Auteur List: Billy Wilder - Discussion and Defenses

[domino harvey]

Feel free to alert people to movies being up on YT if they search, but do not provide direct links to any non-official or non-legal uploads. Thanks!

[Rayon Vert]

Sorry about that dom, will be careful.

[domino harvey]

No worries! Kiss Me, Stupid should still be available on Blu-ray from Olive (Amazon doesn't always have Olive titles in stock but it's not OOP as far as I know), if you watch via YT and like what you see

[therewillbeblus]

Wilder is a director that I used to admire a lot more than I do now. I’m with RV in finding it challenging to come up with a list of ten, though I haven’t seen the majority of his writing-only credits. Maybe this is lazy, but I’m not really up for suffering through a bunch of stuff to ‘complete’ a filmography of someone I’m cool on, so any recs for the writing-only are welcome. I’ve never seen Midnight or Bluebird’s Eighth Wife so I’ll prioritize those.

For those unfamiliar with the majority of his works (i.e. Mr. Sausage) I recommend The Apartment, Irma la Douce, Sabrina, Ace in the Hole, Five Graves of Cairo and The Lost Weekend in rough order.

[soundchaser]

Bluebeard’s Eighth Wife has perhaps the best opening hour of any romantic comedy from the period — it’s absolutely razor-sharp, with seemingly impossible timing from every actor. I’m not quite as fond of the back half, which slows down a ton, but it’s definitely worth a watch.

I’m amazed no one has mentioned Witness for the Prosecution yet; maybe it’s become a little oversaturated in the culture, but I think it’s so, so much fun. Maybe too much fun? It could definitely be accused (pun intended) of being a little thematically lightweight, but I love it in spite of that.

[therewillbeblus]

Laughton is great, and the film is definitely a lot of fun the first time around for obvious reasons. I suspect it would come in the second wave for me, and if I revisit it maybe crack the top ten, but doubtful. Still, I agree that everybody should see it once (and not look up anything about it ahead of time).

[therewillbeblus]

"An audience is never wrong. An individual member of it may be an imbecile, but a thousand imbeciles together in the dark — that is critical genius." ~ Billy WIlder

It took me a second read-through to recognize the importance of this quote to your identity!

[Rayon Vert]

For those unfamiliar with the majority of his works (i.e. Mr. Sausage) I recommend The Apartment, Irma la Douce, Sabrina, Ace in the Hole, Five Graves of Cairo and The Lost Weekend in rough order.

From my perspective , I would remove Irma, Sabrina and Cairo from that list and add instead Double Indemnity and Stalag 17. The Major and the Minor is a favorite of mine, but I know I'm maybe in the minority here. I'd add Some Like It Hot as a must-see even though I, like a lot of people here apparently, have found it increasingly less funny with the years.

[therewillbeblus]

I'm definitely in the minority on Double Indemnity, so along with Sunset Boulevard, I agree that everybody should see them! I'm with you on Some Like It Hot, and Stalag 17 draws out its characters with witty humor in a very unfunny situation which is intelligent and enjoyable enough to hold my engagement for its runtime but doesn't leave a mark like it used to. Like a lot of Wilder though, the first time you see it is impressive.

I don't hate a lot of the ones that others do, even if I'm not high on the man. I remember thinking The Fortune Cookie and Avanti! were fine, the Holmes was an enjoyable way to spend a couple hours, and even Fedora wasn't terrible. I'm sure that rewatches would change some of these neutral opinions that were formed after one-off viewings a while back, but I'm not sure how generous I'm going to be feeling towards them over the next five weeks. One film I am going to be giving a second chance to is One, Two, Three which I didn't care for when I saw it years ago following a heap of praise, but since I remember next to nothing about it, and it does have the makeup of the type of film I love, I'm going back for more. Maybe I'll hate it like those whose tastes I usually align with here on zippy comedies, or maybe I'll stray from the pack. I'm more excited for this undertaking than I should be though...

