By Charles Higham
Translator: Qin Tian
Proofreading: Easy two three
Source: Sight & Sound (Winter 1967)
Among almost all American film directors, and in the long process of compromise with Hollywood, Billy Wilder is the only director who insists on attracting audiences, while also no longer having illusions about corrosive mass culture. If his recent comedies occasionally sweeten the "mass psychic pills," they still propose a philosophy that is not meant to please the wet nurses of remote villages.
Billy Wilder
Billy Wilder, wearing a California T-shirt and slacks, sits in the neat Milisch/United Arts' mi-brown office, in stark contrast to Walter Matthew's messy image in Flyford, and Wilder doesn't immediately convey the roughness and candor in the film. In fact, despite nervous warnings from propagandists ("Billy Wilder can't sit still," one of them told me, "can't even record a 5-minute conversation.") But over the course of a two-hour interview, he proved himself surprisingly kind and relaxed.
Wilder thus showed greater interest in his best works: but his impatient, talented, coldly sober, self-sustaining, strong-willed mind, from time to time revealed its most distinctive colors. Wilder begins by talking about his impatience with artistic effects: "I don't like the audience to notice the camera's tricks. Suddenly, you shoot and kill a man crossing the street, you take him down from the ninth floor of a building, and you start thinking in the cubicle, 'There must be an FBI agent looking down from there.' It turned out to be just an artistic photographer."
"Why shoot a scene from the perspective of a bird or a bug?" I guess they'll use the term "funky" or "well-conceived" to describe this kind of thing. "What kind of eyes," they say, "shooting things through parking meters, all to surprise the bourgeoisie, to surprise the critics of the middle class." In fact, it's just the work of people who were impressed by the fancy settings in TELEVISION and commercials: you know, a man puts his foot on a table, you see the soles of his feet covered with nine-tenths of a screen, and between the two shoes you see a small part of his face. What's the point of that?"
Reporter: You said that you had many difficulties in casting your film, is that right?
Billy Wilder: It was really tough to get Barbara Steinwick and Fred McMurray to make Double Reparations. They simply didn't like the idea of playing a murderer; McMurray was so afraid it would have a bad effect on his image. Ray Mirand doesn't usually play an alcoholic, but playing an alcoholic isn't as dangerous as playing a killer. We even considered asking George Rafter to play McMurray's role in Double Reparations, and 11 actors declined.
Double Indemnity (1944)
I wanted Jose Feller to play the drunk in Lost Weekend; I've seen his role as Iagu in Paul Robertson's Othello, and he's done a great job. But Paramount told me to forget about it: Buddy de Silva said that if this drunk man wasn't a very attractive man, who could be the hell of a good man other than an alcoholic, then the audience wouldn't have gone to see it.
The Lost Weekend (1945)
Reporter: What is the method you use as a director?
Billy Wilder: I don't rehearse at all. Before I started shooting, I had an hour of rehearsal time, sitting with the crew and the cast, discussing the scenes in front of us every day, what to pay attention to, where I was going to do it. I'm not going to come to the set in the morning with a piece of chalk and a little blueprint and say, "He's going to take three steps and take his cigarette out," or, "Now he's going to sit on the couch."
We were just letting all kinds of ideas pop up until all of our scenes came to life, and then I talked to the cinematographer and the editors separately to turn the whole film into individual shots. Then I'll start shooting the film, and I'll probably shoot a shot 20 times until it's exactly right.
Reporter: You and Charles Brackett and I. A· How did L. Diamond work?
Billy Wilder: We'd sit in a room and talk about the whole script together for weeks, and you couldn't even separate the lines in the dialogue. Once or twice, though, one of them will suddenly come up with a very wonderful line—like Diamond's famous line at the end of "Passion like fire," "No one is perfect."
Passion like Fire (1959)
Reporter: If you go back to the beginning, would you revise the "level of responsibility" in "People on Sunday"?
Billy Wilder: Oh, it has more of a New Wave of that ambiguity than hippie movies. We were all laymen at the time. The reason Robert Theodemek is director is simple: when kids play football on the grass, the owner of the football is the captain. He owned a camera and got the money from an uncle — 5,000 marks.
