'Billy' speaks to director Wilder's genius
In 1988, German filmmaker Volker Schlondorff (``The Tin Drum," ``The Handmaid's Tale") sat down with the great Hollywood director Billy Wilder and turned on his camera. The conversation went on for two weeks.
The results were aired on German TV in 1992 (under the chatty Teutonic title ``Billy Wilder, wie haben Sie's gemacht?" or ``Billy Wilder, How Did You Do It?") and will be released in this country on DVD in August. Meanwhile, and in time to mark Wilder's centenary (he died at 95 in 2002), Turner Classic Movies is airing an edited version tonight followed by ``Double Indemnity," the 1944 sleaze noir classic that established Wilder as one of the most cynical directors in town.
``Billy Wilder Speaks," in other words, is just that: 90 minutes of an aging genius elf dishing dirt and dispensing hard-won wisdom. You get a few old photos and a generous smattering of film clips, but mostly Wilder just sits in a room and talks with the offscreen Schlondorff, moving easily between English and German. This is primary research as essential viewing.
We pass quickly through the early years in Germany (his mother had been to America once and named him after Billy the Kid), his writing success at UFA studios, and his rapid departure for America when Hitler rose to power. In Hollywood, Wilder learned English and found screenwriting work at Paramount, looking to the wry stylist Ernst Lubitsch as a mentor and eventually writing his way into the director's chair himself.
What followed is very nearly a highlight reel of post- World War II Hollywood: ``The Lost Weekend," ``A Foreign Affair," ``Sunset Blvd., " ``Stalag 17," ``Sabrina," ``Some Like It Hot," and ``The Apartment" are all four-star classics, and lesser entries such as ``Witness for the Prosecution" are nothing to sneeze at, either.
Wilder discusses all these films, and the actors in them as well. Humphrey Bogart, we learn, tended to spit when he spoke, so ``you had to adjust the camera accordingly." We hear of Marilyn Monroe's agonizing inconsistency -- the opposite of Jack Lemmon's eternal professionalism -- and discover that Marlene Dietrich was the rare actor who knew as much about lighting as the key grip.
Mostly, Wilder offers his philosophy of moviemaking, tossing out caustic bon mots as though he were the Yoda of the back lot. ``Everyone in the audience is an idiot -- but taken together they're a genius." ``Should directors be able to write? It's more important they be able to read." ``Work fast and have as much fun as possible." ``The height of my success is always the next film."
Even now, these are words for young filmmakers to live by. In ``Billy Wilder Speaks," the director is finally ready for his close-up.
