Director’s Cup- Film Analysis: The Best Years of Our Lives by William Wyler

Before I talk about why I selected The Best Years of Our Lives for the Directors Cup, I suppose I should give a little explanation of why I picked William Wyler as one of the directors whose work I wanted to highlight for the event.

William Wyler

Wyler certainly isn’t an unknown or even particularly obscure director, in fact, amongst fans of classic movies, he is extremely well-known and highly regarded. However, to more “serious” cinephiles, he seems to largely be ignored in discussions of art films. My guess is that there are several reasons for this. One is simply that he not only worked in the Hollywood studio system, but was one of the most often rewarded directors to do so, having been nominated for more Academy Awards than any other director. Given the antipathy many people seem to have for the Academy Awards, this could serve to act as a sort of a negative when it comes to seeking out films as it may lead people to assume his work is in line with typical prestige pictures from the studios, filled with high-minded ideals but stodgy and obvious in the worst ways.

Another possibility is that the types of pictures he worked on weren’t usually the in sorts of genres that have been determined to be more synonymous with a sort of subversive art where a director sneaks in a strong critique of society by working under the guise of a noir or western setting. Wyler made melodramas, romantic comedies, epics, and some other odd films that didn’t quite fit genre expectations. He often used women as his main characters and his films often were more emotionally driven than action or physically oriented.

Mostly, however, I think the problem is that Wyler was not a director who converted each film into his own style and forced the stories to reflect his own view of the world. Wyler’s films aren’t as immediately discernable as belonging to him as are say the films of Ford, Hawks or even Capra where each film seems to exist as much in reference to the other films from those directors as it does a work on its own. This isn’t to say that there aren’t any themes or areas of interest that can’t be traced throughout his career, given his success, he was able to choose his projects for the most part, and that allowed for some reoccurring ideals to develop throughout his films, but there isn’t as strong a stylistic signature to his films as there is for some other directors, which may lead people to think that he wasn’t as involved or important in their making as is the case.

Wyler’s Style

Wyler isn’t primarily concerned with the so-called poetics of cinema, those moments like Ford has where the visuals seem almost to be there for their own sake, or as meaning independent from the story where the director is making his view of the world known. In that sense, Wyler’s films may not have as much immediate appeal to those who want see how a director views the world. He also may not appeal as much to those who like films where the characters seem to reflect a viewpoint of the director more directly like they do in films by Hawks, Wilder or Lubitsch. Wyler tends towards fidelity to the script and different voices or ways of speaking in his films. Wyler’s “worlds” therefore are less recognizable as being uniquely his, it is harder to recognize reoccurring patterns to his works in voice, pace, visuals or editing. He shifts his concerns to what he deems to be the needs of the story and the characters it contains. In this he is much more of a “novelist” than a “poet”, meaning accrues through the accumulation of details both physical and emotional rather than through an overarching tone and sweep of vision.

So what makes Wyler’s films stand out? One thing is, somewhat ironically for a notoriously inarticulate man like Wyler, his handling of actors. Wyler was notorious for demanding take after take to get what he wanted from an actor, even if he couldn’t explain exactly what that was. Actors talk of doing a scene 40 or even 70 times before Wyler was happy with it. Often, when they would ask what they should do differently, he would only tell them “Be better!” or something to that effect, but he knew what he was doing since performances in his films are almost all of the highest caliber. There is a depth to them that is flat out just missing from most films. By depth I don’t merely mean an intensity of emotion, but a complexity of emotions within a given scene. His actors don’t signal one feeling about what they’re doing but many, often contradictory or conflicting ones. This is true not only of the “stars” of the films, but the entire cast as well. Wyler’s sympathies extent to everyone who fills his frame. There aren’t really villains in Wyler’s films, there are just conflicting viewpoints that sometimes work to the disadvantage of his protagonists and may oppose what we would believe, but are always treated with a sense of being understandable by the people who hold the view which doesn’t allow us to dismiss them lightly or regard them as simply “bad” people. Because Wyler gives each character a level of respect in presenting a fair view of their perspectives, scenes can often be read in more than one way depending on who you are focusing on at the time.

