My first Wilder! I'll always have a soft-spot for it but he's made so many great-to-masterpiece level movies that this could easily drop down to bottom 10 and still wipe the floor with. most people's best work. I still regret not taking full advantage of that Directed by Wilder collection Criterion did during quarantine.
On the movie itself: Mike D'Angelo's writing on Wilder has made me focus more on his compositional style and editing. I do feel like I could visually identify a Wilder movie, in the way that his style is more grounded and minimalist almost, but still very concerned with blocking and rhythmic timing (ie: in Some Like It Hot, when the rich guys first see the girls come off the bus). It's been a while since I've seen this but off the top of my head, the scenes where they watch her old movies has the memory of being ghostly to me, similar to the generally hazy atmosphere of the whole movie. If someone were to ask for a favorite director, I'd probably have to say him just for the one-two punch of SLIH and The Apartment alone.
(I have to mention as well the possibly apocryphal anecdote of when Louis B. "Lousy Bastard" Meyer accosted Wilder after a screening, yelling that he'd turned his back on Hollywood and should've stayed in Austria, Wilder replied with either "I'm Billy Wilder, and you can go fuck yourself" or "I'm Billy Wilder, and you can go shit in your hat").
Speaking of Mike's writing on Wilder, I followed a link from his site to his two-graf review for this film in TONY and am again awed by how good and incisive his work can be. (https://web.archive.org/web/20040226110550/http://www.timeoutny.com/film/409/409.film.sunset.rev.html) To wit: "Holden's rugged naturalism counterbalances Swanson's overripe theatrics to some degree, but it's no coincidence that this was the Wilder picture that caught the attention of Andrew Lloyd Webber; there's a calculated extravagance to its cynicism that's absent from the director's very best films, from Double Indemnity to Kiss Me, Stupid." That's good stuff.
I always feel like I learn quite a bit from him, even if I don't agree. The extravagance is something you may not see the first time but it's very clear when you compare it to his other works. Which makes sense: gotta go big for Hollywood.
This is a great spot for me to pitch my sequel, "Sunset Boulivardier".
Hold on to your hat fans because while it is technically a 'sequel' it's also a PREQUEL. Sydney Sweeney as Norma Desmond, Franz Rogowski as Max, Jim Carrey as Charlie Chaplin and in the role of studio mogul, why it's John Mulaney of course.
I was thinking about the tempered cynicism here versus the absolute dark heart of Ace in the Hole, and one key fact to remember is that Sunset Boulevard is the last collaboration between Wilder and Charles Brackett. Ace in the Hole is the start of Wilder exploring working with other people before he finds I.A.L. Diamond, his second great writing partner. Brackett and Diamond couldn't be more different in many ways, but what they gave Wilder was a long-term collaborator to help Wilder temper his own darkest impulses as a storyteller. Wilder loved Brackett (in his own way) and one might say Wilder was in a particularly cynical place after they parted ways.
Don't get me started-- I taught a course on Wilder. But just note that after Ace in the Hole comes Stalag 17, which is pretty damned dark (but also adapted pretty closely from a stage play) and then the lesser films Sabrina and Seven Year Itch and Spirit of St Louis. When people list his great films, other than Ace in the Hole, the stuff between Sunset Boulevard and Some Like It Hot (the true blooming of his partnership with Diamond) rarely comes up.
It's not a Diamond partnership, but if we're talking about films between Sunset Boulevard and Some Like It Hot, I would offer Witness For the Prosecution as a top-drawer Wilder film.
You remind me that I haven't watched this since drawing much closer to Norma's age than Joe's and that a lot of my feelings about it were informed by multiple viewings when I was younger than that. Time to watch this in a new personal era.
It also underlines just how short the movie star silent era was. "Movies" had been around for about 30 years, but just barely over a decade since faces were selling tickets. (Another "gift" of age: a little over a decade used to feel like a long time when I was younger than Joe.) What a whirlwind to be caught up in the find you had a very specific gift that enabled you to be a star with this version of a new art form and to so rapidly discover that you needed one even more important gift if you were going to keep doing it. That's a particular kind of setback.
I don’t know much about the cultural winds blowing through Hollywood at the exact moment when this film was made, but this always struck me as an almost unbelievably bold choice by Swanson, followed by total commitment.
A couple of other notes. I love this movie and your piece is so good that I have little to add. This is probably my favorite Wilder, depending on my mood. I love The Apartment, I just think SB is richer and is much more likely to give me several new things to think about each time I see it. I totally agree, for what it’s worth, that Joe is cynical but the film is not, not really. Great observation. This movie loves film and loves its characters, no matter how broken they are, otherwise that scene at the studio (among others) wouldn’t exist. Really good conversation guys, thanks.
Also, I’m ashamed to say how long I’ve had Satantango bookmarked on Kanopy. It’s a long time, the running time of the film multiplied by some 3 or 4 digit number; I mean a long time. Knowing that you’re about to cover it, I’m committing to this being the week I finally watch it.