[DarkImbecile]

"An audience is never wrong. An individual member of it may be an imbecile, but a thousand imbeciles together in the dark — that is critical genius." ~ Billy WIlder

It took me a second read-through to recognize the importance of this quote to your identity!

What'll really blow your mind will be when you discover the Jess Franco quote that inspired domino's entire online persona.

[Rayon Vert]

Laughton is great, and the film is definitely a lot of fun the first time around for obvious reasons. I suspect it would come in the second wave for me, and if I revisit it maybe crack the top ten, but doubtful. Still, I agree that everybody should see it once (and not look up anything about it ahead of time).

I'll also second or third Witness for the Prosecution as a must-see, even though it likely won't make my list.

The last Wilder I watched that was new for me, during the biopic list project, was The Spirit of St. Louis. That isn't usually counted among his best, but I was surprised by how much I liked it. I'll give it another spin, and it will very likely make my list. You can buy or rent it on Youtube.

[Rayon Vert]

List of Wilder-auteured films available to rent or buy on Youtube:

Ninotchka
Double Indemnity
The Lost Weekend
Sunset Boulevard
Ace in the Hole
Stalag 17
Sabrina
The Seven Year Itch (that's not a bad one either)
The Spirit of St. Louis
Love in the Afternoon
Witness for the Prosecution
Some Like It Hot
The Apartment
Irma La Douce
The Private Life of Sherlock Holmes

[senseabove]

I’m amazed no one has mentioned Witness for the Prosecution yet; maybe it’s become a little oversaturated in the culture, but I think it’s so, so much fun. Maybe too much fun? It could definitely be accused (pun intended) of being a little thematically lightweight, but I love it in spite of that.

I loved Witness on my first go-round—it and Avanti! are the two I'm most excited to rewatch for this project.

DI is one that grew on me the last time I saw it, but I still think it's more influential than great. Some is in a similar place. If either or both end up on my list, they'll be there because I have the space and find them consistently enjoyable if not revelatory, so why not. But I'd put blanks over Ace and Lost Weekend, both of which I have an unusually strong loathing for.

Sunset Blvd is one of those classics I saw long ago before I liked "old movies" that, every time I watch it, I go into it expecting to like it less than I remember and come out loving just as much, if not more. If I make it through the rest of the movies I need to see for the first time or rewatch, maybe I'll try to give it another go and write up a bit why I still find it so good...

[therewillbeblus]

Glad to hear some more praise for The Lost Weekend, which is a part-dated, part-timelessly accurate picture of an alcoholic at his ‘bottom’ - all it’s interested in doing it does well and it’s a film that stays with me in appreciation long after I watch it. May as well post my thoughts from the 40s thread (and since I wrote up Five Graves to Cairo right before it, I’ll throw that in too)

Five Graves to Cairo: A supremely entertaining wartime spy/adventure film. Wilder does right by placing the audience deep into the mystical location of an island on land, easing the transition of one’s transportation into a fantasy world by layering this within the fantasy of movies themselves. Characters are well-conceived and their developments and motivations are explored naturally. It’s a tight film, with no fat and plenty of exciting plot twists and scenes of interplay and action from verbal spats to violence. These 90 minutes strung together make for one of the breeziest revisits I’ve experienced as of late, and I mean that as a high compliment. This is one of Wilder’s best and most enjoyable films.

