Billy Wilder: Dancing on the Edge
- ISBN-10
- 0231554117
- ISBN-13
- 9780231554114
- Series
- Billy Wilder
- Category
- Performing Arts
- Pages
- 658
- Language
- English
- Published
- 2021-10-26
- Publisher
- Columbia University Press
- Author
- Joseph McBride
Description
The director and cowriter of some of the world's most iconic films—including Double Indemnity, Sunset Blvd., Some Like It Hot, and The Apartment—Billy Wilder earned acclaim as American cinema's greatest social satirist. Though an influential fixture in Hollywood, Wilder always saw himself as an outsider. His worldview was shaped by his background in the Austro-Hungarian Empire and work as a journalist in Berlin during Hitler's rise to power, and his perspective as a Jewish refugee from Nazism lent his films a sense of the peril that could engulf any society. In this critical study, Joseph McBride offers new ways to understand Wilder's work, stretching from his days as a reporter and screenwriter in Europe to his distinguished as well as forgotten films as a Hollywood writer and his celebrated work as a writer-director. In contrast to the widespread view of Wilder as a hardened cynic, McBride reveals him to be a disappointed romantic. Wilder's experiences as an exile led him to mask his sensitivity beneath a veneer of wisecracking that made him a celebrated caustic wit. Amid the satirical barbs and exposure of social hypocrisies, Wilder’s films are marked by intense compassion and a profound understanding of the human condition. Mixing biographical insight with in-depth analysis of films from throughout Wilder's career as a screenwriter and director of comedy and drama, and drawing on McBride's interviews with the director and his collaborators, this book casts new light on the full range of Wilder's rich, complex, and distinctive vision.
Get the book
Other editions
Similar books
-
Nobody's Perfect: Billy Wilder : a Personal Biography
By Charlotte ChandlerThe author of "I, Fellini" offers a candid look at the life and career of the great film director, Billy Wilder--much of it told in his own voice. 20 photos.
-
Billy Wilder on Assignment: Dispatches from Weimar Berlin and Interwar Vienna
By Billy WilderFrom a humorous account of Wilder's stint as a hired dancing companion in a posh Berlin hotel and his dispatches from the international film scene, to his astute profiles of writers, performers, and political figures, the collection offers ...
-
Billy Wilder in Hollywood
By Maurice ZolotowLazar asked Wilder whether he would like to direct Seven Year Itch . Swifty said he would maneuver so Wilder got to direct this smash Broadway sensation . By the way , could he be Wilder's agent on the deal ? Certainly , said Billy .
-
Some Like It Wilder: The Life and Controversial Films of Billy Wilder
By Gene D. Phillips... Steve, 188 Brooks, Jack, 200, 357 Brooks, Richard, 159 Brother Rat (film), 75 Brown, Hugh, 350, 351, 360 Brown, Joe E., 215, 358 Brown, Lew, 364 Brownlow, Kevin, 9, 193, 195, 234 Bru, Myriam, 257 Brucker, Roger, 130 Buchholz, Horst, ...
-
On Sunset Boulevard: The Life and Times of Billy Wilder
By Ed SikovNote on George W. Davis: Davis shares screen credit with Lyle Wheeler on the production design of The Seven Year Itch, but that was simply studio politics; Wheeler was the head of Fox's design department but had nothing to do with this ...
-
Billy Wilder, American Film Realist
By Richard ArmstrongThis is a re-examination of the key American films of Wilder, often challenging previous readings of his filmmaking style and personality, emphasizing the pop-cultural, film-historical, and sociohistorical content of well known films like ...
-
Conversations with Wilder
By Cameron CroweThe renowned director talks to Cameron Crowe about 30 years at the very heart of Hollywood. Wilder's distinct voice provides a fascinating insider's view of the film industry past and present.
-
A Foreign Affair: Billy Wilder's American Films
By Gerd GemündenYet how American is Billy Wilder, the Jewish émigré from Central Europe? This book underscores this complex issue, unpacking underlying contradictions where previous commentators routinely smoothed them out.
-
Conversations with Wilder
By Billy Wilder, Cameron CroweIn Conversations with Wilder, Hollywood's legendary and famously elusive director Billy Wilder agrees for the first time to talk extensively about his life and work. Here, in an extraordinary book...
-
Nobody's Perfect: Billy Wilder, a Personal Biography
By Charlotte Chandler"'Nobody's perfect' is the line that most sums up my work," Billy Wilder told writer Charlotte Chandler. "There is no comedy, no drama about perfect people."Film is the Cinderella Art...