WILDER

i’d like to re-open a discussion of billy wilder.

a film collector friend of mine considers him the greatest hollywood director, chiefly because of his versatility in making masterpieces across genres. i consider the greatest hollywood director to be hitchcock, because the emotional power of his best movies can’t be touched by the best of wilder’s. not to mention his brilliance with film form, but i’m digressing.

i decided to start watching wilder’s work to get a better sense of it. i’ve seen all of his 40s films, which to be sure are great masterworks. but i just watched “the apartment”. this is considered by some to be one of his great films. i thought it was no more than average. which makes me want to believe that if this is as good or near as good as he could do in his post-40s phase, he’s weaker than i expected.

how highly do we place wilder among the greats of hollywood?

Very high.

Making “Sunset Boulevard” is more than enough to put on in the record books. But he also made “Some Like It Hot.” Besides that peerless pair - films without which Hollywood would not exist- he made “Double Indemnity,” Ace in the Hole," “The Apartment” (whose meaning and power apparently eludes you) and “Kiss Me Stupid.”

He also wrote in collaboration with others “Ninotchka,” "Midnight"and several other films of note.

He was one of the giants of the earth. Needless to say, we didn’t deserve him.

chase the meaning and power of “the apartment” down for me then.

i get the sartirical look at what it takes to advance in the workplace. great, but it could have been elaborated on much more, and in much more funnier ways too. beyond that, the comedy isn’t very high in the film, the pacing isn’t great, the story isnt interesting, and so on. the stakes werent very high in the film, which means the drama didnt have much weight.

I second David on “The Apartment”: a masterpiece, in terms of script, visuals, acting, and yes, humor.

I would also say the back-to-back utter brilliance of “Sunset” + “Ace” is more than enough for eternal Olympian status.

i dont put “the apartment” on the level of anything he did in the 40s. not even close. i just cant see it as one of his masterworks.

David and Wonder and I are all on the same page on this, Bobby — The Apartment, while being one of my personal favorites, also represents for me the culmination of everything he’d done before, which, as stated, is considerable.

It gives us an attempt at defining the meaning of modern man, a ripe subject for discussion at any time, but extraordinarily high in the 1950s when the script was written. It ranks with Camus’ L’Etranger, the symphonic works of Virgil Thompson and Aaron Copeland, The Ash-Can school of painting, Miles Davis, the Beats … all those mid-centurians adding their own interpretation of the existential and of man’s solitude in a universe of seeming emptiness.

But it has that added Wilder humor, which makes the loneliness seem a little more tolerable. What a movie.

wait a minute. did you guys just rank “the apartment” with camus? copeland? miles davis??

not “sunset boulevard”. not “double indemnity”. but “the apartment”?? like i said, i just dont see it. i’m surprised at the level of defense the film is getting. not angry. i dont care that much. just surprised. the film left me cold. i never knew this film was to be considered among the greatest works of art in the modern world. i guess i missed out on more film history than i ever thought.

whats the attempt at defining the meaning of modern man? to always say no when your boss wants to fuck someone in your apartment, but especially when he offers you a promotion to do so? to never sell out your morals (or someone elses)? to always help a girl that tries to commit suicide in your bedroom? “sunset blvd” is tons more of a searing portrait of loneliness. and i won’t even begin to talk about “the lost weekend” on the subject of loneliness. and if you want existentialism, you look for it in classic film noir, of which “double indemnity” is one of the classic-est! haha! you dont look for it in “the apartment”. i dont see much existential angst in that film at all.

hitchcock is more of a miles davis than wilder could ever be. in fact, hitchcock is camus thematically and davis formally, at the same time.

“Ace in the hole”: Many thanks to Criterion for resurrecting this classic. I saw it at the most recent Noir City festival, and its vitriolic words have been printed indelibly in my mind. Wilder is at his best, when he’s at his darkest, I think.

Double post: sorry just getting used to this fancy auteur site.

For the record, Bobby, I’d rank all of those Wilder titles, but The Apartment was made in 1960, when the period and those ideas attached to it were hitting their final stride, just before Fellini and Godard changed film, and Ho and Fidel and Nikita changed poitics internationally, Huey and Bobby and Angela … and Bobby and Gene and those “keeping clean” … changed them domestically. That is my reasoning.

Why do you not see Wilder as the badass trailblazer? Everything the man ever did shot society’s hypocrisy right back into its face.

With this film particularly, questions of morality, individuality, mores, class systems, being ( … and nothingness! ha-ha) and honor all come into play. How much more profound do you need it to be? And don’t just look at the plot devices — look beyond them to what they’re conveying.

In any regard, I’m delighted somebody is actually watching this movie! Rock on!

the idea of “the apartment” coming along at a time during the shift in politics, ideology, and film is interesting. but does that mean the film sits on the borderline? do you want to argue that it belongs neither to the period before, or after that shift, but that it dwells in its own unique place? do you want to say this film is one of the final statements of the classical era of filmmaking (in theme and form)? do you want to say this films prefigures 60s upheaval somehow? whats the significance of these ideas hitting their final stride in 1960? its worth discussing more.

keeping another line of thought alive while we discuss this more difficult one, i’m also curious to know what everyone thinks of me and my friend’s debate about wilder vs. hitchcock. which one was the more powerful filmmaker, and why? and if its either or the other, do they sit on top of the hollywood food chain?

I try not to obsess over ranking directors, so I’ll just say I regard Wilder and Hitchcock as being rough equivalents. It seems to me, however, that Wilder gets a great deal of the “emotional power” of his films on the page, while Hitchcock gets on the storyboard.

