Three Billy Wilder Films on Self-Respect

Much goes on in these movies directed by Billy Wilder, but an important theme in each is self-respect.

Title: The Apartment (1960)
Language: English
Rating: Not rated

The main characters in The Apartment are commodities, useful to the executives in the company they work for. C.C. Baxter (Jack Lemmon) is a corporate drone who lets the higher-ups use his apartment for extra-marital hookups. Fran Kubelik (Shirley MacLaine) is an elevator girl who has made terrible relationship choices. One executive in particular, Jeff Sheldrake (Fred MacMurray), has them living in the palm of his hand. They look to him to make their lives better, even though he's a major source of their problems.

By the end of The Apartment, both Baxter and Kubelik gain some self-respect. The movie plays out as a comedy sometimes, a drama too (with MacLaine's performance really holding the movie together and giving it its emotional weight). It's also a romance, though I didn't care much about Baxter and Kubelik getting together. They break free of Sheldrake, and the movie ends with a card game, which struck me as a reminder that they've now entered a chancier sort of life. They've lost some security in their future. Before, life played out predictably. Their increased self-respect is worth it, but it's risky. At least now they're stronger and can bear those risks.

Turgenev, narrating an event he says he has no right to witness

When living in Paris in the late 19th century, Ivan Turgenev got invited to a behind-the-scenes look at a public execution. “The Execution of Tropmann” is what he wrote in response. (And what I recently read for Deal Me in 2017.)

The essay ultimately questions the use of capital punishment - and, more strongly, capital punishment carried out in front of a public audience.

But Turgenev tries not to hammer readers with his point-of-view. His approach is to lay out a narrative of the hours leading up to the execution.

M (1931): How Beckert Throws Society Off-Balance

Title: M
Director: Fritz Lang
Language: German
Rating: Not rated

Towards the end of M, a child murderer asks an assemblage of criminals, "Who knows what it's like to be me?"

It's a line from one of the most well-acted monologues I've ever watched on-screen, delivered by Peter Lorre - an actor usually best known for playing disturbing individuals. In this case, his character forces people to consider the limitations of earthly justice.

Lorre plays Hans Beckert, a small man, boyishly plump, who for much of the movie strolls the streets of a German city anonymously. He's responsible for a series of child murders (it's also all but explicitly stated that he has a sexual interest in his victims). The crimes remain off-screen. What we see is Beckert passing through the city, whistling "In the Hall of the Mountain King" in the presence of children he wants to prey on. He lures them with toys, candies, and balloons. What we also see is a mother, waiting for a child who never returns from school. And there are scenes of the city in a panic, people pointing fingers at each other and sending letters to the police that accuse their neighbors.

Two Movies Directed by Henry Hathaway: Call Northside 777 (1948) and Kiss of Death (1947)

I don't know much about this director, but wound up by coincidence watching two of his movies fairly close together. It turns out he's directed some famous westerns, but the following two movies aren't. They're worth watching most for certain characterizations, striking visuals, and - for the first one mentioned here - historical interest too.

7 stories from around the world

Story Collection: World Literature: An Anthology of Great Short Stories, Drama, and Poetry
Editor: Donna Rosenberg

Title: The Doctor's Divorce
Author: S.Y. Agnon (Shmuel Yosef or Shai Agnon)
Translator: (Info not provided)
"The Doctor's Divorce" shows a man trapped in a self-fulfilling prophecy. A doctor starts up a relationship with a nurse at his hospital and marries her; from early on, there are signs that his ability to love people (instead of just claiming possession of them) is questionable. When she tells him there was another man in her past, he begins to pretend in an exaggerated, unconvincing way that it doesn't bother him, even as he thinks about it obsessively. He just knows that the existence of this other man will drive a wedge between him and his wife. And that's what happens, but only because he can't let the matter drop. He kills any chance of intimacy or happiness with his wife; maybe he's incapable of being in a relationship that has either of those qualities.