Billy Wilder

Only Joseph McBride could have given us Billy Wilder in such fullness, as he's done previously with Lubitsch, Ford and other masters. The breadth of research is staggering, yet it is always placed at the service of McBride's free ruminative style, unbound by dutiful chronological study-instead, we have a sensibility, and a conversation. By placing the production histories and legacies of collaboration into the widest possible historical frame, McBride reanimates Wilder's life and art, returning us to the masterpieces to see them with fresh eyes, and hungry to discover the films we've missed. -- Jonathan Lethem, author of <i>The Ecstasy of Influence: Nonfictions, Etc.</i> A superb study of Billy Wilder and an ideal companion to McBride's recent How Did Lubitsch Do It? This book is rich with information about the Viennese/Weimar culture that helped shape Wilder, and wonderfully attentive to his artistry. It's the best critical account of a great filmmaker, showing exactly how he did it. -- James Naremore, author of <i>More Than Night: Film Noir in its Contexts</i> Joseph McBride is one of the best film critics and historians. His Billy Wilder is a crowning achievement. He casts considerable new light on Wilder's early life in Vienna and Berlin and reevaluates his great later work. Already high, Wilder's artistic status did not stop climbing after his death. The cliche of the cynic and the misanthrope is not to McBride's taste. Instead, he reveals the complexity of the man and the coherence of his eclectic oeuvre. -- Michel Ciment, editor of <i>Positif</i>