Wyler’s films are deceptive in that they can appeal to a mass audience which may make them appear simpler than they are. I find it to be one of his great strengths as a director that he can entertain on the most basic level while also giving anyone who cares to look much more to think about. This is a much harder task than it may seem. One issue I have with many “art” films is that they, in some sense, limit the possible approaches to themselves. There is a right way to see them in a sense, and if that way isn’t taken or is disagreeable to an audience member the film becomes greatly lessened or downright disliked. That isn’t to say an “art” film necessarily has less meaning than one by Wyler, but that meaning is less adaptable and often less fluid than in some of Wyler’s films where one can revisit the film and come away with different understandings of the characters and therefore the story. In this way, and many of the others I’ve outlined above, Wyler has quite a bit in common with directors like Renoir, Mizoguchi. Ozu, Mészáros, Ray, and others who work in a “humanist” vein. To be sure, working within the Hollywood system during the era he did has some limitations that can work to make comparisons tricky and somewhat tenuous since Hollywood had a unique set of “rules” that an artist had to follow in order to get his work produced. I merely want to suggest that he should be considered more seriously as an artist of the very highest caliber.

I didn’t originally intend to use The Best Years of Our Lives right away, or even at all unless I made it much farther into the later rounds, since there are other Wyler films I like as much or more that aren’t as widely known, but since I was facing Apichatpong Weerasethakul who is much beloved on this site, including by me, and since, from what I could gather, a great many of those participating in the Cup hadn’t seen Best Years or any of Wyler’s films, I thought I’d better use it first, both in order to give myself the best shot at passing Apichatpong, and also to give those who haven’t come across his films before the best taste of what Wyler can do in hopes that they will seek out other films of his even if he didn’t make it beyond the first round.

Oh, I should add one final detail in regards to whether Wyler can be seen as having a personal vision or connection to this film. Wyler served in the war as a major in the air force shooting documentaries for the war department on the exploits of bomber pilots and their crews. Wyler flew on the actual bombing raids and during one such raid his colleague, the cinematographer Harold J Tannenbaum, was killed when the plane he was in was shot down.

Before I prattle on too long or go into the film in any detail, I’d like to hear what people think about it. I have numerous screencaps and a lot of specifics I could go into detail about any of the scenes or characters, but I don’t want to make this an unbearably long introduction or overly shape the conversation so I’d prefer to hear what people are interested in before pursuing any scene by scene analysis.

This is a good intro greg.

I am on the fence with this match.

I rewatched part of the film today, and the soilder with the hooks has by far the most compelling story.
I think it overshadows the rest of the film. I do like the film very much and feel it is a Hollywood melodrama in the best sense of the word, relatable and dramatic wihout being odd.

Thanks for the intro, Greg. I’d never even heard of this film before I saw it, but I consider it to be one of my favorite classic Hollywood melodramas.

Where I give it very high marks (aside from the brilliant casting of a non-actor to play the double-amputee) was that this film was made in 1946, at a time when the issues it deals with were incredibly relevant to thousands of men and their families returning from WWII. From that perspective this film has huge balls and I give it all kinds of respect for that.

Very glad I’ve seen it. Good luck in the competition.

You touch on something very crucial, Greg, and that is the issue of “fidelity.”

Wyler tends towards fidelity to the script and different voices or ways of speaking in his films.

The concept of “fidelity” is an awfully important one in the field of translating/interpreting in which I’ve worked for a while now. People use different registers, tones, and so on when they speak, but a poor (yet eloquent) interpreter/translator will only have a certain elevated tone and register no matter for whom he/she is speaking.
If you are interpreting in court, for say a street drug pusher, you should have a different register and tone than if you are interpreting for a neurosurgeon in a medical setting.

And the art of keeping true to the fidelity of everyday speech patterns of different kinds of people is such a difficult one that filmmakers routinely just refuse to deal with it all together, and even in—or in some cases,perhaps more so—in “art” films.And Wyler is superb at this, and this is indeed an underrated skill. A good contemporary example of an art film director who does this well is Hong Sang-soo, yes, very different from Wyler, but similarly gifted in the art of creating naturalistic everyday conversation.