The Lost Weekend: This couldn’t be more different: a tough watch but a great movie about alcoholism that I’ve only seen once before a long time ago (and I likely won’t be seeing it anytime soon). Wilder wisely roots his story in an isolated composite of a man powerless over his compulsions and hits some realistic behaviors of the destructive alcoholic. Some of the mannerisms can come across as perhaps a bit animated or exaggerated to some but I think they’re mostly authentic, especially as this is about a man scraping against the lowest surface of his own rock bottom. Details such as the desperate search for a bottle gone missing in a blackout, hanging them out of the windows by strings, the obsessive preoccupations, the empty promises, the rationalizations, the stealing, or the final hallucination of the rats and bats during a state of delirium tremens are disturbing realities. The script is rather validating for its time and Milland is a deserving recipient of his Oscar, never settling for ham as he easily could have during these early years as the concept of alcoholism in the public eye was only just forming, long before it was appreciated and twenty years before the APA or AMA publically gave it a diagnosis and recognized it a disease. It’s a hard film to place on a list because it’s greatness is devoid of any entertainment. While there have been better films made on addiction since, this gets a lot right for its time and doesn’t feel too dated in depicting the universal traits that were there 75 years ago and will be just as relevant in another 75. Highly recommended but only if you’re interested in this kind of presentation and willing to engage with the film on this level.

[Finch]

I rewatched Sunset Boulevard on Sony's streaming channel Crackle two nights ago and it remains one of the four of Wilder's films that remain stone-cold masterpieces for me, along with The Apartment and Double Indemnity and Ace In The Hole. If I had to level two really minor criticisms at the film, it's that the Gillis voiceover can be bit verbose at times, and that

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his character behaviour in the last few minutes feels a bit off in the sense that his decision to leave for Ohio comes a bit too sudden for my liking. He tells Betty he's got a good life here and he had to have figured in that she would leave him once he tells her that they're not going to be together. So when she does walk out on him, he suddenly decides he'd rather start over in Ohio than patching things up with Norma and be well off instead of struggling in Ohio? What I'd have found more credible is for him to welcome Betty in, tell Norma he's done with her and walk out with Betty. Norma shoots him while Betty gets the car.

There are a bunch of films of his that I'd stick in the worth seeing category, like Witness for the Prosecution and Stalag 17. I've not delved into his late period but am curious about Sherlock Holmes. I used to like Some Like It Hot. I can't remember any other film that has sunk so low in my estimation as this one. I usually like Jack Lemmon but he is so aggravating in this and much else in the film is fairly dire too.

But yeah, Ace In The Hole, Double Indemnity, Sunset Boulevard and The Apartment, which director wouldn't give their left arm to have done those?

[therewillbeblus]

I’m very curious to see some of its biggest champions write thoughts on The Apartment. I love the film, but I struggle to express why I adore it so much. I actually didn’t like it the first time I saw it, and it’s grown on me over the years upon each watch (probably five or six by now). The film is perfect in many respects, especially the writing and effortless pacing, though what I cannot adequately express is the magical light touch infusing its mood while the film somehow manages to still range from joyous laughter to despair, and find a sick sweet spot in the middle of dark comedy too. It’s a feeling of levitation, a warmth I don’t understand pragmatically, and whatever magic trick Wilder composed to provide that sensation and etch it into his movie for eternity I may never be able to explain. Maybe someone else here can.

I don’t need to sell that film, but I do intend to recruit people to see the light on Irma la Douce as Wilder’s second masterpiece.

[senseabove]

I would love for someone to sell me on Irma. My recollection of my first and only viewing is that what gets me through a good chunk of its unnecessary runtime is that I find Jack Lemmon committing to the bit to be a fascinating thing to watch (cf. The Great Race).

[domino harvey]

Watch it for the perversity of being a Hollywood musical with all of the numbers removed

[therewillbeblus]

Irma la Douce

This may not be Wilder's most perfect film, but a revisit only reinforces that it is every bit as intelligent, brave, and inspired. The opening minutes incorporate Wilder’s best strengths into a series of eclectic pitch-black gags, from the paradox of playful innocent manipulation, to voiceover narration making dry jokes about suicide as we get a tour of Paris, to a pimp’s violence transitioning indiscriminately across patrons. This sets up a risqué fairy tale that finds comedy and drama interchangeably connected, a challenging blend Wilder has always sought and rarely found with so much consistency. This time out he ups the ante in perversity, and part of the allure is how bold an undertaking it is to not only tackle, but stew in the subject matter, and then turn it into a lengthy opus that fulfills the beats of a 50s era musical drama while unapologetically attacking moral rigidity. Wilder already used daring premises in the past, including his best film, but here he destroys ideology and social norms with a wrecking ball, normalizing the truth beneath these constructed facades, and allowing Lemmon’s protagonist to be the naive square who must open his eyes to the shades of grey in this eye-popping colorful milieu of beautiful artifice.

