Billy Wilder’s Experiential Film Education: Experience, Reflection, and Experimentation A dissertation submitted to the Graduate School Of the University of Cincinnati in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in the Department of German Studies of the College of Arts and Sciences by Deborah Page B.A. Ashland University, 1977 M.A. Ohio University, 1979 Committee Chair: Todd Herzog, PhD July 17, 2018. Abstract In this dissertation, Billy Wilder: Experience, Reflection, and Experimentation, I use an interdisciplinary approach to investigate Billy Wilder’s early experiences and journalistic writing and compare these to his later screenplays and film aesthetic to provide a rationale for how he learned and developed in his career. Wilder’s journalistic writing at several newspapers in Vienna and Berlin, and his literary writing highlight the reflections he engaged in. These reflections provide early evidence of his ability in character development and various dramatic structures, as well as his finely developed sense of wit and social satire that are apparent in his films. I have selected films with original screenplays written by Wilder, and two by Wilder and his long-term co-writers Charles Brackett and I.A.L. Diamond, rather than adaptations of existing plays or stories, to illustrate the experimental component of his experiential education. The theoretical underpinning for this study is David Kolb’s experiential learning model (1984). This approach gives a new perspective in understanding Billy Wilder’s work and expands the functionality of experiential learning theory. 1 2 Acknowledgements Heartfelt thanks go to my committee, and especially my advisor, Todd Herzog, for the encouragement and guidance as I worked on this project. I would also like to thank UC Blue Ash Deans Bardes, Cady-Short-Thompson and Robin Lightner for their personal and professional support. I am grateful to the Deutsche Kinemathek Archiv in Berlin, Germany and the Filmarchiv Austria in Vienna for the resources made available to me, without which this dissertation would not be possible. Special thanks go to family members Irene Burger, Martin Page, and Kristen Page for their patience and loving support. 3 Billy Wilder’s Experiential Film Education: Experience, Reflection, and Experimentation Table of Contents Abstract 1 Chapter 1 Introduction 5 Chapter 2 Theoretical Basis 25 Chapter 3 Experiences and Reflection 38 Chapter 4 Active Experimentation 67 Chapter 5 Conclusion 84 Appendices Appendix 1: Der Teufelsreporter: Zwischentitel 87 Appendix 2: Billy Wilder’s Journalistic Writing in Vienna 104 Works Cited 133 4 Chapter 1 Introduction Billy Wilder is one of Hollywood’s most successful writers, directors and producers. Born in Sucha, Galicia in 1906, his Jewish family had moved to Catholic Vienna prior to the outbreak of World War I. Although unable to obtain Austrian citizenship, the family remained and Wilder attended school, completing his Matura, and rather than pursuing additional education as his father wanted, he began to work as a journalist. He sought permission. To report on a traveling jazz group to Berlin, and never returned. Berlin is where he began his film career, which eventually led to Hollywood. Wilder did receive money from his father for a proposed typing/stenography course, which Wilder used to pay for a storefront window he had broken (Chandler, 30). There were also rumors of a brief sojourn at the University of Vienna to study law, for which there is no evidence, and which Wilder explains as exposes as incorrect (Chandler, 35). Although Wilder did complete the Matura, he is reported to have spent his high school days in movie theaters whenever he could sneak away (Chandler, 34). There is also no evidence that he had any formal training in screenplay writing, directing or producing. The question I investigate is how he learned the skills of observation he later evidences in the characters in his films, how he was able to practice those skills, and how he put his new insights into practice. Using David Kolb’s experiential learning model (1984), I will discuss the events Wilder experienced as a young man, followed by an explanation of his use of them as he advanced his journalism and literary career. This discussion will provide an explanation for his success in the film making business and form the corpus of his education. The theoretical model includes a series of 5 required components, including experiences, reflection and experimentation. I will discuss Wilder’s activities in each component. This study will attempt to discover and define how Billy Wilder obtained both theoretical and skills-based knowledge, given his lack of formal training beyond the Matura. I will begin with a general review of knowledge and learning theory, tracing major developments in history that influenced experiential learning theory. I will present the basic tenets of experiential learning theory, and examine Billy Wilder’s early writing and experiences specifically identifying the work with regard to the kind