people who drink are in tune with the far more horrible reality of their own cowardice. The mise-en-scène endlessly condemns the character for his spinelessness rather than his vice.”Billy Wilder might not have a strong, recognisable visual style, but there are 2 main themes that stay with him throughout his career.
The 1st is illusion and deception—lies, masks, cross-dressing, disguise, fraud, masquerade… I once had a post about different forms of lies and deception in his films.
The 2nd is cowardice and spinelessness, which relates to the choice between false values (e.g. easy money) and being a mensch. This is most clear in Sunset Boulevard, The Apartment, Double Indemnity, and Ace in the Hole (or The Big Carnival). His films are not moralising, but he is a moralist. The main character in each of these films throws away his own dignity and self-respect for money, power, or fame, and struggles with the awareness that it is wrong, but in the end, chooses to be a mensch.
“Although Wilder kept moving from 1 film genre to another to avoid being classified in any of the industry’s categories, it becomes increasingly clear that all of his characters are similar in personality and behaviour. With this ghost trilogy certain contestants become apparent: differences of social situation, motivation, and crucially, ways of understanding reality; role play and lies; cowardice and a lack of lucidity; and manipulation of some by others. And always there is a discomfort with one’s life, past and present.”By “the ghost trilogy”, Simsolo’s referring to The Emperor Waltz, A Foreign Affair, and Sunset Boulevard.
“… Sunset Boulevard is a despairing film that ends with 1 last lie, in which a mad, murderous old star is made to believe that she is shooting a film so that she can be taken away to prison or an asylum.”Seeing through pretensions and having no illusion, Billy Wilder keeps making films about people who lie. Simsolo says about Love in the Afternoon, another film I haven’t seen:
“Love in the Afternoon is an apology for lying.”But then he says:
“The happy ending at the station emerges from tears of distress because it is the product of a fool’s game. Neither the spineless seducer nor the innocent liar has escaped the vice resulting from their respective obsessions. They have each become a prisoner of a dream susceptible to becoming a daily nightmare. Despite its comic moments, Love in the Afternoon is a tragedy.”About Witness for the Prosecution, Simsolo remarks:
“Witness for the Prosecution is a film in which all the actors have to speak and express themselves in a range of different ways according to the profession, physical position, duality, disguise and psychology of their characters, who are all entangled in big or small lies.”It is an adaptation of Agatha Christie, but at the same time, is very much a Billy Wilder film.
Simsolo’s comment also brings me to another point: Wilder’s greatest strengths are in dialogue and in his characters. No matter what kind of film he makes—film noir or drama or comedy or even farce, ultimately it is people that he’s interested in. He deals with greed, ambition, opportunism, deception, delusion, manipulation, shame, self-loathing, internal conflicts, cowardice…, and his characters are never flat or simplistic. This is the reason I would choose Billy Wilder over Stanley Kubrick any day.
Danilo Castro at Taste of Cinema picked Billy Wilder as the best writer-director of all time. No.2 is Ingmar Bergman. Do I agree? Probably not, but I can see why. Bergman’s the better director, but Wilder has a greater range, and as a writer, he has wit.
i've liked the films i've seen by BW... Ray Milland cemented himself into the memories of many persons of my generation... i don't know if there are any moral film makers any more... lying and corruption are so ubiquitous in the upper echelons of society, that it all seems like a bad movie in itself... what does it say about the planet that 1% of the inhabitants possess more wealth than the other 99%... off topic, i guess but aggravating...
ReplyDeleteI haven't seen The Lost Weekend. Himadri told me about it a long time ago and it sounds interesting, but I've never been able to find it.
DeleteAs for moral filmmakers, there are still a few. I hate that cinema in the large part has become mindless, empty entertainment- people don't see it as art any more, and call people like me pretentious. Of course European cinema is different from Hollywood, but in other parts of the world, including the UK, people watch American films, not European films.
As for what you wrote, I know what you mean, though it's worse in countries that don't have press freedom and freedom of speech, like Vietnam.
You can see here: https://www.hrw.org/asia/vietnam
Of all the major directors, Billy Wilder is, I think, the most literary - by which I mean that the script, the dialogue, is the starting point: it creates the drama, and remains at the centre of the drama, and the visual elements are at the service of the script: This does not mean that the visual elements are mere sideshows: after all, Wilder virtually created the "film noir" style with "Double Indemnity", and films such as "Sunset Boulevard" are very strong visually. But it's the dialogue that is at the centre of things. Many will complain that this is "uncinematic", but that is so only if we define "cinematic" as "that which is visual". If "cinematic" is (more reasonably) defined as "that which works in a film", then I'd say that Wilder's dialogue is very cinematic indeed.
ReplyDeleteAnd speaking of great writer-directors, Ray deserves a mention at least. (He is also a well-known novelist in Bengal: his thrillers are both very literate, and immensely popular.) He was also an artist: he was a commercial artist before turning to films, and his film-scripts are illustrated throughout with very accomplished sketches depicting how he wanted the shots to look, and how he wanted the composition in each shot. (He designed all his film posters.) And, from "Charulata" onwards, he also composed the music for his films. If it comes to writer-director-artist-composer category, I doubt there would be much competition...
I think at some point there should be a serious discussion about the word "cinematic".
DeleteI don't think of it as "that which is visual", but more like: what makes cinema different from radio, from theatre, from television?
To go back to Billy Wilder, he considered himself first and foremost a writer, and became a director in order to direct his own scripts.
i didn't know that about RM... i'll look up his novels... tx...
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