The People of Sunday (1930)
I work as a screenwriter on "The People on Sunday" and help with the camera. Eugen Shuftan is the cinematographer and he is the only professional on the crew. Edgar P. G. Umer was the assistant director of Robert Theodemek, and Fred Kinniman was Shuftan's assistant.
Reporter: Can you talk about your overlooked "Bad Breed" that was shot on your way to Hollywood?
Billy Wilder: In 1933, I stopped in Paris and left Germany immediately after a fire at the Reichstag; I wrote dozens of screenplays at UFA, including The Emile and the Detectives. Mauvaise Graine, which has nothing to do with the later film Bad Seed, is a story about children and a group of car thieves in Paris. Daniel D'Arijo is the lead actor, and she plays the younger sister of one of the boys.
The Bad Breed (1934)
We shot the film in Paris and Marseille at a very small cost, with 8 people involved in fundraising. We didn't use any of the studios, and most of the indoor scenes were shot in a converted garage, even the living room scenes were shot there. We filmed the car chasing the street at high speed without transparencies, which was very exhausting.
Reporter: How did you get into Hollywood?
Billy Wilder: I sold a story to Columbia and Paramount about a group of counterfeiters who lived in an abandoned theater. The theater was all sealed with planks, while they lived inside, earning money they had swindled, sleeping in boxes and bathing with rain machines.
The film wasn't made in the end, but it got me through Mexico and finally to the United States. I started writing original stories in Hollywood, and I was a bit hungry. Peter Lowe and I shared the same room and we lived on a can of soup every day.
Reporter: When working for Paramount, was your story rejected a lot?
Billy Wilder: Oh yeah. For example, they didn't accept "Sunset Boulevard," which I wrote about Paramount in the late 1930s, and they didn't accept Peach Apartment. They just didn't understand the themes of these movies, and they weren't prepared at the time.
Sunset Strip (1950)
Reporter: At Paramount, what was the creative atmosphere at that time?
Billy Wilder: That's great. As soon as you walk through the parking lot, you'll find these star-studded people there: Joseph von Sternberg, Marlene Dietrich, Gary Cooper, Leo McCarley, And Liu Beiqian. We were all preoccupied with making movies, and no one was using it to make a deal. Today we spend 80% of our time trading and 20% of our time making movies.
The Peach Apartment (1960)
Reporter: How did you get the opportunity to direct the film "Adults and Children"?
Billy Wilder: When Paramount was a screenwriter, I was quite unpopular because as soon as I got on the set, they kicked me off the set. I always try to correct their misunderstandings. I'm called a "terrorist, and they'll say, "Keep Wilder away from us, he's always arguing and wants to do everything his own way."
Adults and Children (1942)
The truth is that very few directors know how to "read" and how to interpret dialogue correctly, and they are too proud to ask themselves if they can't understand a line. So lines tend to be thrown away. Blackett and I wrote scripts for several films for Arthur Hornbrough Jr., and he understood what I meant and thought I'd better direct my own script.
I think the studio's attitude was, "Let Wilder break his neck, and he'll be back obediently as a screenwriter soon." But I'm careful. I didn't go out to achieve so-called "artistic" success, I went out to make a commercial film that I wouldn't be ashamed of. My agent, Learan Hayward, cheekily approached Ginger Rogers, who had just won an Oscar for Long Live a Woman (1940) and we persuaded her to come and play my lead actress. The filming of this film also went well.
Long Live a Woman (1940)
Interviewer: How did you work with von Strauchen in Cairo Spy Wars?
Billy Wilder: He was really charming, always an aristocrat. He always had something very noble about him, although he had nothing to do with the surname "von", and spoke in an accent on the outskirts of Vienna.
Cairo Espionage (1943)
Of course, Strauchen's role as a director influenced me to a great extent: I always thought of my style as a strange combination between Liu Beiqian and Strauschen. When I first tried on him and saw him playing Rommel, I followed up with, "Isn't it ridiculous to have me mentor you?" You're always ten years ahead of the times." He replied, "Twenty years."
He was full of interesting ideas. For example, his makeup — his face is black, his head is white, above the hat line — you see, he would point out that Rommel was always exposed to the sun, and when he took off his hat, the skin under the brim of the hat would not be tanned. He also wanted to hang two cameras around his neck, and it had to be German; he even insisted on keeping film in them. "The audience will feel that if the film is not in it, they will feel that they are just props," he said.