Speaking of the art design, the film is bursting with color, and carries a vibrancy that - as domino says - appears to be on the brink of breaking into a Minnelli or Demy musical. Of course it was adapted from a French musical, and still has an enchanting score to elevate its spirit into the heavens. Though what makes it fall in suit with the familiar aura is the audacity breathing into every frame of the film, so confident in its execution that it’s challenging to divert attention between the strengths of the mile-a-minute gags and the strengths of the fearlessly stunning content. The momentum is compulsively digestible and exhausting, sometimes carrying several handfuls of diverse ideas at once (for example, the early prostitute roundup scene is like if Hawks directed Tati in a spitfire comedy), and while the film functions as a drama in framework, it’s just as much of a screwball comedy. The second half of the film uses Shakespearean disguise antics that are silly and touching, another example of the familiar theatrical arcs twisted to an eccentric lot that might as well be another planet.

Lemmon and MacLaine are such oddball characters to counter the strikingly normal folks in The Apartment, but Wilder is able to locate similar cores in humanity and illustrate the opportunities in self-actualization through sacrificing judgment and joining in that simple emotional energy. The overarching joke is that, while personal development is nothing new, in this case the flexibility Lemmon must initiate is to disregard socially accepted morals on top of one’s defective ego, with a peripheral expansion landing in a space few feel comfortable going let alone accept as truth! Of course Lemmon is a good guy, but he’s the outlier, and even if having a conscience is celebrated, Wilder sides with the rest of the community that if that conscience comes at the expense of participating in the world as it is you can’t make it any better, or see what it has to give.

This is, above all else, a very sweet film, and mimics The Apartment more than a little in this domain. The tonal balance has never been done better, except maybe in that film, and it really is a marvel that anyone can pull off this many moods, visual ideas, and layered verbal webs of seemingly every emotion flowing throughout a given scene. This is Wilder at his best, and why he’s so beloved, because in the few occasions that he can lock his talents in place, pulsating explosions of all the strengths of cinema are born, die, and are born again, over and over in rapid succession like a reincarnated line of inventions picked up and tossed aside by a genius at work. This film holds this manic process under a tender, cohesive umbrella of atmosphere and compassion to flaunt its wry dialogue, inspired sight gags, lavish setpieces, and dark social unveilings that we must accept along the way.

Early on the bartender tells Lemmon that he’s an honest man in a dishonest world. I think Wilder sees this “dishonest” world as one side of the honesty we need to acknowledge and cope with in order to find the humility necessary to live life on life’s terms. Through self-compromise, empathy, suffering, and a lot of laughter, we can learn to see the colors and the grey, which holds a whole new variety of elevated hues. Wilder sees these colors, and it’s a shame I don’t love him more because we speak the same language, but I’m incredibly grateful that he made at least two movies that I adore so much they soar above most courageous efforts that attempt the same collage of design. After deconstructing norms and allowing his characters to grow, Wilder even rebuilds the walls to accept various ideologies too, suggesting that the key to life isn't any kind of revolutionary nihilism but elasticity in attitude.

How can someone slow their own pandemonium down to access deep insight and sentiment whilst appropriately interrupting such revelations to impulsively drop jokes without feeling forced or unwelcome? I don't know, but I also don't know how he did this in The Apartment, so I'll just continue to admire this massive recontextualization of the musical, silent slapstick, quick-witted screwball, stage drama, romance-adventure epic, a few surprise genres, and moviemaking in general. Hopefully people check this one out and I pray you can see what I do.

