I guess every director, like every human being, has quirks. Ford chewed on a hankie. Hawks spoke in a drawl so slow that it sounded at times like an old-fashioned vinyl 78 record being played at 45 rpm. Hitchcock always wore a dark suit on the set and in his earlier years made sure that the point of one of his collars curled upward.
Billy Wilder's criterial attribute was body motion. He's never still. He never WAS still. The guy was in his mid-80s during these half dozen interviews with Schlondorff and he's constantly gesturing, twisting his head around, blinking, scratching his back, fiddling with some object like a pair of eyeglasses. When he was working he stalked around waving a walking stick, a very animated gnome.
I'm not sure that anyone who is already familiar with his work will find out much new in these talks. There is the story of Marilyn Monroe unable to remember her single line -- "Where's that bourbon?" -- and Wilder having the line printed in large letters and taped to the walls and furniture. After some sixty takes of the scene, Wilder drew her aside and asked why there was a problem. Monroe: "What problem?" Wilder had other, less spectacular difficulties, with other performers but he holds no grudges and gives them credit for their various virtues. He's not mean about anyone he's worked with. As he tells Schlondorff, his philosophy is that you're not married to someone you happen to be working with. The arrangement lasts only a few months.
He's great on anecdotes but seems to have told them so often that he's no longer excited or amused by them. At any rate, he doesn't laugh at them any more. And he tells them in a rushed tempo, sometimes in English, sometimes in German, and sometimes in a macaronic mixture of both, in a voice so studded with hesitations and stuttering that it's sometimes a little difficult to follow him in either language. "So -- so -- I told da -- da -- da sound man to crank up da -- da -- volume -- ent -- ent -- denn zwar lacherlich." He's not especially articulate. His metaphors are grounded in everyday experience. To Wilder, a successful movie should sweep the audience up, hold them in a choke around the neck, and never let them be reminded that they're just watching a movie. God forbid he should ever come up with a hoity-toity expression like "the suspension of disbelief" or "the epoche of the common man." It's an interesting documentary about a fascinating man who suffered a great deal of grief in Europe and who managed to sublimate his bitterness in art.
Billy Wilder's criterial attribute was body motion. He's never still. He never WAS still. The guy was in his mid-80s during these half dozen interviews with Schlondorff and he's constantly gesturing, twisting his head around, blinking, scratching his back, fiddling with some object like a pair of eyeglasses. When he was working he stalked around waving a walking stick, a very animated gnome.
I'm not sure that anyone who is already familiar with his work will find out much new in these talks. There is the story of Marilyn Monroe unable to remember her single line -- "Where's that bourbon?" -- and Wilder having the line printed in large letters and taped to the walls and furniture. After some sixty takes of the scene, Wilder drew her aside and asked why there was a problem. Monroe: "What problem?" Wilder had other, less spectacular difficulties, with other performers but he holds no grudges and gives them credit for their various virtues. He's not mean about anyone he's worked with. As he tells Schlondorff, his philosophy is that you're not married to someone you happen to be working with. The arrangement lasts only a few months.
He's great on anecdotes but seems to have told them so often that he's no longer excited or amused by them. At any rate, he doesn't laugh at them any more. And he tells them in a rushed tempo, sometimes in English, sometimes in German, and sometimes in a macaronic mixture of both, in a voice so studded with hesitations and stuttering that it's sometimes a little difficult to follow him in either language. "So -- so -- I told da -- da -- da sound man to crank up da -- da -- volume -- ent -- ent -- denn zwar lacherlich." He's not especially articulate. His metaphors are grounded in everyday experience. To Wilder, a successful movie should sweep the audience up, hold them in a choke around the neck, and never let them be reminded that they're just watching a movie. God forbid he should ever come up with a hoity-toity expression like "the suspension of disbelief" or "the epoche of the common man." It's an interesting documentary about a fascinating man who suffered a great deal of grief in Europe and who managed to sublimate his bitterness in art.