of development evidenced in it. I propose that Wilder’s career experiences and journalistic writing form the basis of learning as defined by experiential learning theory. Wilder’s various experiences and published as well as anecdotal writing, along with interviews of him, will be analyzed to illustrate how he obtained the necessary knowledge to create characters, write scenes, and structure three act screenplays. Finally, an analysis of Wilder’s original screenplays will illustrate the extent of that development. Although he experienced undisputed success, winning multiple awards over his 50-year film making career, and earning critical positive reviews, scholarship on his work is sparse. For many years, there was limited research into his unique film projects, but recently, interest has expanded to examine the content of his films with critical analyses. Past scholarship can be grouped into several major categories that include biographies, interviews, and film analysis manuscripts and articles. These include analysis of individual or groups of films and Wilder’s role as an emigrant/immigrant film maker. Nearly all of the scholarship on Wilder’s career include personal and biographical information about him, his films and his advice for other film makers, with a significant overlap in all categories. 6 Most previous analysis of Wilder is focused on film analysis, often about an individual film, about a group of films from a specific range of dates, about his comedic, or dramatic films as a group, or about his films as seen in their totality. There is an area of Wilder scholarship that centers on analysis of individual films in which scholars often refer to Wilder’s life experiences that influenced his writing,. The fact that very little is written on screenplay structure and how Wilder came to learn and apply traditional literary form to his screenplays, I propose that a new way to understand Billy Wilder is through an analysis of his life experiences, and how Wilder’s subsequent activities caused evolved cognition, such that he had the requisite knowledge to be able to succeed in the film business. Wilder’s experiences and journalistic activities are not merely work he completed, but comprise two key components of experiential learning theory. Everyone, including Wilder, has everyday experiences, but these are not automatically converted to new insights or learning. I will discuss how Wilder’s journalistic and literary writing are the second necessary component of experiential learning theory. I propose that Wilder used his experiences and early writing to play the role of Wilder’s informal education. While Richard Armstrong (2009) stated that Wilder was a product of the Paramount University training system, I argue that Wilder had already accumulated a wealth of experiences and had acquired a broad array of writing and filmmaking skills prior to arriving in Hollywood. The model proposed by Kolb will explain how these previous experiences were key in the experiential model, leading to a more complete explanation of Wilder’s informal education. Since Wilder did not have any formal training beyond the Matura and can be thought of in a romantic sense as a self-made Hollywood man who happened to be a genius, Kolb’s experiential learning models provide a theoretical framework to explain how Wilder obtained the 7 knowledge he needed to conceptualize his screenplays and later produce and direct pictures. The experiential learning model allows an analysis of how Wilder reflected upon events and knowledge gleaned from them, and how he practiced, and later used these insights in his later screenplays. Billy Wilder’s life is documented in a series of books and articles that include interviews, biographies or an analysis of one or more of his films within the context of him as an immigrant film maker. It is only by reading all of them that a more complete, and possibly correct representation of Wilder is possible. One will highlight an amusing anecdote, another will provide the background, and yet another will address the repercussions. These documents and manuscripts always highlight Wilder’s keen eye for societal shortcomings, which he served up with wit and satire. Little is written on how Wilder came to learn and apply traditional literary form to his screenplays. Wilder often referred to a three-act structure, the necessity of a hook in Act 1, clarity and set up for the ending of the story in Act 2, and finally the conclusion. This dramatic structure gets the significant attention, as he routinely commented on the importance of it to avoid major errors in film construction. Where did he gain this knowledge of literary theory? In what is one of the definitive later interviews of Wilder by Volker Schlöndorff and Hellmuth Karasek, Billy Wilder, wie haben Sie’s gemacht? (1998), the now mature film maker speaks in German with his German biographer and a young German film maker as the equals they are, addressing his underlying theories of filmmaking and writing, and of course, including anecdotes.