ElMaruecan82
Billy Wilder is celebrated for a streak of movies that starts with the groundbreaking film-noir "Double Indemnity" and "Lost Weekend" and ends with the comedy classics "Some Like it Hot" and "The Apartment". In between, you have such titles as "Sunset Blvd.", "Stalag 17", Sabrina" and "Witness for the Prosecution", I guess if any movie lover was asked about the 10 greatest movies from the Golden Age, a fistful of Billy Wilder films would be mentioned.This is just to say that this is the kind of legacy a foreign director, who escaped from the Nazis and never got rid of his German accent, can be damn proud of, he literally owned American cinema and defined many genres. After the sixties, he still had a share of enjoyable movies but they never reached the same iconic status. And when the New Hollywood was built on the ruins of the studio system, Billy Wilder became the incarnation of old school, conventional cinema: big names, big stars and big stories. Wilder's motto was "thou shall not bore the audience" but then came a time where moviegoers, mostly grown-up baby boomers, were enthralled by the spectacle of Bonnie and Clyde's machine-guns, the French Connection' chase, Scorsese's mean streets and the intimacy of the Corleone family. Wilder became the bore, audience-wise."Those kids with beards are running things" laments the has-been Larry Detweiller aka "Dutch" played remarkably by William Holden, and his words couldn't have echoed more Billy Wilder's resentment toward the new ways of Hollywood or what was left of it. In the midst of the raging bulls and easy riders' era, the merit of "Fedora" is to provide the interesting insight from a director of the old generation. When the time of Ford, Minnelli or Hitchcock was over, Wilder was still here and made one, deliberately conventional and classic move… or movie, so against the current it was meant to fail. But now, after four decades, "Fedora" has aged surprisingly well. It's not a masterpiece but the story is likely to content the movie lovers we are.In fact, it illustrates this quote from Jean-Luc Godard: "the best way to criticize a film is to make one". And Billy Wilder, adapting the novel 'Crowned Heads', paid a tribute to the Golden Age through the portrayal of Fedora, a star who used to be big but then saw her stardom fade, only to resurrect a few years after. When asked if there was any similarity between "Fedora" and "Sunset Blvd.", Wilder naively said no, but even though it wasn't intentional, one can't have a cinema-themed Billy Wilder's film, featuring William Holden, much more in the narrator's role, and not have "Sunset Blvd." in mind. If anything, the film comes full circle with the classic noir: in the 70's, the Golden Age was the silent era, they didn't need blazing guns and naked breasts, only dialogues and faces.Fedora was the biggest of her time, mentioning real-life stars and fictional movies as if the film was set in a parallel universe yet close to the reality, just like Norma Desmond interacting with Cecil B. De Mille, as to emphasize the dream-like aura of Hollywood. Then she abruptly ended her career and lived in in remote locations on the Riviera and started to make movies again after a few years of absence, this is where Dutch comes, trying to approach her to star in an adaptation of Anna Karenina, He notices some strange happenings, Fedora seems imprisoned by a group of people as colorful as intimidating: an old Countess with a husky voice (Hildegard Knef), a mysterious plastic surgeon played by Jose Ferrer and a sinister watchdog played by Frances Sternhagen (she was the sheriff's wisecracking wife in "Misery").The "Sunset Blvd." déjà vu deepens and Dutch' investigation leads to the ultimate revelation about the story of Fedora. And it is intriguing and haunting within its own limitation with a fascinating mix of real actors like Henry Fonda and Michael York, in the intrigue. The main problem with the film is that the peripheral characters actually work better than the central one, Holden is perfect but like many critics pointed out, there had to be an actress of Marlene Dietrich' caliber to play the faded star because the flashbacks don't leave us with the conviction of a Golden Age aura on Fedora. There had to be a Katharine or Audrey Hepburn, Ingrid Bergman, but I guess the film was victim of its era, Wilder didn't have the same touch and only his old buddy William Holden was here to close the loop with "Sunset Blvd.".But I love the way the film feels like a swan song of the old school and close the curtain on Wilder's five-decade contribution to Cinema, as if he was paying a final tribute to his art. He would later make a film with Lemmon and Matthau, a remake of a French classic farce but the film was of such abysmal quality it was dismissed as part of Wilder's canon, and "Fedora" is a worthy ending to his prolific career. I didn't necessarily enjoy the film, I would say I watched it with mere curiosity, able to appreciate its intent more than its result, but the making of the film is very fascinating, seeing the old Wilder wrestling with the new system to get his film made, along with I.A.L Diamond, is a great lesson of humility and determination.After knowing the truth about Fedora, which is a self-referential cased of Naked Empress, Dutch says it would make a better story than the one he had in mind; I guess the same goes with the making of 'Fedora',
