Billy Wilder: Existence at Stake
In Billy Wilder’s films, whether situation comedy or film noir, the very existence of his characters is at stake. Wilder, a journalist and then a filmmaker in Germany, migrated to Hollywood in the mid-1930s. There he established a firm reputation as a screenwriter (“Ninotchka,” 1939) and then began directing in 1942. Over the next 40 years Wilder specialized in two genres—situation comedies and film noir. Although he is best known for those genres he also directed a classic thriller (“Witness for the Prosecution,” 1956) and a classic war film (“Stalag 17,” 1952). In the situation comedy category, Wilder is best known for “The Major and the Minor” (1942), “Some Like It Hot” (1958), and “The Apartment” (1960). Wilder put film noir on the map with “Double Indemnity” (1944) but is probably better known for “Sunset Boulevard” (1949).
Although Billy Wilder is a highly regarded director, he is even more highly regarded as a screenwriter. He always partnered with another writer. His partnerships with Charles Brackett, Raymond Chandler, and I.A.L. Diamond are among his most famous, both for the writing and the performances in such films as “Double Indemnity” (1944, with Barbara Stanwyck), “Sunset Boulevard” (1949, with Gloria Swanson), and “Some Like It Hot” (1958, with Marilyn Monroe). Less flamboyant but no less memorable is his work with William Holden (“Stalag 17,” 1952), Walter Matthau (“The Fortune Cookie,” 1966), Ray Milland (“The Lost Weekend,” 1945), and Jack Lemmon (“The Apartment,” 1960). His work with screen icons Erich Von Stroheim (“Sunset Boulevard,” 1949), Marlene Dietrich and Charles Laughton (“Witness for the Prosecution,” 1956) is so well regarded that these performances have risen to the level of legend in an immodest profession.
Although known for their caustic wit, Wilder’s films fluctuate between two polarities—the utterly romantic and the utterly cynical. The best of his work—“Avanti” (1972), “The Apartment” (1960), “Sunset Boulevard” (1949)—blends the two. At the extremes, however, we have the romantic “The Private Life of Sherlock Holmes” (1969) and the cynical “Ace in the Hole” (1951) and “Kiss Me Stupid” (1964). But all of Wilder’s films share the director’s idea that the very existence of his characters is at stake. This existential trap may be external (the hated prisoner of war in “Stalag 17”) or internal (the prisoner of alcohol in “The Lost Weekend”). Whatever the cause, the struggle of Wilder’s main characters is a struggle for existence. The consequence is a titanic struggle for survival in each of Wilder’s films.
To amplify the struggle Wilder uses two elements—the desperation of his main character and the presence of an antagonist. Joe Gillis (William Holden), the failed Hollywood screenwriter in “Sunset Boulevard,” is at the end of the road. His car is about to be repossessed, he can expect no more favors from producers, and he is about to return home to Ohio a failure when he meets his antagonist, Norma Desmond (Gloria Swanson), a silent screen star who is lonely and eager to make a comeback. Joe Gillis and Norma Desmond need each other but in the end destroy one another.
In “The Apartment,” C.C. Baxter (Jack Lemmon) is so desperate to move up in the insurance business that he does favors for insurance executives who are in a position to help him be promoted. He lends four of them his apartment for sexual trysts even though they endlessly put him out of his own home. Only when he lends his apartment to Mr. Sheldrake (Fred MacMurray), the executive in charge of personnel, does he get his promotion. Sheldrake is C.C. Baxter’s antagonist, principally because he controls Baxter’s professional horizon and because his mistress is Miss Fran Kubelik (Shirley MacLaine), the woman with whom Baxter hopes to have a relationship. For both Joe Gillis and C.C. Baxter, their existence is wrapped up with their professional identity.
In both “Sunset Boulevard” and “The Apartment,” whether the main character can survive is tested. As expected in film noir, Joe Gillis is destroyed. As expected in situation comedy, C.C. Baxter survives, a better man than his corporate antagonist.