Thanks, Greg, an excellent writeup,

Great write-up on Wyler, Greg. He was one of those directors that always turned out a well-made film, where the acting perfectly fits the story. As you point out, he is not flashy or showy in the way auteur purists like their directors. Looking at his distinguished filmography, there are many films of his where his own directorial competence with actors is evident: Wuthering Heights, the Bette Davis vehicles The Letter and Little Foxes, Roman Holiday, The Collector – to name a few. Interesting to know he subjected his actors to multiple takes until they got it right.

He reminds me of two other directors who get overlooked by the auteurist-centered critics: Victor Fleming and Michael Curtiz. These directors also had several excellent films to their credit, but many just made for the sake of the studio – hence, they get little respect. Wyler also made Ben-Hur (which I assume, if you advance, you will NOT use). Inspite of the chariot scene, Ben-Hur is hardly a film for those who love art-house fare, eh?

Re Best Years of Our Lives: I think you have found the perfect vehicle to emphasize Wyler’s strength. Here, each actor inhabits his character with great believability and authenticity. Myrna Loy is perfect – but did she ever give a less than perfect performance? I don’t think so. The interweaving stories add to the complexity of the treatment. We deal with the three main characters each returning to an often uncaring society that just wanted to get on with it and forget the pains of the war.

The performances are all top-tier, but I want to stress that of Dana Andrews as Fred. I think he has it toughest here, even over Homer (was there ever a more brilliant performance by a non-actor?). Fred has been a decorated officer, but there is no place at the bank waiting for him. He must take a menial job and be denied the respect he is deserved from his distinguished service. No one wants to know of his war record or experiences, including his cheating wife. It is a heart-breaking tale, and Andrews, Wyler, and the script milk it for all it is worth – never becoming phony or trite.

All these men are damaged one way or another and find it difficult to adjust to a largely uncaring and indifferent society. They are not treated with the respect they deserve and find that perhaps their war-time years – rough as they were – were indeed probably the ‘best years’ of their lives. Welcome back to a cold reality, guys! Only Al, played by Frederic March, has at least a loving family to support him. This was the first film in the US that I am aware to deal realistically with the touchy subject of the return to civilian life of the veterans. The film pulls no punches and each part is presented with utmost realism – for this time and place.

An excellent choice of a film I have long admired. Thanks, Greg for this choice, which may be new to our many younger cinephiles. I would be happy to hear your own views – or any other posters – on this important film.

Thanks for the intro Greg. This was my third Wyler film, after Roman Holiday and Wuthering Heights. I must admit, I went into this movie thinking that the 3 hour run time would be daunting and that the film would go overboard with unrealistic melodrama. I was wrong. This is an amazing film. I can’t believe a Hollywood producer had the balls to stand behind this film in 1946! The storyline never felt unrealistic; and while the stories were sad, they still had a sense of hope. The run time actually feels short by the end of the film. I was very impressed by how completely developed the progress from arriving home from battle to being part of normal society was for all three of the main characters. Thanks Greg for introducing me to this film, it ranks very high on my Directors’ Cup discovery list!

Thanks everyone, I would like to touch on something Bob said in order to bring out a little of the complexity of the film. Bob rightly pointed out Dana Andrews performance and touched on his struggles regarding work and relationships. I think we can look at his character more in depth to see a little more what Wyler is doing with him.

The film opens with Fred walking into an airport while the loudspeaker makes a boarding announcement for American Airlines. I think this signals the scope of the story that is about to begin; it is about about the US as a whole and not just the three men we will follow. The film gives us two ways of looking at what’s going on, the reaction of people at home to the vets who are returning after several years, and the reaction of the vets to the changes in the US over that time. Both, I think are equally important and the collision between the two is the heart of the film’s themes.

In this film little things matter if one wants to fully unpack the theme, or at least the depth of the exploration of it. One example of this occurs shortly after we meet Fred. He’s at the airline counter trying to get a ticket home and is told the planes are sold out for several days. This appears to surprise Fred. As he expresses his frustration, another man comes to the counter who has a ticket reserved. Fred isn’t involved directly with this man, but if we pay attention to his eyes, I think we can see what he’s thinking, and by extension, the first sort of critique that is being raised about the US in the film.