Martin Bradley
"Fedora" was Billy Wilder's last masterpiece, a perfect companion piece to "Sunset Boulevard" down to the casting of William Holden as the male lead, (here he's a down-on-his-luck producer rather than a struggling writer), and it is shamefully undervalued as if the film's very artifice isn't worth taking seriously, (indeed someone described the film to me as being so camp all the female roles should be played by drag-queens, missing the point by a mile). While at times darkly funny and certainly cynical, it is also deeply moving in ways we simply don't expect from Wilder. This is a movie that betrays an old master's love of movies, no longer biting the hand that feeds him but longing for the good old days when movie stars had faces that the camera adored. The story may be largely far-fetched, full of clever in-jokes and allusions to "Sunset Boulevard" and other movies about the movies but it remains a deeply affectionate homage rather than a mere pastiche; a triumph of style embracing content.Holden's uncertain acting may be the weakest thing in the picture, (it might have felt like a good idea at the time to cast the star of "Sunset Boulevard" but it doesn't really pay off), but to our surprise, the astonishing performances of both Marthe Keller and Hildegard Knef more than compensate; even Jose Ferrer is good here. And who, amongst movie lovers, won't be brought to tears by the scene in which Henry Fonda, playing himself, comes to deliver Fedora's honoury Oscar? View this, not as some half-hearted tribute-cum-horror movie about fading movie queens and the legacy and legend of Garbo but as a very great director's love letter to the industry that nurtured him and to the magic of cinema in general. Surely now this is ripe for rediscovery.
writers_reign
For Wilder buffs - and what serious film fan isn't - his penultimate film is a referentialists dream. The setting, Corfu, is not a million miles from Ischia, the setting for Avanti and where Avanti boasted two stiffs Fedora boasts one in a literal sense and one in a symbolic sense. The casting of Bill Holden in the lead invites direct comparison with Sunset Boulevard where a young Holden (Joe Gillis) lucked into an ageing movie star by chance and exploited the situation to the full; here, an older Holden (Barry Detweiler) contrives to get next to an ageing movie star who, he hopes, can rescue his flagging career. Wilder manages some pertinent barbs at the 'new' schools and practitioners of film-making, makes some risible casting choices in minor roles - Ferdy Mayne, Michael York, Marte Keller - but generally pulls off another minor gem. Well worth a place in any Wilder DVD collection.
bkoganbing
William Holden made his fourth and final film for Billy Wilder who he always considered his lucky director. With such films as Sunset Boulevard, Stalag 17, and Sabrina to their credit who wouldn't consider that lucky? Fedora doesn't quite belong in the same category as those others from the golden years of Wilder and Holden. Still it's an interesting film to watch and you can never make a visually bad film in the Grecian Isles.Holden plays Barry Detweiler an interesting older variation on Joe Gillis from Sunset Boulevard. Imagine if Gillis had avoided Norma Desmond's bullets and had gone on to a great film career and you have Barry Detweiler.But the digs that Norma Desmond had in Sunset Boulevard compare badly to the splendor of the regal exile that movie legend Fedora has on the Grecian isle of Korfu. It's been a mystery how Fedora has managed to appear eternally young. Back in the day Holden had a fling with Fedora and he's played here as a young man by Stephen Collins. Hoping to cash in on a quick roll on the beach from the Fifties, Holden has a script for a new version of Anna Karenina. After much scheming he does get into see Fedora, played by young Marte Keller. Unfortunately some intriguing things keep bringing Holden back and in the end he does uncover the secret of Fedora's eternal youth. Let's say it was something not available to Norma Desmond.Best performance in the film for me is Jose Ferrer, a quack plastic surgeon who has attached himself to Fedora as part of her entourage. Ferrer steals every scene he's in, that man was never bad in anything he did.Maybe Fedora would have been a classic if Marlene Dietrich had come back to play the part of the old countess that Hildegard Knef did and Faye Dunaway had played Fedora. Personally I think the part of the countess was too close to home for Dietrich, but Wilder definitely wanted her.What a film that would have been.