[Drucker]

Watched A Foreign Affair tonight, which has been sitting on my shelf for a few years. A bit disappointing overall, though the tonal shift in the last 30 minutes nearly won me over. The film resembles Ninotchka a bit, with a straight-laced government official (in this case congresswoman) clearly ready to be 'loosened up'. But in the Lubitsch film, we get a character who is won over against her will, despite the best efforts of her comrades time and time again. Here, John Lund's character is rather manipulative and quite cruel. It's...just not fun? I could see a world where the love triangle is effectively zany, but it doesn't land in this film. And then his character realizing the Nazi he was in love with was like a really big Nazi and that makes it worse isn't that effective either. I did like the last thirty minutes, and kind of wish that was the tone the whole film had, but it's not quite sitting too well with me. The on-location photography may be the best part of the film.

[therewillbeblus]

Ball of Fire
The central conceit in and of itself provides a whole heap of potential for humor, and Wilder and Brackett take advantage of it well. I’ve seen this one a lot over the years, and I’m still not convinced that the film rises above its perfect first act, but that’s fine because great efforts are made to maintain consistency for nearly two hours and plenty of successful deadpan conflicts of social mannerisms are jammed into that time. Stanwyck’s sexual charge and innate confidence manifests as worldly knowledge once again though pared against the sheltered academics only accentuates her screen power, transforming that allure of personality into a joke on its own. Her willingness to play along with the group of scholars to expand their experience feels collaboratively altruistic to combat her selfish side.

As a lover of slang and an enthusiast for sociological idiosyncrasies in cultural practices as well as general social skills in interpersonal engagement, this strokes a personal intellectual interest and hits a funny bone simultaneously. The film also knocks on the door of my favorite subject in the emotional disabling the logical parts of us when it counts, though this revelation is never realised to the extent it could be and the last act falls into the lazy trap of predictable dull conflict. The way this is handled clearly indicates that Wilder and Brackett have no interest in the romantic component though, and the constant derailments back to the comedic social cacophony save this film from drowning in inevitable convention, especially the endearing final setpiece. The strengths of the script give this a shot at the top ten, even with the minor yet glaring faults.


One, Two, Three
On a second viewing, I didn’t hate this but I didn’t much like it either. As others have said it’s exhausting and not in a good way, with so many jokes failing miserably and all the worse for discharging them with such brash conviction. Wilder attempting to fuse loony breakneck histrionics with exploitation of sociopolitical ideology is an ambitious undertaking, and in many ways this is the opposite of Irma la Douce, which shouldn’t work at all either but somehow manages to due to patience and care. This film contrarily feels rushed, the gags forced, and concepts beaten into an attempted narrative whole.

Having now stripped the film down, I’ll admit that while flawed, there is fun to be had. If one gives Wilder some rope here, it’s more interesting to view this through his own lens of destroying ideology to reveal farcical fraudulence in every character and their opinions, skewering not only capitalism and communism but people in general. The characters are all so unlikeable that if I assume Wilder is making a Hawks screwball where all the characters are authenticity robbed of their virtues and their interesting qualities, it’s a satisfying bold deconstruction of the genre, boiled down to discrediting all value in these caricatures except as sounding boards to be laughed at as they preach into the void.

That doesn’t fix the fact that there are little laughs, but I found myself far more amused at the failures of the subjects to find validation and objectively reduced to pathetic positions of empty endeavors. This isn’t nihilism so much as putting the microscope on the meaninglessness in selling oneself to an institution or cause rather than exploring their own identity as separate from social holds. Lanthimos does all of this better though, thankfully with less erratic mania. As the film progressed the jokes landed more frequently, and the communist boyfriend's powerless cries were the hysterical next to Cagney's vacant capitalist pod, who is so dull he arguably makes capitalism look worse out of fear of the consequential soul-lobotomy. Horst Buchholz's Otto steals scenes in the second half, and without him I don't know if I could throw this film a bone at all. It's a mess, but a curious failure in presenting the blueprint for a 'wild, fun film' that is so dark in juxtaposing its high-wire tone with horridly vapid people, jokes, and insipid motives, to produce a contrast so strange on multiple layers that it winds up being fun only because of abandoning allegiance to any idea, person, or individual joke. The final collective is the black hole of meaning in substance, which might not make this good but there is enjoyment in that perspective. Hey, maybe it is nihilistic.