In “The Lost Weekend,” the main character Don Birnam (Ray Milland) is an alcoholic. His demon is himself and his fear of failure that has made him risk averse in his career as a writer and in his personal life with Helen (Jane Wyman). That fear has made him what he is, an alcoholic. The film focuses on a weekend when has Don promised to try to change but it turns out to be the weekend when he bottoms out, a process that takes him to the brink of suicide. In this case, Don is his own worst enemy, his own antagonist.
The first excerpt we will explore is the opening of “The Lost Weekend.” We see New Yorker Don Birnam hide a bottle outside of his window while he packs to go to Connecticut with his brother (Phillip Terry) for the weekend. In Connecticut, Don will write, and his brother will make sure he does not drink. Helen, Don’s fiancée, comes over to wish him well. She is going to a concert that afternoon. Don convinces his brother to accompany her, and suggests that they meet for the later night train. The brother is wary, but Don berates both the brother and his fiancée for not trusting him. When the brother finds the bottle of alcohol, however, an argument ensues, during which it is clear that Don badly wants a drink. His brother empties the bottle. The brother has tried to alcohol proof Don’s life in other ways; for example, Don has no money to buy more alcohol, and his brother will not give him any. Clearly, Don is supported almost entirely by his brother. Exasperated by the failure of all of his efforts, the brother goes off to the concert with Helen, while Don can only think of where his next drink is coming from.
“Sunset Boulevard” (1950)
The next excerpt we will explore takes place at the end of “Sunset Boulevard.” In a fit of jealousy and rage, Norma Desmond has shot and killed Joe Gillis (nobody leaves Norma Desmond). The police attempt to talk to Norma but she is mute. Her manservant (Erich Von Stroheim) is aware of the large gathering of media downstairs, waiting to shoot lurid footage for the evening news. He suggests that Norma will respond to the cameras, and the police agree to take Norma downstairs. When he tells Norma that the cameras are waiting, she is engaged and alert but still in her own reality. She descends the stairs and responds to the cameras as if she were performing. At the bottom of the stairs, she expresses her happiness. She is ready for her close-up. The film ends as she moves toward the cameras, certain she will never again leave her fans.
“The Apartment” (1960)
The third excerpt I will use occurs early in “The Apartment.” The scene establishes how much C.C. Baxter is willing to sacrifice for his ambition. The sequence has four parts. The first establishes how Baxter’s apartment is used. Mr. Kirkaby is trying to hurry his mistress home while outside Baxter waits for his apartment to be free. Kirkaby’s heightened self-interest knows no bounds, and he suggests that Baxter update his liquor supplies. The second scene focuses on Baxter’s loneliness—warming up a TV dinner and drinking Kirkaby’s leftover martini. Baxter is misunderstood by his neighbors. Given all the commotion and drinking next door, they think he is an iron man. The third scene introduces another participating executive when Mr. Dobisch calls from a bar. Baxter has already taken a sleeping pill but agrees to Dobisch’s unreasonable request. Dobisch arrives with his Marilyn Monroe look-alike and the party begins. The final scene focuses on the neighbors’ misperceptions of Baxter, juxtaposed with Baxter waiting in the park, cold, tired, and feeling abused.