To me, Fred’s look from the golf clubs to the man in the context of the scene suggests a sense of bewilderment that he, a war hero, isn’t able to get home after being gone for years serving his country while people like this man can get tickets to play golf. Later, on the flight home with Homer and Al, they spy a golf course from the plane and Fred comments how they’re playing golf as if nothing ever happened connecting that moment to this earlier snub.

One thing to pay attention to with Fred is how he’s always quick to be the one to pay for things, the taxi cab the three men share, drinks, his dealings with his wife back up how much he connects his self-esteem with wealth and how he connects both to his feelings about who he proved himself to be in the service. Fred has a basic insecurity over who he is which seems to extend from where he grew up. When the three men are dropped off one by one, we first see Homer’s comfortable middle-class home, that sort of mythic all American dream of home in the suburbs, we next see Al’s ritzy apartment building showing he had "made it’ in the world before the war, finally we see Fred’s home and are in for a shock. Fred who reached the highest rank of the three men lives, basically, in a slum. The highway overhead and train tracks next store suggests an unhappy, although not unloved childhood. (When we meet his father we can see there is a real affection between them so it isn’t a lack of caring, but a lack of material means that seems to trouble Fred.)

The mise-en-scene in Fred’s home gives us a good idea of what some of the problems of his childhood were.

His father is reading the Racing Forum while drinking some sort of booze, a dirty dish is left on the table an the place looks entirely disheveled. We also hear Fred refer to the woman with his father as Hortense. This suggests that his mother is no longer around, the reasons for that are unclear, perhaps the fathers drinking led her to leave, or more likely her leaving or death led to his drinking. Either way, Fred lost his mother at some point which makes his feelings on relationships a little more clear.

After Fred gets home he finds his wife has moved out to an apartment of her own. It would be easy to think of her as playing fast and loose with Fred, but look at Fred’s home and remember that she must have moved there from Texas a few days before Fred shipped out. One can’t really blame her for not wanting to stay there.

Before we catch up with Fred’s wife, Fred goes off drinking with the gang and becomes to incapacitated to make it to his wife, mixed with a possible reluctance to see her, and ends up staying with the Stevensons.

Setting aside, for the moment, the time spend at Butch’s Place and Fred’s dream of loss to focus on his relationships, at the Stevenson’s apartment we see Fred try to pull Peggy into bed before he falls asleep, and when he wakes up one of the first things he does is check his pocket for his cash.

Both actions suggest that this isn’t the first time Fred may have strayed during his marriage, (a fact which will come up again when Al thinks about him as a “smooth operator” and when Fred’s wife suggests that both of them haven’t been that interested in fidelity while he was away. A charge which goes unanswered by Fred.)
The checking his cash also suggests how Fred approached his relationships with women before returning from overseas. There is more than a hint that Fred used his uniform and wallet to woo rather than seriously caring about the women he may have met.

When Fred finally does return to his wife, we see her very happy to see him, which undercuts our expectation that she has been entirely untrue to him.

We also find she is fascinated by his ribbons and uniform and that Fred has brought her gifts from Paris.

Her excitement and response to the gifts, as well as the way she shows them off, suggests this is how their relationship was before the war. the suggestion being that he used his uniform and gifts to win her and that they spent nights out on the town. (Which will continue to come into play in their relationship going forward.)

Let me say here that I find Virginia Mayo’s performance as Marie to be absolutely perfect. She is lively and vivacious and perfectly offsets Fred without, in my mind ever coming across as being entirely in the wrong. Certainly, she may not be the woman for Fred’s future, but she never comes across as false or duplicitous in the way a lesser director or actress would have made her be. She has a consistency of character that I found entirely believable and sympathetic even as their marriage unravels. Fred’s time at the drugstore, which deserves a further unpacking later, reflects this perfectly. Marie thinks it’s beneath him, or them, and that Fred should clearly being doing better. We in the audience have sympathy for Fred, but we can’t disagree with that assessment. While we may feel that she shouldn’t leave Fred because we see the struggles he’s going through, we also see that he isn’t really very interested in Marie. In the end, I can’t fault her for leaving, or even for the reverberating irony of her titular verbal attack on Fred when she says she’s “given him the best years of her life.” She believes it to be true, and in some sense it is since she waited for him throughout the war, but it also hits us that Fred really gave the best years of his life, but to who? If we pause for a moment, we can compare Marie to Fred, Marie gave her being married, and waiting for, Fred, Fred gave his years being married to the Armed Forces, that is to “us” and in both cases the partner has proven to not give Fred what he needs.

