Billy Wilder, Movie-Maker

Billy Wilder, Movie-Maker PDF Author: Karen McNally
Publisher: McFarland
ISBN: 0786485205
Category : Performing Arts
Languages : en
Pages : 254

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Book Description
Billy Wilder’s work remains a masterful combination of incisive social commentary, skilled writing and directing, and unashamed entertainment value. One of Hollywood’s foremost émigré filmmakers, Wilder holds a key position in film history via films that represent a complex reflection of his European roots and American cultural influences. This wide-ranging collection of essays by an international group of scholars examines the significance of Wilder’s filmmaking from a variety of original perspectives. Engaging with issues of genre, industry, representation and national culture, the volume provides fresh insights into Wilder’s films and opens up his work to further exploration.

Billy Wilder, Movie-Maker

Billy Wilder, Movie-Maker PDF Author: Karen McNally
Publisher: McFarland
ISBN: 0786485205
Category : Performing Arts
Languages : en
Pages : 254

Get Book

Book Description
Billy Wilder’s work remains a masterful combination of incisive social commentary, skilled writing and directing, and unashamed entertainment value. One of Hollywood’s foremost émigré filmmakers, Wilder holds a key position in film history via films that represent a complex reflection of his European roots and American cultural influences. This wide-ranging collection of essays by an international group of scholars examines the significance of Wilder’s filmmaking from a variety of original perspectives. Engaging with issues of genre, industry, representation and national culture, the volume provides fresh insights into Wilder’s films and opens up his work to further exploration.

Billy Wilder, American Film Realist

Billy Wilder, American Film Realist PDF Author: Richard Armstrong
Publisher: McFarland
ISBN: 1476606536
Category : Performing Arts
Languages : en
Pages : 172

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Book Description
The films of Billy Wilder, from Double Indemnity to Some Like It Hot, are American classics created by a brilliant Austrian in love with his newfound country. This 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 Sunset Boulevard and less frequently remembered ones, like The Fortune Cookie. The book interprets Wilder as more than the “cocky little Viennese” or “closet Romantic” stereotypes often attached to him. Here the student will find provocative analysis and the enthusiast will find evocative commentary on one of the most important figures in American film. Photographs add to the text, and a complete filmography and bibliography are also included. Fully indexed.

Billy Wilder on Assignment

Billy Wilder on Assignment PDF Author: Billy Wilder
Publisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN: 069124183X
Category : Performing Arts
Languages : en
Pages : 224

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Book Description
A Times Literary Supplement Book of the Year, chosen by Tom Stoppard "A revelation."—Marc Weingarten, Washington Post Acclaimed film director Billy Wilder’s early writings—brilliantly translated into English for the first time Before Billy Wilder became the screenwriter and director of iconic films like Sunset Boulevard and Some Like It Hot, he worked as a freelance reporter, first in Vienna and then in Weimar Berlin. Billy Wilder on Assignment brings together more than fifty articles, translated into English for the first time, that Wilder (then known as "Billie") published in magazines and newspapers between September 1925 and November 1930. From 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 fresh insights into the creative mind of one of Hollywood’s most revered writer-directors. Wilder’s early writings—a heady mix of cultural essays, interviews, and reviews—contain the same sparkling wit and intelligence as his later Hollywood screenplays, while also casting light into the dark corners of Vienna and Berlin between the wars. Wilder covered everything: big-city sensations, jazz performances, film and theater openings, dance, photography, and all manner of mass entertainment. And he wrote about the most colorful figures of the day, including Charlie Chaplin, Cornelius Vanderbilt, the Prince of Wales, actor Adolphe Menjou, director Erich von Stroheim, and the Tiller Girls dance troupe. Film historian Noah Isenberg's introduction and commentary place Wilder’s pieces—brilliantly translated by Shelley Frisch—in historical and biographical context, and rare photos capture Wilder and his circle during these formative years. Filled with rich reportage and personal musings, Billy Wilder on Assignment showcases the burgeoning voice of a young journalist who would go on to become a great auteur.

Conversations with Wilder

Conversations with Wilder PDF Author: Cameron Crowe
Publisher:
ISBN: 9780571203864
Category : Motion picture producers and directors
Languages : en
Pages : 373

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Book Description
The 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

A Foreign Affair PDF Author: Gerd Gemünden
Publisher: Berghahn Books
ISBN: 9780857450661
Category : Performing Arts
Languages : en
Pages : 206

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Book Description
With six Academy Awards, four entries on the American Film Institute's list of 100 greatest American movies, and more titles on the National Historic Register of classic films deemed worthy of preservation than any other director, Billy Wilder counts as one of the most accomplished filmmakers ever to work in Hollywood. Yet 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. Wilder emerges as an artist with roots in sensationalist journalism and the world of entertainment as well as with an awareness of literary culture and the avant-garde, features that lead to productive and often highly original confrontations between high and low.

Billy Wilder

Billy Wilder PDF Author: Glenn Hopp
Publisher: Taschen
ISBN: 9783822815953
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 200

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Book Description
This biography of director Billy Wilder (""Sunset Boulevard, Some Like it Hot"") contains movie posters, a bibliography and a complete filmography.