“Double Indemnity” (1944)
The last excerpts I will use are the meeting and parting scenes between Walter Neff (Fred MacMurray) and Phyllis Dietrichson (Barbara Stanwyck) in “Double Indemnity.” The first meeting of Neff and his love interest proceeds as a seduction. Neff arrives to renew Mr. Dietrichson’s auto insurance. Dietrichson is not home but his wife is, and she greets Neff wearing only a towel. After she has dressed she comes back downstairs, and a verbal seduction follows. Neff is more interested in her ankle bracelet than he is in her insurance status. She, on the other hand, is quite interested in insurance. Neff presses on and becomes more forward. She stops him cold but not without some encouragement. She invites him to return the next evening. The final meeting between Neff and Phyllis follows Neff’s discovery that she has been two-timing him with her stepdaughter’s boyfriend. He comes to see her with the knowledge that claims adjuster Barton Keyes (Edward G. Robinson) believes Phyllis murdered her husband and that the boyfriend was her accomplice. For Neff, the purpose of this meeting is to end his association with Phyllis. Whether he feels the spurned lover or simply the foolish victim of Phyllis’ attention and affection, he is here to break with her, but no one breaks with Phyllis. She shoots Neff but is unable to finish him off, realizing that she loves him. Neff kills her and leaves to confess his sins on tape for Keyes. Both scenes drip with desire and danger.
Because Billy Wilder began as a writer and continued writing his own screenplays throughout his directing and producing career, the text has always remained clear and forceful. The virtues of Wilder as a dialogue writer and a world-weary critic of capitalism and communism are focal points of books written about Billy Wilder and his work. Because my focus here is on his director’s idea, I will examine one particular polarity that for me best illustrates how the existence of characters in Wilder films is continually at stake—the coexistence of extreme romanticism and extreme darkness, or cynicism, in his characters and their stories. Wilder used the clash of these two opposites to raise the stakes for his characters.
Don Birnam, in the opening scene of “The Lost Weekend,” is thinking only about the whiskey bottle that is outside of his window. In the scene, he is ostensibly preparing to leave for a weekend with his brother. The arrival of his fiancée, Helen, gives Don the opportunity to appear altruistic when he suggests that his brother go to a concert with Helen; however, we know that his true motivation is to be alone with that whiskey bottle. When Don’s motives are uncovered, his brother becomes cynical about Don’s intentions but Helen remains the romantic. She is, as she will be throughout the film, optimistic and hopeful that Don can overcome his addiction to alcohol. When Helen and Don’s brother leave, Don lies to his cleaning lady in order to keep the $10 his brother left for her. The scene ends cynically, implying that Don’s little lie to the cleaning lady will become a bigger lie about the weekend and about all other aspects of his life. What is important in this scene is the existence of both romanticism and cynicism.
Wilder used the same polarity in “Sunset Boulevard.” He set up the main character with two women: the cynic, Norma Desmond, and the romantic, Betty (Nancy Olson). Because of Betty and Joe’s love for her, he finally decides to leave Norma Desmond. This decision leads to Norma’s killing Joe in the scene that precedes Norma’s descent into madness. In the madness scene, Wilder created a new polarity—the romantic madness of Norma and the cynicism of the press, who have been absent from her life since her career as a silent star ended. Now that she is a murderess she is newsworthy again, and they are there with their cameras. Norma’s madness is strangely romantic as she assumes they are there for Norma Desmond, the star of the silver screen. Only her manservant (and former director) Max understands and loves Norma. The cynical media are there to exploit Norma’s new celebrity as a murderess. Again, the clash of the romantic and the cynical raised the stakes for both Joe Gillis and Norma Desmond.
In “The Apartment,” this polarity is represented by the romanticism of C.C. Baxter, who is naïve in believing that Kirkaby and Dobisch will advance his interests at work in return for using Baxter’s apartment after work, and by the cynicism of the executives, including Sheldrake. Their view that personal favors are the basis for advancement within the insurance company is a corrupt position that is supported by Fran’s later observation that there are two kinds of characters in life—those who take and those who are taken. She views the executives as the takers (cynical position) and herself and Baxter among the taken. Baxter as a character will turn against this Darwinian proposition and leave the corporate world (a romantic position) for his love of Fran. In “The Apartment,” the polarity between Baxter and the executives raises the stakes for each of his decisions. The environment in which Baxter finds himself is more than an economic or political environment; for Baxter, his moral choice at the end of the film is ultimately both economic and existential.