Bluebeard’s Eighth Wife
Well this was just a delightful, witty script all around, with genius developmental flow in a no-fat mysterious first act that never lets up in spinning surprises of dark, sharp jokes and comfortable charm until we realize that the film is almost over. I’m surprised this was made several years into the Code as it feels even more risqué than some of Lubitsch’s earlier works, and is immensely clever in its linguistic games and expressive punchlines. Cooper has never been funnier, Colbert is a strong sparring partner, and Niven plays into his greatest (and often underutilized) strengths in stupefied diffidence. All the supporting players are top-notch, including a cameo from Charles Halton who has a great one-liner to procure one of the film's best visual gags.

I didn’t find the last act to be a lull at all, but instead the shift provided an entirely different platform that twisted power dynamics to reveal a hidden closet full of new gags, similar to the structure of The Lady Eve's backhalf. Some of the more dire jokes elicited the loudest laughs (the punchline on the fates of the wives, the hired heavy’s masochism, the father’s subconscious impulse to prostitute his own daughter with dollar-sign eyes) and when I wasn’t laughing I sat in awe at the intelligence of the narrative composition, flawless script, and deft Lubitsch touch.

Watching this makes me want to go back through the few other Lubitsch sound films I haven’t seen yet, as this immediately became one of my absolute favorites of his and I had never even heard of it before this project. Wilder and Brackett deserve a lot of the credit for one of their very best screenplays, and this should place near the top of my list, along with the other Lubitsch collaboration, Ninotchka.

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I’m glad you enjoyed Bluebeard so much, TWBB! The steam runs out a bit for me after Cooper and Colbert get married, but everything up to that point is as brilliant as you’ve said. The running gag about pajama bottoms is just so astonishingly deft that it almost makes me angry.

[Sloper]

Re: Finch's comment on Sunset Boulevard above:

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[Joe Gillis'] character behaviour in the last few minutes feels a bit off in the sense that his decision to leave for Ohio comes a bit too sudden for my liking. He tells Betty he's got a good life here and he had to have figured in that she would leave him once he tells her that they're not going to be together. So when she does walk out on him, he suddenly decides he'd rather start over in Ohio than patching things up with Norma and be well off instead of struggling in Ohio? What I'd have found more credible is for him to welcome Betty in, tell Norma he's done with her and walk out with Betty. Norma shoots him while Betty gets the car.

Joe has a really interesting moral arc in this film. To begin with, he's exploiting Norma, and the film works hard to show us how his desperate situation makes this an understandable decision; we also sense that Norma is using and manipulating him in her own way.

When he finds out (at the New Year's party) that she's fallen in love with him, his discomfort reaches breaking point and he decides to leave her - but after her suicide attempt, he stays with her out of pity and concern.

That's also the point where he stops avoiding the writing opportunity with Betty, and starts sneaking out at night to fulfil his own interests, but then he feels guilty for wooing Artie's fiancée; and then he also starts to feel guilty for reinforcing Max's deception of Norma.

The whole situation is approaching boiling point when Norma brings things to a head: she gets jealous, phones Betty, and thus prompts Gillis to finally settle both of his moral quandaries, one after the other.

He invites Betty over and presents his situation to her in the most sordid possible light, pretending that he's totally happy and comfortable with it so that she will despise him, abandon him, and return to Artie. But we can see his face when Betty can't: the truth is that, since New Year's Eve, he's been staying with Norma because it seemed like the right thing to do, and now it doesn't so he's going back to Ohio. Essentially he's come to feel that Max's lies are just as unethical as his (Joe's) initial exploitation of Norma, and he can't go along with them anymore.