Of course, he also contributed some ideas for Sunset Boulevard: for example, having the butler write all the fan letters for Norma Desmond. But then he might go too far. He said: "Let me shoot a scene where I'm ironing the panties of my ex-wife Norma Desmond. Please, I can do something with it." I said, "Yeah, I know you can, but I don't want to shoot."
Interviewer: How did you show such a perfect scene of Los Angeles in "Double Reparations"?
Billy Wilder: We used as many locations as we could — most of them were interiors from Paramount Studios, but we changed the tradition, I used the train station, parts of the city center, and Los Feliz Avenue, where the house where Stanwick lived.
The insurance company in the film is a replica of Paramount's old office in New York. I'll walk in and get the sets a little dirty and make them look shabby. I'll get everything out. I worked with photographer John M. F. Setz made the film together, and he worked with Rex Ingram and Rudolf Valentino, who helped me a lot.
I want the kind of house in California where sunlight shines through the shutters and you can see dust in the air. You can't simply present this style through photography, so Setz made some silver detritus for me, which are like dust in the sun. I love this realism. Everything in Hollywood always looks like the bedroom of the late Jane Mansfeld, which is ridiculous.
Reporter: Isn't the ending of the film different in the original version?
Billy Wilder: Yes. We filmed the execution of Fred McMurray, a complete replica of the gas chamber scene at St. Quentin State Prison, where the film was in constant motion and the Zyclon B particles could be lethal when they touched the air inside the gas chamber. The whole process was done with great care, and we also invited a warden to serve as a technical advisor.
Reporter: In Lost Weekend, you showed downright realism.
Billy Wilder: We used the look of Bellevue Hospital in New York and brought the alcoholic wards to the final details. Harry and Joe's bar is a 52nd Street mash-up, sam's bar is the P.J. Clarke Bar on 55th Street, where Charles Jackson actually drank. From there, down, between the second and third houses, we photographed the apartment building where he and his brother lived, accurately replicating the apartment.
Our job was to convince the studios to make the film. On the way to New York, Leland Hayward and I bought the original at a stall while changing trains in Chicago and immediately sent a telegram to Charles Bracter, but Paramount was reluctant at first. They don't see our direction, because until then, drunks have been a genre suitable for comedy. But eventually, of course, they changed their minds.
Reporter: When Sunset Strip was first shown in Hollywood, did it make a splash?
Billy Wilder: I remember there was a big test screening in Paramount's screening room. I've never seen so many illustrious people at the same time – there are rumors that this is an amazing thing. After the screening, the audience reacted violently, from excitement to sheer fear.
I remember Barbara Stanwick kneeling before Miss Swanson and kissing the hem of her dress, a comical form of flattery, Louis Steinwick. B. Meyer waved his fist and said, "We should whip this Wilder, we should kick him out of the small town of Hollywood, he has brought shame to hollywood that feeds him!" I don't know what he's talking about, I don't know what damn "anti-Hollywood" stuff there's in this movie. Unfortunately, he lives in a dream world.
Interviewer: How did you decide to tell the story with the ghost of screenwriter Joe's dead?
Initially the film had a strange sequence of scenes that contained some of the best footage I've ever shot, but when we auditioned the film in chicago and suburban New York, people just laughed, so we cut it out. We showed a man's body being taken to a morgue in downtown Los Angeles, and we actually filmed most of the scene.
When he arrived, there were eight bodies in the morgue—a woman, an old man, a little boy, and so on. The bodies would tell each other about the events that led to their deaths. The boy died of drowning. The old man retired and planted a small avocado forest in Tazana(a neighborhood in Los Angeles) here, eventually dying of a heart attack. Wait a minute.
Now, it's William Holden who tells the story. But when the bodies were marked and labels were tied to the big toes, the audience couldn't do anything in the hallways of the theater. What a pity. The opening we ended up shooting wasn't logical, but it was appealing, and as long as there was something appealing, they would believe it.
Reporter: Where is Norma Desmond's house?
On the other side of Wilshire Avenue and Crenshaw Avenue. Now it has been demolished and replaced by Tidal Oil. It belongs to the world's richest man, Paul Getty, and if we put the pool in, his wife will let us use the house. We also put the rats in.
Reporter: What made you choose the "dolls" that Norma Desmond chose to play cards with her?