The choice between the romantic and the cynical is never clearer than in “Double Indemnity.” Walter Neff pursues a romantic goal, Phyllis Dietrichson, while Phyllis pursues a cynical goal, the insurance money due her because of her husband’s accidental death. In the meeting scene, it is great fun to see Neff and Phyllis pursue their respective goals. He is blinded by desire, and she is blinded by dollar signs. Neither can really see the other. We see what is happening, but Neff doesn’t. As a result, we see a man destroy himself. To make this unsavory journey palatable, Wilder and fellow writer Raymond Chandler created a confessional narration. Neff confesses to his mentor, Barton Keyes, and to the audience. When he talks about being humiliated by Phyllis, his confession is a romantic device—“I was fooled by love, a blind man who couldn’t see it, but you could, Keyes, because you weren’t driven by the same feeling for Phyllis Dietrichson.”
Wilder revisits this dichotomy in reverse in the second scene. This time, Neff is the cynic; he is at the Dietrichson house to tell her that she has failed in the insurance scam. She is going to be arrested, and he will be free of her. Phyllis, this time the romantic, shoots Neff but cannot kill him (she is in love, a revelation to her). Neff embraces and then kills her. Again, the polarity amplifies the idea that everything is at stake.
Directing the Actor
“A director who can crack jokes about suicide attempts (‘Sabrina’ and ‘The Apartment’) and thoughtlessly brutalize charming actresses like Jean Arthur (‘Foreign Affair’) and Audrey Hepburn (‘Sabrina’) is hardly likely to make a coherent film on the human condition.” —Andrew Sarris (The American Cinema, University of Chicago Press, 1968)
Andrew Sarris is not an admirer of Billy Wilder’s directing skills, as he placed him in the fourth rung of his directorial pantheon, “Less Than Meets the Eye.” There Wilder is in good company with Elia Kazan, David Lean, Joe Mankiewicz, and William Wyler. This is not the point at which I launch a vigorous defense of Wilder’s work. I believe my inclusion of Wilder in this book states my own view of his work. Rather, I use the Sarris position to begin our exploration of Wilder’s work in light of performance. What was he seeking in his direction of performances? And how do the performances amplify the director’s idea that the very existence of his characters is at stake?
To understand Wilder and his expectations of actors, it is clear that he and his collaborators wrote roles that required confident actors. This explains the very public difficulties he encountered with Jean Arthur and Marilyn Monroe; nevertheless, he secured from Monroe her best screen performance in “Some Like It Hot.” The roles often positioned the main character as an outsider in his particular situation—William Holden’s opportunistic, unpatriotic prisoner-of-war character in “Stalag 17,” Jack Lemmon’s small-fishin-a-pool-of-sharks character in “The Apartment,” and Kirk Douglas’ aggressive, big-city reporter in the boondocks of New Mexico in “Ace in the Hole.” These roles required actors who could work in a marginalized dramatic space and amplify their actions to have an impact beyond their confines, physical and emotional.
Wilder had a penchant for mixing icons from directing as well as acting with the rest of the cast. On the surface, this might seem arrogant but in fact it worked. Examples include a bevy of silent film stars, including Buster Keaton in “Sunset Boulevard,” Erich Von Stroheim as Irwin Rommel in “Five Graves to Cairo” (1943), and Otto Preminger as the camp commandant in “Stalag 17.”
Although to a certain extent Wilder cast for type (Jack Lemmon, Walter Matthau, and Tony Curtis, for example), he was as likely to challenge type in casting. Consider his use of Fred MacMurray in “Double Indemnity” as the romantic hero and later as the antagonist in “The Apartment.” MacMurray’s performance in the latter has a coldness to it that makes Sheldrake the exact opposite of Baxter, the main character. Wilder also used Ray Milland in similar fashion. In “The Major and the Minor” (1942), Ray Milland is the romantic lead to Ginger Rogers, who plays an adult pretending to be 14 years old to secure a children’s fare train ticket back to the Midwest. In 1945, Wilder cast Milland as the alcoholic lead in “The Lost Weekend.” Here, a tortured inner life has replaced the honorable life of a major.