I don't think you're quite right about the chronology at the end: Norma doesn't shoot Joe as Betty gets in the car. She hears Betty leaving and thanks Joe for getting rid of her, tragically clinging to the hope that he's committing to her (Norma) once and for all. She's shocked to realise that he's finally leaving and she can't stop him - except by gunning him down, a classic melodramatic gesture ('Nobody leaves a star, that's what makes someone a star') which Joe hilariously resists by carrying on walking, even trying to pick up his dropped suitcase after the first two shots...and which sends Norma spiralling into a state of complete, Hollywood-infused delusion.

The more I've watched this film over the years, the more impressed I've been by how cleverly the screenplay is constructed, and how well the protagonist's moral/emotional progression is drawn through an accumulation of small details.

[Finch]

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He invites Betty over and presents his situation to her in the most sordid possible light, pretending that he's totally happy and comfortable with it so that she will despise him, abandon him, and return to Artie. But we can see his face when Betty can't: the truth is that, since New Year's Eve, he's been staying with Norma because it seemed like the right thing to do, and now it doesn't so he's going back to Ohio. Essentially he's come to feel that Max's lies are just as unethical as his (Joe's) initial exploitation of Norma, and he can't go along with them anymore.

I don't think you're quite right about the chronology at the end: Norma doesn't shoot Joe as Betty gets in the car. She hears Betty leaving and thanks Joe for getting rid of her, tragically clinging to the hope that he's committing to her (Norma) once and for all. She's shocked to realise that he's finally leaving and she can't stop him - except by gunning him down, a classic melodramatic gesture ('Nobody leaves a star, that's what makes someone a star') which Joe hilariously resists by carrying on walking, even trying to pick up his dropped suitcase after the first two shots...and which sends Norma spiralling into a state of complete, Hollywood-infused delusion.

Thanks for that post, sloper. In that light, I can buy more into Gillis's behavior at this particular point.

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Re your second point about the chronology, I think you misunderstood what I meant. I was proposing an alternative scenario where Joe and Betty walked out together and that while Betty gets the car, Norma shoots him. My interpretation of Joe at the point of Betty's arrival wasn't as positive as yours (i.e. sacrificing his relationship with Betty so she can go back to Artie because he realises Artie is better for her than he is) so to me, the scene in the film didn't make as much sense to me, hence my alternative scenario.

[therewillbeblus]

Thanks for that Sloper, while the film has dwindled in its capacity for my engagement over the years that’s a pretty thorough rundown of how Wilder’s moral ambiguity can be stretched to a place that contrasts the ego and the will.

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Joe’s attempt to “do the right thing” goes from that focus on himself, to selfless pity, to ultimate self-destruction as he has spun his identity so thin that he has become worthless and must reclaim his will through seeing that none of these roles or motives were honest, even when they came from a place he believed was ethical. Is that another statement from Wilder about how human beings subscribe to morals through ideology and tangible gesture only to come up empty, with the facades showing in diminished returns? I don’t know but I do believe that Joe’s empowerment at the end comes as a result of the authentic realization that his conscience has tricked him into abandoning his own self-interests and thus his dignity and worth.

It’s a bitter pill to swallow, and appears as nihilistic, but in returning to zero we can either read his actions as hopelessly suicidal or self-actualized commitment, and if the latter- not a disregard for the conscience completely but a sideways kind of growth where we can acknowledge that our moral pull will exist along with our selfish magnetism, and that somewhere in between is the key to being: respecting others but not at the expense of ourselves, and vice versa. What looks like nihilism is a call for finding the grey space in the lies of a world made to appear as black and white, something that Joe may only be beginning to understand when it’s too late, but the sacrifice of his own desires and his empathy for multiple people at the end, including self-compassion, save this from a meaningless piece of fatalism.