Billy Wilder: Dancing on the Edge

"From Some Like it Hot and The Apartment to Double Indemnity and Sunset Boulevard, Billy Wilder directed some of Hollywood's most iconic movies. However, the roots of Wilder's directorial vision and worldview were very much shaped by his Austrian background and experiences working as a journalist in Berlin at the dawn of Hitler's rise to power. Though a fixture in Hollywood, Wilder always felt an outsider and his perspective as an exiled Jew provided his films with a distinct view of the flaws and possibilities of American and European society. In Billy Wilder and the Phantoms of the Past, Joseph McBride argues, that the director was a stubborn romanticist, whose films mixed critique and compassion. Despite their satirical nature and exposure of hypocrisies of all kinds, Wilder's films were skeptical of cynicism and interested in how people overcome their disillusionment. Mixing biography with analysis of Wilder's films, including some of the later more forgotten works, Joseph McBride explains how Billy Wilder became Billy Wilder"--
The director and cowriter of some of the world's most iconic films—including Double Indemnity, Sunset Blvd., Some Like It Hot, and The Apartment—Billy Wilder earned acclaim as American cinema's greatest social satirist. Though an influential fixture in Hollywood, Wilder always saw himself as an outsider. His worldview was shaped by his background in the Austro-Hungarian Empire and work as a journalist in Berlin during Hitler's rise to power, and his perspective as a Jewish refugee from Nazism lent his films a sense of the peril that could engulf any society.In this critical study, Joseph McBride offers new ways to understand Wilder's work, stretching from his days as a reporter and screenwriter in Europe to his distinguished as well as forgotten films as a Hollywood writer and his celebrated work as a writer-director. In contrast to the widespread view of Wilder as a hardened cynic, McBride reveals him to be a disappointed romantic. Wilder's experiences as an exile led him to mask his sensitivity beneath a veneer of wisecracking that made him a celebrated caustic wit. Amid the satirical barbs and exposure of social hypocrisies, Wilder’s films are marked by intense compassion and a profound understanding of the human condition.Mixing biographical insight with in-depth analysis of films from throughout Wilder's career as a screenwriter and director of comedy and drama, and drawing on McBride's interviews with the director and his collaborators, this book casts new light on the full range of Wilder's rich, complex, and distinctive vision.
In this critical study, Joseph McBride offers new ways to understand Wilder's work, stretching from his days as a reporter and screenwriter in Europe to his distinguished as well as forgotten films as a Hollywood writer and his celebrated work as a writer-director.