Certain characteristics notable in Wilder characters made many demands on his actors. First, Wilder characters have a self-awareness that expresses itself in irony or self-deprecation and requires a performance capable of evoking this emotional complexity when the character steps out of character and comments on himself. Consider Joe Gillis in “Sunset Boulevard,” C.C. Baxter in “The Apartment,” and Walter Neff in “Double Indemnity.” Neff, in particular, confesses to the audience in the narration—he acted for money and the woman. He reflects: “I didn’t get the money and I didn’t get the woman.”
Another issue is the dialectic that exists between a character’s aggressive pursuit of a goal and his vulnerability. This is where we begin to perceive the humanity of the character. Neff’s love/desire for Phyllis was sexual and bottomless enough for him to agree to embezzle from his insurance company and kill a man. Here, the relationship is all about sexual desire. In Neff’s relationship with Barton Keyes we see another side to the man—his vulnerability. Neff is always lighting Keyes’ cigar, and Keyes is always confessing to, confiding in, complementing Neff. He tries to enlist Neff as his assistant, promising that the satisfaction would be greater although the money would be less. The distracted Neff, now involved in the Dietrichson issue, is complimented and touched by Keyes’ offer. The scene reveals another side of Neff. When Keyes becomes angry at Neff’s turning down the offer, he insults Neff. Neff’s response is “I love you too.” It is in those scenes with Keyes that Neff reveals his vulnerable self.
A similar pattern emerges around Joe Gillis’ character in “Sunset Boulevard.” I have already mentioned the romantic/cynical paradox that plays out in Gillis’ relationships with Norma Desmond and Betty White. Another layer in these relationships is Gillis’ work as a screenwriter. Gillis, a writer of modest success, is losing the battle in Hollywood, but he is holding on for dear life to stay and continue his dream of achieving success as a Hollywood screenwriter. To hold onto that dream, he takes on the job of rewriting Norma Desmond’s “Salome” script. He knows the story is childish and not worthy of being produced, but he does the rewrite to stay in Hollywood and hold onto his dream. When he meets Betty, a development person who liked his past work, she encourages him to let go of his cynicism and be vulnerable and committed as a writer. Working with Betty he gets back in touch with the positive dimensions of himself that were important to his past writing. Wilder directed Holden to be less cynical and more vulnerable. The performance of William Holden, in all its modulation, embraced cynicism and conveyed a passion for achieving Gillis’ goal, as well as a vulnerability that hinted at the deeper, more positive dimensions of his original goal—to be a writer in Hollywood.
Also critical to performances in Wilder films is that everything is at stake for the character. The actor not only has to pull out all the stops but must also enter a kind of obsessive madness. If the character is too stable, the performance will fail. If the character is either excessively rational or unstable, the performance will fail. This is why it is difficult to imagine Marlon Brando or Clark Gable in a Wilder film. They represent opposite extremes of characters. Instead, Wilder cast for “normality” or at least its appearance—Ray Milland, Fred MacMurray, Jack Lemmon—and then explores what happens to his characters when they enter into an obsessive madness. It is their very ordinariness that enables these performers to transport us to the eerie edge where we understand that their very existence is at stake.
Directing the Camera
The first thing one notices about Wilder’s work is how well written it is. Performance and camera are far more subservient to the writing than is the case of the other directors discussed so far. As a result, Wilder’s use of such elements as lighting, art direction, and sound was far more subtle. Pace also is secondary, and edit decisions were made to clarify the story progression. There are nevertheless some notable visual characterizations of Wilder films; for example, environments (sets) in Wilder films are important. Norma Desmond’s house in “Sunset Boulevard” is more museum than home, according to Gillis; it is a mausoleum memorializing the grandeur of the silent film period.
