When it comes to the golden age of Hollywood in a cinema history course, Billy Wilder is perhaps one of the names that should be mentioned. Wilder never breaks away from criticism in his films that discuss people's sources of motivation in life.
Austrian-born American film director, producer and screenwriter. He has made films that are both artistically and commercially successful.
He was born in Vienna on April 22, 1906. His real name is Samuel Wilder. Although he entered the University of Vienna to study law, he left after a year and started working as a reporter for one of the leading Austrian newspapers. When he gained experience, he went to Berlin. He participated in the scriptwriting of a semi-documentary film called Menschen am Sonntag (“People on Sunday”). While he was writing scripts for German films when the National Socialists came to power in 1933, he first went to Paris, then to the USA and Hollywood. The members of his Jewish family who remained in Germany were later killed in concentration camps.
Billy Wilder (born Samuel Wilder; June 22, 1906 – March 27, 2002) was an Austrian-born filmmaker and screenwriter. His career in Hollywood spanned five decades, and he is regarded as one of the most brilliant and versatile filmmakers of Classic Hollywood cinema. He received seven Academy Awards (among 21 nominations), a BAFTA Award, the Cannes Film Festival's Palme d'Or and two Golden Globe Awards.
Wilder faced great difficulties in his early years in Hollywood. His cinema life changed after he started collaborating with screenwriter Charles Brackett. This duo, who wrote the scripts of Hollywood's light but flamboyant comedies from 1938 to 1942, later began to produce their own works within the producer-director relationship. These works, produced by Brackett and directed by Wilder, achieved great commercial success and brought Wilder a reputation as a director with their comfortable and active narratives. The final product of this period, Sunset Boulevard, became Wilder's most important film. The film, which looked at Hollywood and the star system with bitter sarcasm, attracted attention with its references to cinema and famous actors and its interesting narrative.
Wilder, whose collaboration with Brackett ended with this film in 1950, increasingly turned to sharp and brutal films that mocked the values of society. Although the films he made after 1960 did not reach the level of sharp satire of his predecessors, they were met with interest.
5 Billy Wilder Movies You Must Watch
1. Double Indemnity (1944)
The first major film in Billy Wilder's filmography, Double Indemnity is a film noir classic. The film, which is one of the leading examples of the genre shaped by the cultural codes of 1940s America, shows superior success in creating the dark atmosphere of the period when World War II was still ongoing and in using the expressionist traces that the director brought with him from Germany. Double tells the story of how Walter Neff, who works in an insurance company, is manipulated by Phyllis Dietrichson, one of the most famous femme fatales of the cinema, and finds himself in a murder plan to get compensation from the insurance company, and how the plan is foiled and everything ends badly for Walter Neff. Indemnity's strength lies not in the simple sense of curiosity created by its plot (Wilder reveals the end of the story to the audience at the beginning of the film); It derives its success from reflecting the period in which it was made.
2. Sunset Blvd (1950)
Sunset Blvd, in which Billy Wilder shows the courage to criticize Hollywood during its most glorious period, is an example that helps us understand the director's cinema from its most basic. The years of silent cinema are now behind us in Hollywood. The stars of that period were forgotten along with silent cinema. Wilder once again reveals to the audience from the very beginning the end of the story, which is based on Norma Desmond, one of these former stars, hiring screenwriter Joe Gillis, first for money and then by force, as both the screenwriter and gigolo of her new movie, which she thinks will bring her back to her former glory. Because what is important for him is not how the story ends, but how critical thought will be shared with the audience throughout the story. In this regard, in Sunset Blvd, the master director both adheres to the codes of mainstream cinema and destroys the glittering Hollywood perception in the audience's mind. Wilder deconstructs the concept of "star" through the ruthlessness of the industry and the conflict between the old and the new. He is a defeatist and even the movie industry itself cannot escape this defeatism.
3. Ace in the Hole (1951)
Chuck Tatum, who had the opportunity to make news that would make him shine thanks to a landslide in New Mexico, does not hesitate to use the power of the media to create illusions in line with his career goal. In this way, with the support of the sheriff who is trying to collect votes for the elections, Tatum manages to make everyone believe in the illusion he created. In Ace in the Hole, where Wilder places career and greed for money as his target, we witness in all its shocking detail how the manipulative character of the media creates an unethical and ruthless order. The film, which tells a modern Victor Frankenstein story, stands out as a work that reflects Wilder's critical view in its most intense form.
4. Witness for the Prosecution (1957)
In Witness for the Prosecution, an Agatha Christie adaptation, Billy Wilder masterfully uses the codes of mainstream cinema once again by intertwining mystery, humor, and tragedy. Grumpy, old, and skillful lawyer Sir Wilfrid Roberts defends Leonard Vole, who is tried for murder in his new case and has little hope of salvation, but he strongly believes in his innocence, while at the same time, he gradually illuminates the cleverly constructed mystery of the night of the murder for the audience.
5. The Apartment (1960)
Bud Baxter is an "ordinary" white-collar worker who works for a large insurance company, is despised by his managers, tolerates all the injustices and disrespects he encounters in order to advance in his career, and even opens his house where he lives alone to the use of his managers so that they can come with their lovers. Fran Kubelik, who works at the same company and shares the same fate with him, is in love with his manager and they come to Baxter's house together from time to time. An awakening will occur when Baxter falls in love with Kubelik. In this form, The Apartment has a critical attitude towards the capitalist system in which workers are deeply positioned as wage slaves, but the main theme it highlights is identity. Baxter has voluntarily adopted the identity imposed on him within the system, and he even clearly shows how he is at peace with this identity by trying to impress Kubelik by wearing a "manager style" hat, but this identity is artificial. Baxter's hat is too small for him because Baxter is "bigger" than his managers. In this regard, Baxter will need to find out who he really is. Thus, Billy Wilder incorporates the criticism of capitalism on a macro scale and the discussion of identity on a micro-scale into mainstream cinema by effectively using humor.