Chapter 5 Personal Expression and Studio Production 179beginning of World War II, found work in Hollywood, and then returned
to Europe in the 1950s where he made such classics as Madame de.. ., La
Ronde, and Lola Montès.
Among the many fi lmmakers who arrived in Hollywood aft er beginning
their careers abroad, Billy Wilder began to write movies in his native Germany
before moving to the United States, where he became a relative rarity for
his time: the writer-director. Wilder wrote his scripts with a partner and
directed many of the most highly appreciated fi lms ever made, including
the comedies Some Like It Hot (1959) and Th e Apartment (1960), Sunset
Boulevard (1950), one of the sharpest fi lms about Hollywood, Ace in the Hole
(1951), a scathing critique of American media culture, and the early fi lm noir
Double Indemnity (1944).
Wilder, like Hitchcock, provides an example of an artist establishing
strong individual identity amidst the powerful forces of the studio system.
Th is was not typical. Many fi lmmakers in the studio system had to fulfi ll
projects under the strong control of studio executives, and their names were
rarely well known, like many fi lmmakers today. Delmer Daves was a writer-
director working in the more typical mode of studio organization, executing
projects in relation to the opportunities and needs of the corporate system.
Nonetheless, his fi lms are consistently notable for their qualities of sensitivity
to diverse cultures, exploration of the tension between community needs and
personal independence, and a subtle and lyrical integration of varied settings
in the depiction of story.Figure 5-11 Director Billy
Wilder and actress Shirley
MacLaine preparing a scene
in The Apartment. (Courtesy
United Artists/Photofest)Copyright 2010 Cengage Learning. All Rights Reserved. May not be copied, scanned, or duplicated, in whole or in part. Due to electronic rights, some third party content may be suppressed from the eBook and/or eChapter(s).