One reason it’s been on hold so long is that I’m determined to watch it in one sitting. My son is on spring break this week, and spending the week with his grandparents. No more excuses; no one’s around to insist on rewatching Spider Man: Homecoming for the 9th time. It’s all on me. Having said that, if anyone comments on my looking sleepy at work one day later this week, I’m blaming The Reveal.
"Wilder likes to confront humanity at its darkest, but he’s not unfeeling" is a perfect summary of Wilder's art. As well-drawn as his heels are — it's always fun when an audience nearly riots over Fred MacMurray's $100 Christmas gift to Shirley MacLaine in The Apartment — he seems to summon empathy for most of his characters, even when they're careening into hell.
Back in November 2022 I got to see an American Cinematheque screening of SUNSET BOULEVARD with a Q&A with sole surviving cast member Nancy Olson. She has some amazing stories, and she was promoting her just-published memoirs. https://www.amazon.com/Front-Row-Seat-Intimate-Hollywood/dp/0813196191/
When I think of this movie, I can't help but also think of:
1) American Beauty, due to the "dead guy introducing his death" monologue, and also a similar trapped-sad-sack between Lester Burnham ("let's burn'em!") and Joe Gillis;
I watched SB and All About Eve, one after the other, when I learned that they were both up for best picture in 1950. Please forgive me, cinema gods, but before watching these movies way back when, I shied away from black and white movies, old movies, my reasons being: "I just don't relate to them" "They're just so not modern" "Old people talking about boring things" etc. And then there's that scene where Joe gives into Norma after her suicide attempt...and I couldn't believe what I was seeing. Old, dead actors, saying and doing things that were absolutely, resolutely, super duper modern and relatable and not boring in the least. I was a fool, I know. I guess we are all, at some point in our young lives. This is about the only thing good about getting older -- all the movies I now get to watch, without silly prejudice.
I can't remember which one I saw first, All About Eve or this one, but both films fundamentally, permanently changed my watching habits. And since then, I've seen so many old gems, like The Best Years of Our Lives...and even older, like Make Way for Tomorrow.
Sat on this for a couple of days as I always need a bit of time to read them. Luckily, I've actually seen this one, but unluckily, it was probably about 15 years ago so it might be time to go back. I've "discovered" Billy Wilder in the last year or two (ie I watched Double Indemnity and the Apartment) and so what I have taken from this is that I should see Ace in the Hole.
My first Wilder! I'll always have a soft-spot for it but he's made so many great-to-masterpiece level movies that this could easily drop down to bottom 10 and still wipe the floor with. most people's best work. I still regret not taking full advantage of that Directed by Wilder collection Criterion did during quarantine.
On the movie itself: Mike D'Angelo's writing on Wilder has made me focus more on his compositional style and editing. I do feel like I could visually identify a Wilder movie, in the way that his style is more grounded and minimalist almost, but still very concerned with blocking and rhythmic timing (ie: in Some Like It Hot, when the rich guys first see the girls come off the bus). It's been a while since I've seen this but off the top of my head, the scenes where they watch her old movies has the memory of being ghostly to me, similar to the generally hazy atmosphere of the whole movie. If someone were to ask for a favorite director, I'd probably have to say him just for the one-two punch of SLIH and The Apartment alone.
(I have to mention as well the possibly apocryphal anecdote of when Louis B. "Lousy Bastard" Meyer accosted Wilder after a screening, yelling that he'd turned his back on Hollywood and should've stayed in Austria, Wilder replied with either "I'm Billy Wilder, and you can go fuck yourself" or "I'm Billy Wilder, and you can go shit in your hat").
Speaking of Mike's writing on Wilder, I followed a link from his site to his two-graf review for this film in TONY and am again awed by how good and incisive his work can be. (https://web.archive.org/web/20040226110550/http://www.timeoutny.com/film/409/409.film.sunset.rev.html) To wit: "Holden's rugged naturalism counterbalances Swanson's overripe theatrics to some degree, but it's no coincidence that this was the Wilder picture that caught the attention of Andrew Lloyd Webber; there's a calculated extravagance to its cynicism that's absent from the director's very best films, from Double Indemnity to Kiss Me, Stupid." That's good stuff.
I always feel like I learn quite a bit from him, even if I don't agree. The extravagance is something you may not see the first time but it's very clear when you compare it to his other works. Which makes sense: gotta go big for Hollywood.
This is a great spot for me to pitch my sequel, "Sunset Boulivardier".
Hold on to your hat fans because while it is technically a 'sequel' it's also a PREQUEL. Sydney Sweeney as Norma Desmond, Franz Rogowski as Max, Jim Carrey as Charlie Chaplin and in the role of studio mogul, why it's John Mulaney of course.
Bradley Cooper plays the dead body in the pool.
Soundtrack by Grimes. Let's do this.
I'm not making any guarantees about how I'd feel about this movie, but I can tell you that I'd see it.
I was thinking about the tempered cynicism here versus the absolute dark heart of Ace in the Hole, and one key fact to remember is that Sunset Boulevard is the last collaboration between Wilder and Charles Brackett. Ace in the Hole is the start of Wilder exploring working with other people before he finds I.A.L. Diamond, his second great writing partner. Brackett and Diamond couldn't be more different in many ways, but what they gave Wilder was a long-term collaborator to help Wilder temper his own darkest impulses as a storyteller. Wilder loved Brackett (in his own way) and one might say Wilder was in a particularly cynical place after they parted ways.
