Billy Wilder: um repórter em tempos loucos

by Billy Wilder, Noah Isenberg (Compilador), Tanize Mocellin Ferreira (Translator)

Como se tornar um bom dançarino profissional e ganhar gorjetas no hotel? O que faz uma "bruxa moderna" da cidade grande? Quais são os pontos de encontro mais disputados de Berlim? Tem como dirigir um filme com orçamento mínimo e convencer alguém a bancar a empreitada? Para todas essas perguntas, Billy Wilder tem a resposta. Se não a possui, pode ter certeza de que se jogará em busca dela. Antes de se tornar um dos diretores de cinema mais celebrados e míticos de Hollywood, autor de clássicos inescapáveis como "Quanto mais quente melhor", considerado a obra-prima de Marilyn Monroe, e "Crepúsculo dos deuses", espelho crítico da própria indústria cinematográfica, Billy Wilder era um mero repórter para diferentes jornais de Berlim e Viena nos anos 1920. Nessas cidades fervilhantes de cultura, pôde acompanhar os desvarios que marcaram a República de Weimar como um período de liberdade e descoberta, que logo viria a ser esmagada pela ascensão do nazismo. A capital alemã, em especial, era uma grande farra, ponto de encontro de intelectuais e artistas que perseguiam a liberdade irrestrita. O sonho, como a história nos ensinou, pouco durou – os nazistas chegaram ao poder e Wilder, de origem judaica, precisou fugir da Europa. Em "Billy um repórter em tempos loucos", os textos reunidos por Noah Isenberg, de qualquer maneira, oferecem um testemunho único e pessoal de um artista que se arremessou no olho do furacão para capturar os tempos loucos encapsulados entre a Primeira e a Segunda Guerra Mundial, além de dar um vislumbre de como se desenvolveu a mente de um dos maiores cineastas da história.

Genres: Essays, Nonfiction, Biography, Journalism, History

240 pages, Paperback

Published August 29, 2022

About the author

Billy Wilder (born Samuel Wilder) was a Polish-born, Jewish-American journalist, screenwriter, Academy Award-winning film director and producer, whose career spanned more than 50 years and 60 films. He is regarded as one of the most brilliant and versatile filmmakers of Hollywood's golden age. Many of Wilder's films achieved both critical and public acclaim.

Reviews

[Paul Ataua · Rating 3 out of 5]

If you have read the many books devoted to Billie Wilder, then you really must finish with this one. Billy Wilder on Assignment brings together more than fifty articles he wrote as a journalist before 1930. It will certainly complete your Billy Wilder study. If you haven’t read any of those books, then this publication is really of little value. Most of the articles are actually quite dull and give little insight into one of the most creative Hollywood writers and directors of all time . It must be some kind of recurring nightmare for the famous to think that someone somewhere is digging up everything you ever produced. Wilder aficionados will love it. I guess there is demand.

[Jeff Miller · Rating 4 out of 5]

Thoroughly enjoyable book, providing not one, but two peeks into history.

On the one hand you have the young Billy Wilder, making (or perhaps chancing) his way through his early life, with a cheeky smile and observant eye. He is aware of the period he is in, and takes the opportunities available to meet those who may not be under the spotlight, but are on the edges, making things happen; his impromptu interview with Cornelius Vanderbilt Jr being a lovely example.

As the book progresses you hear his voice clearer; the quiet, clever wit, that would serve his future films so well, becoming more apparent as his writing becomes more confident. I’m sure that to anyone who knew him at this time, his future success would have come as little as a surprise.

On the other side we have the cities that fed him – physically and culturally. Berlin and Vienna are alive in these pages – bustling with creative people (not just Brecht, Weill and Dietrich, but also Lotte Reiniger, Pabst and the Tiller Girls). His reminiscences as a dancer for hire (who’s price was effectively a meal, a roof over his head and a little warmth in his fingers) paint another picture from this most striking period of history.

Definitely one for those who enjoy the Weimar period, and for those who are interested in one the greatest directors Hollywood ever saw…and if you like both – bingo!

[K.S. Trenten · Rating 4 out of 5]

Sometimes in a quick snappy dance of easy words, sometimes in a gush of poetic eloquence; Billy Wilder shares his memories as a dancer, his observations as a reporter, and his editorials of the performances he saw back in Weimar Berlin and Vienna, long before he became a Hollywood name. This was back when he was Billie Wilder, offering a snapshot view of a time and place along with the various characters whom inhabited it from his perspective. Reading this gives readers a taste of who’s who, who was doing what, and what was current from this jaundiced, yet sympathetic point of view. Sometimes Billie made me smile, sometimes he made me roll my eyes, but he always engaged my attention.

[Katherine Lavelle · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is a translation of Billy Wilder's dispatches from the 1920s. If you like Billy Wilder films - you will love this book. He was just as delightful and insightful at 20 as he was in his 90s!

[Karen · Rating 2 out of 5]

Not nearly as interesting as I thought it would be.

[Nina Di Salvo · Rating 4 out of 5]

I found this book at Clevo books in Cleveland, OH, which is an independently owned bookstore solely focused on international books translated into English, and I was delighted to find this book in their beautifully curated film section. At the time, I was attending a 1930’s focused film history course and this book provided excellent supplementation, as it gave me some historical context and background for 1920’s Europe, which had a strong focus on 1930’s cinema (as many of the top studio executives and creators were themselves European immigrants who lived in Europe during this time of Wilders writings).

It was great to learn more about Billy Wilders while reading his writing, whether it was his personal history before Hollywood, comedic take on current events, cultural activities, portraits of people, etc. and distinctive journalistic and essay writing style. He is very much a characature and his writing held such personality even when it was focused on the most mundane of subjects. This book was beautifully strung together and I enjoyed how they structured the book, the selection of brief but transportive passages, the size and quality of the paper, etc. it was a great reading experience and one that you can casually read while sipping your morning coffee, whether going in and out of the passages as the days go by or enjoying it over one warm or chilly weekend. Would recommend for the fellow cinephiles and film historians!

[Scott Satterwhite · Rating 3 out of 5]

I thought this was delightful and gave me some insight into Berlin during the interwar years. If I was a huge fan of famed screenwriter, I would've taken more from this. I loved "Sunset Boulevard" and "Some Like it Hot," but this was neither. It's not sold as such either. I enjoyed the writing, and gained some insight into Wilder, but I purchased this hoping for more of a prescient glimpse into what would come in a few years after Wilder left Germany and Vienna, maybe like Christopher Isherwood's work, but maybe the insight comes in how few could have seen what was coming. Wilder is forgiven for not being the prophet I hoped he'd be, and should be applauded for his writing and short vignettes that record Berlin and Vienna in an important moment. It's on me that I was hoping this book would offer some insight into my biggest question, which he never promised to answer. With that said, apparently, I am a reader who is simply reading his dispatches, butnwith a knowledge of whatbis to come in Germany and Austria. Maybe not the target audience, though.