There is a lot more to be illuminated in those scenes. from the use of photographs signaling the distance between past and now and providing more ironic counterpointing to the emotions of the characters, but I will only call attention to one more thing connected to what I just mentioned above.

Look first at these two stills;

In their final argument, Marie is sitting in front of a mirror about to put on her hat, as they fight, and just as sh gives the title line, Wyler switches our perspective to being the mirror. Driving home the point I suggested above, that the relationship between Fred and Marie, while precise in its delineation of two very real seeming characters, is also a more universal critique of the relationship between the returning service men and us. The suggestion being that we want them to get over the war and their issues and go back to being the happy-go-lucky big spenders they were before the war.

Enough for now…

Excellent introduction for this fine film Greg. The films running time will require a commitment from the viewers, but I believe they will be well rewarded. You and Bob have articulated the many high points of this film but I would like to mention Robert Sherwood’s fine script that never falls into sentimental drivel or bombast. I wish you luck with your match-up.

That’s a great point Chris, I should also mention the excellent art direction by Perry Ferguson and George Jenkins as well as Gregg Toland’s contribution as cinematographer, which is very noticeable to anyone familiar with his work. Wyler often used the depth of the frame to tell his stories, at least since Counsellor at Law back in 1933, but with Toland this tendency is brought out even more.

Greg, let me add my congratulations for this fine introduction to a deserving film. My appreciation of Wyler has certainly grown over the years. Let me point out that all these characters grew up during the Depression, followed almost directly by World War. This is something that the “Hippie” generation never understood about their parents. Thanks, Greg.

bump

Marvellous thread, which shows this site still has a lot to offer as does the Directors Cup. And some who dismiss the film may be surprised that it’s among Jonathan Rosenbaum’s top films, and he’s choosy over classic status. I can only echo your thoughts Greg on the decline of Wyler’s reputation (in fact i mentioned this issue and similar reasons in passing on the voting thread). Here is a film which can take its time, in those days Hollywood studios assumed audiences had a reasonable attention span and had no need for showy histrionics; it was a big hit as well as a respected Oscar-winner. Yes, Wyler belongs with certain humanists who are now undervalued- i include even Mizoguchi, Ray and Renoir among the undervalued and relatively neglected, subtle craft seems out of fashion and i’m convinced auteurism has gone too far, master storytellers overshadowed by juvenile and mannered directors. I’m gonna tale another look at the film before voting ends

Greg and Bob, you’re jewels on the site

I really love this movie. It was made at a perfect time and is extremely relevant today even. One of the forgotten gems of drama.

To me, this is one of those socially conscious Hollywood film that tries to educate audiences on a social issue (in this case the difficulties WWII American soldiers faced when returning home.) Of the films I’ve seen like this (e.g. Philadelphia), most of them have been a disappointment. I think the big problem is that the story and characters aren’t interesting in and of themselves; they’re mostly tools to make a larger point. “Best Years” is different—and terrific—because it has compelling stories and characters.

@Greg

I read your OP with great interest as strove to articulate what makes Wyler special. One of the things that you said makes him distinctive is the performances he gets out of the actors, namely really good ones. But is that enough to distinguish him from other directors—not that it has to. Personally, I’m fine with directors who don’t necessarily possess a distinctive style, as long as they make good movies.

To me, this is one of those socially conscious Hollywood film that tries to educate audiences on a social issue (in this case the difficulties WWII American soldiers faced when returning home.) Of the films I’ve seen like this (e.g. Philadelphia), most of them have been a disappointment. I think the big problem is that the story and characters aren’t interesting in and of themselves; they’re mostly tools to make a larger point. “Best Years” is different—and terrific—because it has compelling stories and characters.

@Greg

I read your OP with great interest as strove to articulate what makes Wyler special. One of the things that you said makes him distinctive is the performances he gets out of the actors, namely really good ones. But is that enough to distinguish him from other directors—not that it has to. Personally, I’m fine with directors who don’t necessarily possess a distinctive style, as long as they make good movies.

Hallelujah praise the Lord !!!