That's an excellent observation.
Don't get me started-- I taught a course on Wilder. But just note that after Ace in the Hole comes Stalag 17, which is pretty damned dark (but also adapted pretty closely from a stage play) and then the lesser films Sabrina and Seven Year Itch and Spirit of St Louis. When people list his great films, other than Ace in the Hole, the stuff between Sunset Boulevard and Some Like It Hot (the true blooming of his partnership with Diamond) rarely comes up.
It's not a Diamond partnership, but if we're talking about films between Sunset Boulevard and Some Like It Hot, I would offer Witness For the Prosecution as a top-drawer Wilder film.
Fair enough, though for plot structure on that he had Agatha Christie to thank the original idea...
You remind me that I haven't watched this since drawing much closer to Norma's age than Joe's and that a lot of my feelings about it were informed by multiple viewings when I was younger than that. Time to watch this in a new personal era.
It also underlines just how short the movie star silent era was. "Movies" had been around for about 30 years, but just barely over a decade since faces were selling tickets. (Another "gift" of age: a little over a decade used to feel like a long time when I was younger than Joe.) What a whirlwind to be caught up in the find you had a very specific gift that enabled you to be a star with this version of a new art form and to so rapidly discover that you needed one even more important gift if you were going to keep doing it. That's a particular kind of setback.
I don’t know much about the cultural winds blowing through Hollywood at the exact moment when this film was made, but this always struck me as an almost unbelievably bold choice by Swanson, followed by total commitment.
A couple of other notes. I love this movie and your piece is so good that I have little to add. This is probably my favorite Wilder, depending on my mood. I love The Apartment, I just think SB is richer and is much more likely to give me several new things to think about each time I see it. I totally agree, for what it’s worth, that Joe is cynical but the film is not, not really. Great observation. This movie loves film and loves its characters, no matter how broken they are, otherwise that scene at the studio (among others) wouldn’t exist. Really good conversation guys, thanks.
Also, I’m ashamed to say how long I’ve had Satantango bookmarked on Kanopy. It’s a long time, the running time of the film multiplied by some 3 or 4 digit number; I mean a long time. Knowing that you’re about to cover it, I’m committing to this being the week I finally watch it.
One reason it’s been on hold so long is that I’m determined to watch it in one sitting. My son is on spring break this week, and spending the week with his grandparents. No more excuses; no one’s around to insist on rewatching Spider Man: Homecoming for the 9th time. It’s all on me. Having said that, if anyone comments on my looking sleepy at work one day later this week, I’m blaming The Reveal.
I actually took a day off from work to watch it and only made it about 2.5 hours in...
"Wilder likes to confront humanity at its darkest, but he’s not unfeeling" is a perfect summary of Wilder's art. As well-drawn as his heels are — it's always fun when an audience nearly riots over Fred MacMurray's $100 Christmas gift to Shirley MacLaine in The Apartment — he seems to summon empathy for most of his characters, even when they're careening into hell.
Back in November 2022 I got to see an American Cinematheque screening of SUNSET BOULEVARD with a Q&A with sole surviving cast member Nancy Olson. She has some amazing stories, and she was promoting her just-published memoirs. https://www.amazon.com/Front-Row-Seat-Intimate-Hollywood/dp/0813196191/
When I think of this movie, I can't help but also think of:
1) American Beauty, due to the "dead guy introducing his death" monologue, and also a similar trapped-sad-sack between Lester Burnham ("let's burn'em!") and Joe Gillis;
2) Harriet Harris as Bebe Glazer, Frasier's agent extraordinaire who absolutely channels Gloria Swanson from this movie every chance she gets: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PtuGbbGFV5w&t=98s
I watched SB and All About Eve, one after the other, when I learned that they were both up for best picture in 1950. Please forgive me, cinema gods, but before watching these movies way back when, I shied away from black and white movies, old movies, my reasons being: "I just don't relate to them" "They're just so not modern" "Old people talking about boring things" etc. And then there's that scene where Joe gives into Norma after her suicide attempt...and I couldn't believe what I was seeing. Old, dead actors, saying and doing things that were absolutely, resolutely, super duper modern and relatable and not boring in the least. I was a fool, I know. I guess we are all, at some point in our young lives. This is about the only thing good about getting older -- all the movies I now get to watch, without silly prejudice.
I can't remember which one I saw first, All About Eve or this one, but both films fundamentally, permanently changed my watching habits. And since then, I've seen so many old gems, like The Best Years of Our Lives...and even older, like Make Way for Tomorrow.
Sat on this for a couple of days as I always need a bit of time to read them. Luckily, I've actually seen this one, but unluckily, it was probably about 15 years ago so it might be time to go back. I've "discovered" Billy Wilder in the last year or two (ie I watched Double Indemnity and the Apartment) and so what I have taken from this is that I should see Ace in the Hole.