Some Like It Wilder

Some Like It Wilder PDF Author: Gene D. Phillips
Publisher: University Press of Kentucky
ISBN: 0813173671
Category : Performing Arts
Languages : en
Pages : 493

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Book Description
One of the most accomplished writers and directors of classic Hollywood, Billy Wilder (1906–2002) directed numerous acclaimed films, including Sunset Boulevard (1950), Sabrina (1954), The Seven Year Itch (1955), Witness for the Prosecution (1957), and Some Like It Hot (1959). Featuring Gene D. Phillips's unique, in-depth critical approach, Some Like It Wilder: The Life and Controversial Films of Billy Wilder provides a groundbreaking overview of a filmmaking icon. Wilder began his career as a screenwriter in Berlin but, because of his Jewish heritage, sought refuge in America when Germany came under Nazi control. Making fast connections in Hollywood, Wilder immediately made the jump from screenwriter to director. His classic films Five Graves to Cairo (1943), Double Indemnity (1945), and The Lost Weekend (1945) earned Academy Awards for best picture, director, and screenplay. During the 1960s, Wilder continued to direct and produce controversial comedies, including Kiss Me, Stupid (1964) and The Apartment (1960), which won Oscars for best picture and director. This definitive biography reveals that Wilder was, and remains, one of the most influential directors in filmmaking.

Teaching Sound Film

Teaching Sound Film PDF Author: R. J. Cardullo
Publisher: Springer
ISBN: 9463007261
Category : Education
Languages : en
Pages : 460

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Book Description
Teaching Sound Film: A Reader is a film analysis-and-criticism textbook that contains 35 essays on 35 geographically diverse, historically significant sound films. The countries represented here are France, Italy, England, Belgium, Russia, India, China, Cuba, Germany, Japan, Russia, Romania, Czechoslovakia, Brazil, Taiwan, Austria, Afghanistan, South Korea, Finland, Burkina Faso, Mexico, Iran, Israel, Colombia, and the United States. The directors represented include Jean Renoir, Orson Welles, Akira Kurosawa, Federico Fellini, Woody Allen, Aki Kaurismäki, Ken Loach, Tomás Gutiérrez Alea, Abbas Kiarostami, Michael Haneke, and Hong Sang-soo. Written with university students (and possibly also advanced high school students) in mind, the essays in Teaching Sound Film: A Reader cover some of the central films treated—and central issues raised—in today’s cinema courses and provide students with practical models to help them improve their own writing and analytical skills. These essays are clear and readable—that is, sophisticated and meaty yet not overly technical or jargon-heavy. This makes them perfect introductions to their respective films as well as important contributions to the field of film studies in general. Moreover, this book’s scholarly apparatus features credits, images, bibliographies for all films discussed, filmographies for all the directors, a list of topics for writing and discussion, a glossary of film terms, and an appendix containing three essays, respectively, on film acting, avant-garde cinema, and theater vs. film.

On Sunset Boulevard

On Sunset Boulevard PDF Author: Ed Sikov
Publisher: Univ. Press of Mississippi
ISBN: 1496812654
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 675

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Book Description
On Sunset Boulevard, originally published in 1998, describes the life of acclaimed filmmaker Billy Wilder (1906-2002), director of such classics as Sunset Boulevard, The Lost Weekend, The Seven Year Itch, and Sabrina. This definitive biography takes the reader on a fast-paced journey from Billy Wilder's birth outside of Krakow in 1906 to Vienna, where he grew up, to Berlin, where he moved as a young man while establishing himself as a journalist and screenwriter, and triumphantly to Hollywood, where he became as successful a director as there ever was. Double Indemnity, Sunset Boulevard, Some Like It Hot, and The Apartment"Wilder's cinematic legacy is unparalleled. Not only did he direct these classics and twenty-one other films, he co-wrote all of his own screenplays. Volatile, cynical, hilarious, and driven, Wilder arrived in Hollywood an all-but-penniless refugee who spoke no English. Ten years later he was calling his own shots, and he stayed on top of the game for the next three decades. Wilder battled with Humphrey Bogart, Marilyn Monroe, Bing Crosby, and Peter Sellers; kept close friendships with William Holden, Audrey Hepburn, Jack Lemmon, and Walter Matthau; amassed a personal fortune by way of blockbuster films and shrewd investments in art (including Picassos, Klees, and Mir's); and won Oscars--yet Wilder, ever conscious of his thick accent, always felt the sting of being an outsider. On Sunset Boulevard traces the course of a turbulent but fabulous life, both behind the scenes and on the scene, from Viennese cafes and Berlin dance halls in the twenties to the Hollywood soundstages of the forties and the on-location shoots of the fifties and sixties. Crammed with Wilder's own caustic wit, On Sunset Boulevard reels out the story of one of cinema's most brilliant and prolific talents.

The Stardom Film

The Stardom Film PDF Author: Karen McNally
Publisher: Columbia University Press
ISBN: 0231851146
Category : Performing Arts
Languages : en
Pages : 79

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Book Description
Since the earliest days of the movie industry, Hollywood has mythologized itself through stories of stardom. A female protagonist escapes the confines of rural America in search of freedom in a western dream factory; an ambitious, conceited movie idol falls from grace and discovers what it means to embody true stardom; or a fading star confronts Hollywood’s obsession with youth by embarking on a determined mission to reclaim her lost fame. In its various forms, the stardom film is crucial to understanding how Hollywood has shaped its own identity, as well as its claim on America’s collective imagination. In the first book to focus exclusively on these modern fairy tales, Karen McNally traces the history of this genre from silent cinema to contemporary film and television to show its significance to both Hollywood and broader American culture. Drawing on extensive archival research, she provides close readings of a wide range of films, from Souls for Sale (1923) to A Star is Born (1937 and 1954) and Judy (2019), moving between fictional narratives, biopics, and those that occupy a space in between. McNally considers the genre’s core set of tropes, its construction of stardom around idealized white femininity, and its reflections on the blurred boundaries between myth, image, and reality. The Stardom Film offers an original understanding of one of Hollywood’s most enduring genres and why the allure of fame continues to fascinate us.