Billy Wilder’s work today remains masterful and memorable. From his skilled screenwriting to his directing, Wilder holds a key position in cinema history.
Wilder’s stylistic and thematic elements are recognizable and give off a complex reflection of his American and European cultural influences. I think that Billy Wilder should be considered an “auteur” even if he is not already considered one, for his personal film style and the mere fact that his cynical vision allowed him to create many admirable films across a number of genre boundaries throughout his career.However, film critics tend to disagree and believe that Wilder was too cynical, while also complaining about the lack of conviction in his films. Some of Wilder’s films include: Double Indemnity, one of the first true film noir films to deal with issues of adultery, The Lost Weekend, one of the first films to deal with alcoholism head-on onscreen, and the classic comedy Some Like It Hot which was one of the first films to deal with cross-dressing. Wilder’s personal film style appealed to pop-culture and made him very popular throughout the film industry.His movies combined social realism, crime, moral degeneracy and light heart humor.
Hypothetically speaking, the French theory of “auteurism” is a director whose films reflect their personal creative vision, can be considered works of art, and have a copyright held by their director.Whereas Andrew Sarris, the French author of Cahiers du Cinema, believes an “auteur” is “a pantheon of directors, whose work purportedly exhibits ‘interior meaning’ through the tension created between the director’s material and ‘personality,’ or “certain recurring characteristics of style which serve as his signature. (McNally, pg. 1). Sarris doesn’t believe that Wilder is an “auteur” because he thinks Wilder’s films lack visual and structural elements. I disagree with Sarris’s theory because even though Wilders films lacked stylistic expressionism, they still were creative through his cynicism and his romantic vision which worked in his advantage through the box office.
Sarris also argues that an “auteur” is a director whose films are formalistic. I think auteurism has less to do with form and is further based off of a director’s symbolic narrative structure.Wilder uses a lot of symbolic narrative structure in his films and they played a huge role in American pop culture. This is what Noel Carroll, Professor of the Philosophy of Art at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, had to say about Sarris’s formalistic theory on auteurism, “In film studies, the examination of the style or form of the individual film is usually subordinated to frameworks that conceptualize the style or form of the individual film as exemplary of something else, usually the personal style of a director, or a period style, or the style of an influential movement or school.
(Carroll, pg. 1). Billy Wilder’s film not only combine social realism, crime, moral degeneracy and humor; but they represent cultural, political and personal identity through the characters and narratives he constructs. Wilder directed a number of genre films ranging from comedy, film noir, romance, drama, adventure and even fantasy.
These different genre aspects of narrative and character are essential to analyzing or critiquing Wilder’s body of work and his significance as an “auteur.According to Noel Simsolo, a famous French author, Wilder’s thematic approach “looks at the world with a cynical eye, but knows how to make people laugh. And that’s not all, since he also made melodramas and film noir. His underlying subject matter is always the same.
”( Simsolo, pg. 5). Simsolo seems to believe that Wilder is an “auteur” because his subject matter is always the same and that it appeals to his personal creative vision. I agree more with Simsolo’s theory because it’s a reasonable explanation of an “auteur. He believes that there is more to an “auteur,” one must be able to consistently appeal to their audience’s emotion rather than having a consistent visual style throughout their films.
Sarris’s theory on the form an individual film makes it impossible to realize its purposes. A formal element in a film is one that contributes to the means of securing the purpose of the individual film. Billy Wilder’s film narrative structure follows this function.One of Wilder’s films that is designed to perform some purpose is Sunset Boulevard, because it portrays the main antagonist Norma Desmond (Gloria Swanson) as horrific. By creating this type of character Wilder was able to execute emotion appeals for his audience. The concept of style has a deep association with the notion of purpose which establishes personality.
I think that an “auteur” must have a personal style, in a way in which they are able to express their personality.According to Noel Carroll, “the theoretical strength of auteurism is that it connects style with personal style or expressiveness. (Carroll, pg. 1). Therefore, I feel that form in an “auteurs” individual film is the wrong way in expressing a filmmaker's personality. According to Karen McNally, “the distinction Wilder makes between cinema and movies articulates his firm positioning within popular film.
” (McNally, pg. 2). After watching some of Billy Wilder’s films I found it more pleasing to witness his personal film style, which I think is essential to his cinematic influence in American pop culture and auteuristic abilities.
