June 22, 2006

Wilder @ 100.

Billy Wilder "Unlike many of his fellow emigrants, [Billy] Wilder never felt as if he was in exile in Hollywood. To the contrary: It was a dream come true," writes Volker Schlöndorff in a wonderful remembrance in the Los Angeles Times. "It is my hope to someday achieve his seemingly carefree levity. For as different as our personalities and films may be, he has always been my role model."

Wilder would have been 100 years old today, and the German papers are celebrating: Anke Westphal in the Berliner Zeitung, Tobias Kniebe in the Süddeutsche Zeitung, Daniel Kothenschulte in the Frankfurter Rundschau, Hellmuth Karasek in Die Welt, and Michael Althen in the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung (lots of pix).

Suggestions for further clicking: Richard Armstrong in Senses of Cinema, Robert Porfirio's 1975 interview for the Film Noir Reader 3 and, well, me, back in 2002, reflecting on reaction in Europe to Wilder's death in late March of that year.



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Posted by dwhudson at June 22, 2006 3:49 AM

Comments

"Wilder would have been 100 years old today, and the German papers are celebrating..."

And the American papers? Has memory failed us so soon?

Happy 100, Billy! Thank you for the all the treasures you brought us. You will live forever.

Posted by: JJF at June 23, 2006 6:55 AM

The NFT in London celebrated Wilder's centenary but shamefully neglected Rossellini's. The latter continues to rise in my estimation. While I admire Wilder tremendously, Rossellini never made anything as weak as irma La douce or Buddy Budddy. But maybe it's a false analogy.

Posted by: ronald bergan at June 23, 2006 2:25 PM

It does seem a little apples-n-orangish at first, but then, think back to Wilder's involvement with Menschen am Sonntag. Still, if the two began in somewhat similar fields, aesthetically, the trajectories couldn't have been more different. As Schlöndorff writes, Wilder seems to have been all but destined for Hollywood, whereas, to hear Isabella Rossellini tell it, her father, with his love for science, may well have been destined to make educational films.

But while we go on lovin'em both, if you need to sell tickets for a season, it's pretty clear which one you'll choose.

Posted by: David Hudson at June 23, 2006 3:41 PM

In the case of the NFT, it should not be a question of 'bums on seats'. It is not a question of choice between Wilder and Rossellini. Anyway, I'm sure there a hundreds (if not thousands) who would love a chance to see Rossellini's brilliant TV biographies and catch up on, discover, rediscover some of his earlier masterpieces , less available than Wilder's films. A couple of years ago, the NFT missed out on De Sica's centenary. Whatever one thinks of De Sica's later films, he is a director worth celebrating. The NFT again failed in its function. I'm grateful to be living in France where they revere cinematic genius like nowhere else.

Posted by: ronald bergan at June 23, 2006 11:51 PM