The insurance company offices in “The Apartment” are cold and corporate. Wilder emphasized their regimented character, and when he filmed the Christmas party at the office he stressed the claustrophobic quality of the setting. Baxter’s apartment is also an important environment in the film. The dominant quality of the apartment is how dark it is. It seems a center for feeling lonely rather than a warm hearth suitable for sexual pleasure. Fran’s suicide attempt is a key narrative event very much in harmony with the tone of the apartment, an act enabled by the environment.
Another quality of Wilder’s visual style is the use of visual motifs. Usually these motifs are singular and support a character goal. In “The Lost Weekend,” the motifs are the whiskey bottle and a shot glass. The film opens on a whiskey bottle dangling out of an apartment window. When Don meets Helen, he is looking for the whiskey in his coat pocket, but the coat check mixed up the check slips and gave Don Helen’s coat. In short order the whiskey bottle falls out of Don’s coat pocket and shatters. Liquor stores have bottles prominently in the foreground just as bars have bottles lined up in the background. When Don has a drink after sending Helen and his brother off to a concert, the shot glass on the bar is in the foreground. To signify the number of drinks Don has had, Wilder went to a close-up of the condensation rings from a half dozen shot glasses. The condensation clearly marks the growing number of drinks Don has had. He drinks so much that he forgets to meet his brother to catch the late train.
In “Sunset Boulevard,” the motif is the car. Losing his car will mean the end of Joe Gillis in Hollywood. When his car is repossessed from the Desmond garage, he becomes totally dependent on Norma. Later, he travels around, a kept man, in Norma Desmond’s limousine. The car that takes Norma and Joe to the Paramount studios is the reason why Cecil De Mille invited Norma to visit his set, as he wants to rent the antique as a prop for his next film; however, Norma believed that De Mille was interested in her “Salome” script, now being rewritten by Gillis. Here, the automobile represents status and the desire of Joe and Norma to be stars.
In “The Apartment,” the motif is a bowler hat. Wearing such a hat means C.C. Baxter has arrived; he has achieved the promotion he sought. In “Double Indemnity,” the motifs are all sexual. Phyllis Dietrichson’s ankle bracelet, the towel she wears when first meeting Walter Neff, Barton Keyes’ cigars, and Mr. Dietrichson’s crutches are all psychosexual elements of a highly sexualized narrative.
A third visual element Wilder uses is to place his camera in such a way that it establishes a power relationship. When Neff first sees Phyllis, he is on the first floor and Phyllis is on the second-floor landing. This position tells us immediately who holds the power in the narrative. When Dobisch calls Baxter to make arrangements for the use of his apartment in “The Apartment,” Dobisch is filmed in mid shot but is foregrounded in the shot. When Baxter takes Dobisch’s call, Baxter is more in the background of the shot. Again, who has the power and who does not is made clear by the camera placement.
The director’s idea for Wilder was to explore the behavior of a character when that character’s very existence is at stake. This idea and the films that emanated from it earned Wilder enormous praise and industrial recognition. His films have also given rise to considerable criticism—he was a cynic who trashed his country and its values when he was benefiting from being one of its citizens. These responses suggest that Wilder did what an artist should do—prompt examination of the status quo.
I admire Wilder’s capacity to engage and enrage us with his characters, and he did so with enormous wit. We should remember that Wilder was displaced by the politics and racial policies of his country of origin. When he came to the United States, he could not speak a word of English yet became one of the great wordsmiths of American film. Because Wilder positions his characters in narratives that raise the stakes to the point of his characters’ very existence, he goes to the very heart of great drama. How he set up the text, how he organized performance to articulate the dilemma for his characters, and how he orchestrated the camera in service of the story are clear examples of narrative ambition. He took us further than most directors choose to go, and for that reason his work deserves to be revisited by new generations of directors. His work incites the courage these directors will need.