domino harvey wrote: ↑Mon Jul 20, 2020 3:35 am
hearthesilence wrote: ↑Mon Jul 20, 2020 3:12 am
Unfortunately there's no William Wyler thread, perhaps understandably, but I'll post this here since it concerns Olivier just as much.
Wyler is not one of my favorites, and I'm certainly not alone as his reputation has taken a serious beating for a very long time. But as Kent Jones, David Thomson and Howard Hampton have pointed out, "it’s grossly unfair to make an also-ran out of someone who was able to deliver studio films as intelligent and affecting as
The Best Years of Our Lives,
The Letter (1940),
Dodsworth (1936), and
Carrie (the wrenching 1952 adaption of Theodore Dreiser’s
Sister Carrie)." I've seen just two of the films listed there, and they do make a great argument in his favor. (As mentioned in the John Huston thread, no filmmaker or artist deserves to be completely dismissed or devalued if they've done great work, even if their entire output is often disappointing.)
I noticed in one of my five-year posts above that I came across an article singling out
Carrie as the best cinematic proof of Olivier's worth as an actor. I wish I hadn't forgotten that, but it wasn't until now with the ongoing pandemic that DVDs and streaming have taken up most of my viewing. (For the most part, I had been relying on Blu-Rays and whatever was programmed at a local venue, which was more than enough to keep me occupied.)
I never heard anyone bring up
Carrie as a defense for Wyler either, at least not until recently when I came across supportive remarks made by Thomson, Hampton, possibly Jones (can't remember if he vouched for it as well) and the late Elliott Stein, so I finally gave it a chance. I wasn't eager to see it before due to Wyler's most famous collaboration with Olivier,
Wuthering Heights. A poor adaptation, it made Olivier a star and it was distinguished by Gregg Toland's cinematography, but its merits as a film and Olivier's performance have been torn apart by Wyler's detractors for good reason.
Michael Billington is not wrong, and
Carrie is a wonderful surprise. I'm reluctant to call it a great film, but it's certainly no embarrassment to Dreiser's celebrated masterwork. The film is indeed wrenching largely because of Olivier, and that is a revelation because this is the first time I've been genuinely and thoroughly moved by an Olivier performance. To be fair, I still have not seen his recorded stage performances (it's often said his legend truly rests there, not on-screen), and the best and most memorable performances I've seen involved scoundrels - Richard III, Archie Rice, Christian Szell - so it comes down partly to his choice of roles, but he brings such a profound sadness this film, it may very well be my favorite Olivier performance. Absolutely wonderful.
Wyler’s output is not “often disappointing”... you’ve obv done a board search for Wyler to find there was no dedicated thread and so you surely must have seen he’s actually quite broadly well-liked here, and for good reason? “Understandably” a filmmaker thread only gets created when someone has the impetus to make one, and given Wyler’s enormous filmography (which you should see more of before taking your chosen critics’ opinions as your own), I can’t blame anyone for not carving out a couple hours to do the thankless task
Dom, I welcome any disagreement, but this escalation is completely unwarranted.
I'm not sure if this needs a point-by-point rebuttal, but 1) searching "Wyler" by title doesn't inform anyone how broadly liked he is here. For whatever reason, in the past I haven't seen that many posts about Wyler. I'm sure they're there, but anything can be missed in the labyrinth that is a message forum. 2) I welcome disagreement, not insults. You're apparently an enormous fan, so I can forgive the uncharitable and dishonest distortion of "taking my chosen critics' opinions as my own." Ben-Hur, Jezebel, Funny Girl, Roman Holiday, Wuthering Heights (which I mentioned), The Westerner, Mrs. Miniver, Detective Story, Friendly Persuasion, The Big Country, How to Steal a Million, at least a few more - that may not be a majority of his films, but it's not an inadequate sampling, and I was disappointed, immensely disappointed with some. Against three or four that I actually like, that's often. 3) I was under the impression only mods could start threads - I can't tell if there's the implication that I could have started one, but regardless, if pointing out the absence of one was somehow insulting to a mod (whether it insinuates laziness or anything else), apologies, that was never the intention or implication.
And I find this far more disappointing than anything else. I've found greater appreciation in a filmmaker's work, enough that it leaves me optimistic that there's more to discover or revisit. That was the motivation for posting anything to begin with, but that means nothing. If someone came along and told me they hated Prince, his work is often disappointing, but they finally listened to
Dirty Mind based on his boosters' recommendations and loved it, never would it occur to me to throw cheap shots as my first reaction.