Billy Wilder: I wanted to make more silent-era stars, but the studio disagreed. But we did a good job, and there was Buster Keaton and Anna In this scene. Q. Nielson, no one remembers Nilson, but she was beautiful. And, of course, oh my God, there's H. B. Warner.
Reporter: Why did "The Ace of the Upside Down" suffer a box office failure?
Billy Wilder: Actually, it's selling well in Europe, but not here, probably because Americans want a cocktail and think I gave them a glass of vinegar. I read comments that say, "How cynical can a director be?" How could a journalist behave like Chuck Tatum?"
The Ace of the Upside Down (1951)
On the day I read the review, I was walking down Wilshire Avenue and I was so depressed that someone was running over by a car in front of me and a news photographer came over and took a picture. I said to him, "Come on, let's help this man, he's dying." And he said, "Dude, I don't care about this, I have to get my picture on time." Then he was gone.
When we show marching carnivals in the film, songs being sung, hot dogs being sold, it's all fake, based on the true story of primitive people in the 1920s Floyd Collins Cave Case. But people just don't want to see that in the movies, they don't want to see what we really are. Maybe they were right, and he shouldn't have rescued those people from the cave. Maybe I was wrong to do so.
Reporter: How did you feel about directing another director in Souls of the Field, Otto Preminger?
Billy Wilder: He never remembered his lines. He told me that every time he made a mistake, he would give me a jar of caviar, and soon I would have a shelf of caviar.
Reporter: In recent years, you've adapted several works from the stage — compared to original films. Which creative method do you prefer?
Billie Wilder: Directors always get Oscars for things like that, but no, I really don't like it, and I don't like it. Giving an Oscar to someone who adapts a screenplay is like giving the first sculpture prize to the porters who brought Michelangelo's Pieta from the Vatican to the New York World's Fair. I did love Witness; Marlene Dietrich urged me to make the film because she wanted to make it, and the more likely she was to be involved if I agreed to direct the film.
Prosecution Witness (1957)
Reporter: Did the filming of "Lin Bai Zhengkong" encounter insurmountable difficulties?
Billy Wilder: Exactly. We had to cover such a vast area — and we had to fly with real restored aircraft. If something went wrong with James Stewart's performance, we would have to land it at a nearby airport and explain it to him because you can't do it in the air. By then, your day is over and the weather isn't quite right for shooting.
Lindbergh's Journey to the Void (1957)
I'm a person who doesn't really like to go out: I've never made a Western. I thought I should shut myself in my bedroom. Sometimes I say to people, "I'm going to make a movie of the boss chasing his secretary around the table, and this time I'm going to have Andrew Matton shoot the chase."
Reporter: "Passion like fire" is a bit lower than box office expectations, isn't it?
Billy Wilder: Yeah, it's far ahead of its time. If it were today, it would be very successful. We had trouble convincing Tony Curtis to put on women's clothes, but Jack Lemon was an all-out comedy character and extrovert who thoroughly enjoyed the whole process.
Marilyn Monroe is sensitive and difficult to get along with. She worked hard, but you had to wait for her to come out and start moving, and then her tiny sense of repression was gone, and since then she's one of the extraordinary, great comedians. The process of change she went through had to be right, and if it was, it was a wonderful thing to guide her.
Reporter: "Peach Apartment" and "Flying Fu" seem to have more of your original personal style?
Billy Wilder: It's true, and of course they're not real comedies either. We give them some jokes from time to time, but the last thing I want to say is that people are still people after all. Again, I want the most naked realism. In The Peach Apartment, the apartment itself is small, we remove the white background, the office is built with a precise perspective; there are small tables behind us, with small tables on top, and then smaller tables, and notches.
Alexander Traunner is the best artist in the industry, and he solves this problem brilliantly. In these films, I want to say, "How corrupt are we, and what has money made us?" As someone said in Flyford, "People do anything for money." Except for some people. For the sake of money, they are willing to do almost anything." I guess that's the subject of all my films. Maybe my philosophy is cynical, but I have to be true to my feelings.
Flying Blessing (1966)
My next film will certainly not be very tasteful, and I hope that the people who fund me don't spend all their money. After all, my view of people isn't that new, is it? Will they shock anyone? Say a little to make the audience angry, but don't say too much, you haven't lost them. Is that right?