Billy Wilder Speaks
Directed by Volker Schlöndorff and Gisela Grischow (1992) ***1/2
In Billy Wilder Speaks, German filmmaker Volker Schlöndorff discusses film directing craft with Austrian-born film-maker Billy Wilder (Wilder does most of the talking). At one point, Wilder makes this observation: “There are two kinds of movies. One for the audience with a simple story nicely decorated and ornate. You can afford that, because the story is so simple. Or a complicated story that is simply put on film. If you put too many ornaments in there, people won’t be able to follow it.”
I remember author and cartoonist Jack Kirby explaining the same working method in a 1970s letter column; his storytelling was less busy if the story was complex and more ornate if the story was simpler. Two master storytellers of the 20th century, both Jewish, both immigrants or born of immigrants, both creating their best work from the ’40s through the ’70s. What a great time that was for great stories. Any Billy Wilder film can be studied to learn satisfying storytelling, but here Wilder pulls back the curtain and reveals his techniques and methodology. Storytellers of all kinds can learn from this film.
Initially shot over two weeks in 1988, the footage which forms the basis of this film was originally meant to be a dry run-through for the “real” interview, which never happened. Not to worry; what was filmed is sublime. It doesn’t look pretty — it’s just Wilder sitting at his office desk gabbing in English and German (with subtitles provided), his constantly moving hands helping to express his ideas. Clips from the films discussed are inserted and one should see them all in their original length if one hasn’t.
Billy Wilder showed, over the course of his long career (1929-1981), that one needn’t be pigeon-holed as a creator; working in diverse genres needn’t be a roadblock. Wilder excelled in drama (The Lost Weekend, 1945), groundbreaking film noir (Double Indemnity, 1944), political satire (One, Two, Three, 1961), wicked and subversive meditations on Hollywood and filmmaking (Sunset Boulevard, 1950), romance (Sabrina, 1954), comedy (Some Like It Hot, 1959), the historical biopic (The Spirit of St. Louis, 1957) and more genre-bending exercises than can be mentioned here. His influence on later filmmakers is profound.
The three-fisted knockout punch of Wilder, James M. Cain and Raymond Chandler’s Double Indemnity practically created the template for film noir, a distinctly post-WWII phenomenon. Sunset Boulevard has had a lifelong influence on director David Lynch, who incorporated the film into his third season of Twin Peaks. Wilder’s comedy/drama The Apartment (1960) is a work of deep humanism and empathy; it won five Academy awards, including Best Picture, Best Director, and Best Screenplay, and is one of the greatest films made by any director.
As an aside, Wilder tells of directing a film as far from the glitter of Hollywood as possible: Death Mills (1945). Commissioned by the United States Department of War, the film documents the liberation of German concentration camps and was created to be shown to German civilians, revealing crimes committed under the Nazis.
Wilder is most compelling when discussing story structure, including what to leave in, what to leave out, and how to end a story. “A film where the whole story is fully resolved doesn’t exist.” One anecdote centers on the final line of Some Like It Hot, which was quickly written with a rewrite in mind that never happened. It’s now one of the most famous last lines in film history. “I started many films without knowing the third act … We just started shooting and it was better for us because we got a better feel for the characters.” It takes supreme confidence in one’s talents to make films this way, but Wilder pulled it off with flourish.
—Michael R. Neno, 2020 August 18