I've mentioned on not a few
occasions that Billy Wilder is my favourite movie-maker of all time. Quentin
Tarantino is up there, as is Spike Lee, David Mamet, David Fincher, John
Hughes, and other honourable mentions. However, insofar as I've been able to
recognize, Wilder was not limited to any single genre - whatever style he
approached, he nailed it.
The
first Wilder movie I ever saw was not chosen because it was Wilder. I knew
nothing of plot, didn't go looking particularly for it; I was at the video
store (back when one went to video stores to rent videos), and decided to start
getting through some classics. I saw the case, it had some award mentions on
it, so I said "Okay, let's watch this tonight."
That movie was Double
Indemnity, it had me from the opening to the close, and was the beginning
of a journey of movie-making discovery I'm still travelling.
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