I’ve been reading a bit
I’ve been reading a bit about Billy Wilder’s passing this morning, which makes me all kinds of sad. For many years, I considered him my favorite director (a slippery proposition in the Scorsese and Cassavetes-centric halls of film school) and relished the fact that he was still alive long after most of his contemporaries were gone. A few years ago, I heard that my second favorite director, Cameron Crowe, considered Wilder his idol. His book Conversations with Wilder, while an intellectual lightweight compared to Hitchcock/Trauffaut, is nonetheless a wonderful look at their mentor-apprentice relationship, nursed from afar.
If the name “Billy Wilder” doesn’t ring a bell, trust me, you know his work. He’s the writer and director behind a half-dozen films on the AFI 100 (make of that hollow popularity contest what you will), from comic masterpieces like Some Like it Hot and One, Two, Three, to film noir legends like Double Indemnity and Sunset Boulevard. In each of these films, you could turn off the picture and let Wilder’s writing charm the ears off you. He was, at heart, a sardonic, dry man, but his dialogue packed so much pepper you couldn’t help grinning like an imbecile at every third line. It was the linguistic equivalent of being in a food fight.
Start with Double Indemnity and go from there. See them all. I have a feeling Mr. Wilder would like that, although he’d be the last to tell you.
I miss him.