The Apartment is one of Wilder’s master works as co-writer/director. Without going into all the various themes that Christopher does re its significance, I like it because the film is believable and very true to its values. It concerns human frailties, weaknesses, excesses, and the need each person has for love and admiration. Sure, Lemmon’s character goes about trying to achieve these in all the wrong ways initially, but his humanity and core decent values ultimately win the day. The film’s dialogue and characterizations are very realistic, without seeming trite or stereotyped. The situation it concerns, Lemmon’s character allowing his bosses to use his apartment for sexual assignations to advance his own career at the office, may now seem dated. Perhaps that is why it doesn’t work for you, Bobby. But, I find that the level of acting, especially by Lemmon, is at such a high level, and dialogue so well done, that it still resonates. The Christmas office party scene and the aftermath in the bar, with the drunk woman trying to get Lemmon’s attention after MacLaine’s character has jilted him, are priceless and timeless.

I believe that Wilder had a comic touch like no other. His masterpiece, though, for me will always be Some Like It Hot. This film is so well-written and perfectly acted, that I never tire of watching it. It is, to me, the example of a perfect screenplay in terms of witty dialogue and development. This is the Wilder film I hold up as the true measure of his genius as writer- director.

Although Wilder had many successes, both as writer and director, over a long career, I would never compare him to Hitchcock as a director. To me, Hitchcock was the most consistent and inventive of American directors of his period in terms of pure volume of worthwhile films. His brilliance in all aspect of filmmaking and production, his uncanny eye for detail and suspense, were never equalled or matched by any other American director during this time. Hitchcock is too dissimilar to Wilder to really compare, but his overall record of film masterpieces, from the late 30’s until the 60’s, cannot be duplicated by any other director of this time period working in the American studio system. Wilder had several notable films to his credit as either writer or director, but Hitchcock had a far greater number than any other American director of his time: be it Curtiz, V. Fleming, Hawkes, Ford, Capra, Cukor, or others.

Witness for the Prosecution is an excellent movie, late in Wilder’s career, with Marlene Dietrich, Charles Laughton and Elsa Lanchester all brilliant

regarding lemmon’s character, i found him to be more pathetic than ambitious. he actually doesn’t give his apartment up for professional favors. he gives it up because he’s a doormat. when the professional favors come, he’s pleasantly surprised, but it doesnt change his nature. maybe that’s something i found missing in the story. an opportunity to see an arc for his character.

There’s a very important arc for his character, climaxed by one of the greatest moments in all Wilder.

Lemmon has an image of success for himself — making it in the office world by rising above the level of the ocean of desks he’s been struggling though. Because of his granting the bosses his apartment for their assignations he’s been kicked upstairs. So he celebrates by buying himself a bowler hat (this is in many ways an echo of the har Garbo buys in “Ninotchka”) He puts it on, gives it a jaunty tilt to the right and asks Shirley MacLaine’s Miss Kubelick if it looks good. She hold up her compact mirror so he can look at it himself. The mirror is cracked. It’s the mirror he discovered the boss’s girlfriend left behind from a night before. In that instant he discovers who Miss Kubelick (who he’s been plannign to ask out on a date) really is, and his vision of himself shatters — just like the mirror.

Perfection!

Very good, yep.

yeah, i remember that moment. it didn’t hit me so hard because it was a telegraphed punch. you could see it coming from miles away. so it seemed forced.

if i can be allowed to correct the master, what should have been opted for in that situation was not seeing the shot of the actual cracked mirror when it first appears with maclaine. she should have just referred to it, but without the actual insert close-up that is utilized (which is a little corny anyway, because she already comments on how she prefers to see this flawed image of herself). THEN when it gets to lemmon, and he looks at himself, and we see the close-up of the cracked mirror reflection, it would have hit the viewer ten times harder, and it would have been a fresh image. thats hitchcock’s concept of “conserving” shots. don’t waste something if it can be used for extreme dramatic impact later.

If only Billy Wilder had you around to tell him how to shoot his movies! He could have made some real masterpieces. In all seriousness though, I’m one of those guys who thinks The Apartment is a masterwork and is one of my favorite films. There’s just something so honest about the film and it’s hilarious to boot. Wilder’s made some great films, but The Apartment is my favorite among the ones I’ve seen so far. That includes the company of Double Indemnity, Sunset Boulevard and Some Like It Hot. All great movies, but I prefer The Apartment.

Also, the ending is one of those bittersweet endings. You might even be able to deduct that it’s a fleeting feeling with Kubelick, that she’s not attracted to the clean cut kind of guy. She’d rather deal the cards than kiss the man. It’s only that kind of genius in Wilder in which he was able to make movies in the Hollywood system and still not have to make a gung ho happy ending, that he had ways to go around it. Just a few of my cents.

The ending is so good Woody Allen stole it for the ending of “Manhattan.”

I think The Apartment is a movie that grows on you over time. It certainly has on me.

Billy Wilder was a master filmmaker and is my favorite director as well. I used to like Double Indemnity better but I saw it again recently and at this point in my life I would rather go with The Apartment as the better movie.There’s a sense of fragility and a bittersweet tone surrounding the entire film… I don’t know, it may be like a good wine that gets better with time,

well, certainly wilder was a master of hollywood cinema, regardless of which films we feel are most representative of his brilliance. and obviously you guys feel that “the apartment” is his towering achievment. so i guess we can close the book on this issue.

Nobody mentioned “A Foreign Affair”, another of Wilder’s masterpieces: the ultra-hip Marlene, the for-real post-war Berlin ruins, the brilliant Wilder script and cast.
“One-Two-Three”, along the same lines (-no Marlene, though-) is also a great Wilder.

On the other hand, I revisited “Kiss Me, Stupid” recently and thought it heavy-handed and corny as hell.
Dean Martin was, ironically, the only enjoyable and real thing about it.