Saturday, May 23, 2009

When Volker Met Billy


Billy Wilder was 82 when he was interviewed over a two week period by another admiring filmmaker, Volker Schlöndorff. There is often something wonderful that happens when these kinds of situations occur. The Hitchcock interviews by Francois Truffaut will always feel like a kind of definitive document. As do the interviews that Peter Bogdanovich did with Orson Welles or, certainly, the book Conversations with Wilder by Cameron Crowe with transcriptions of interviews done ten years after Schlöndorff's footage.

Wilder asked that Schlöndorff not show his footage until after his death apparently because it was not felt to be polished or professional enough. There was a reference in the film that there was an intent to later and do a more complete and polished presentation. The footage was assembled into a 2006 film, Billy Wilder Speaks.

This film has a lovely rough hewn, jump around feel to it in many ways. The original source material came from at least four or five different interviews filmed over the two weeks. He also moves between German and English depending on mood or topic. A viewer of this film must work and listen hard to sometimes grasp the context and flow of his stories and reminiscences as one does when listening to an elder/

Billy Wilder had served as a writer on almost twenty five films before coming to the US after Hitler came to power. He made quick study of English and all aspects of American culture, being hired as a screenwriter in short order collaborating with the likes of Charles Bracket, and director Ernst Lubitsch. In 1939 he wrote the screenplay of Ninotchka for fellow expatriate and career mentor Lubitsch whose influence was great on him. In Billy Wilder Speaks, we see the sign sign in his office that said "How Would Lubitsch Do It?"

Wilder had an unprecedented twenty year run beginning with Double Indemnity in 1944 until The Fortune Cookie in 1966. Movies in the mid twentieth century would have been not nearly as rich without the likes of The Lost Weekend, Sunset Boulevard, Stalag 17, ,Ace In the Hole, The Seven Year Itch, Some Like It Hot, The Apartment and One, Two Three Some of these films unblinkly show the darker side of human nature with a touch of irony that is unique to Wilder.

A lot of the anecdotes one would expect in a Wilder documentary are present. There is an explanation how the door opens up to the outside of an apartment so that Barbara Stanwyck could hide from Edward G. Robinson in Double Indemnity. And then there is the lesson in comic timing when drag disguised Jack Lemmon is using maracas to reveal his news of courting a man to Tony Curtis in Some Like It Hot.

Yet, it is his exchanges with Schlöndorff about a US War department documentary he made called Death Mills which are among the most intriguing in Billy Wilder Speaks. Wilder, a eastern European Jew whose mother and step mother were killed at Auschwitz was determined to give a head on account of what took place in the concentration camps for a film that was intended for screening in German and Austrian cinemas. The first audience mostly walked out and stole the pencils for the post-audience reaction. Later audiences had to produce their ration cards for stamping after seeing the film, according to Wilder. He was determined to create a document that could not be dismissed as something manufactured by some Jews in Hollywood.

Another of the best moments occurs when Schlöndorff asks Wilder about his extensive use of the Paramount music library in his films, especially "Isn't It Romantic" in Sabrina. "It is very nice when you use it in Paris, when they are walking up the Champs-Élysée, but how about using it in Berlin when they are driving through the ruins? inquires Schlöndorff. Wilder responds with a question "Did I use it?" Schlöndorff replies yes. To which Wilder says "That just shows you how cheap we are."

There are several such moments in Billy Wilder Speaks and in the hour of extra interview segments on the DVD that are introduced by Schlöndorff. To lovers of film, these are priceless. I am thankful for the Crowe book for its completeness and earnestness in capturing Wilder's career but Billy Wilder Speaks is also invaluable, especially in getting a true since of what it was like to be able o sit down and talk with this master about his life and times.
posted by well-executed buffet at 11:28 PM
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