Daniel Kimmel spoke on the “Comedy of Billy Wilder” at Hillsdale College’s fourth Center for Constructive Alternatives of the academic year on Billy Wilder. Kimmel is the past president of the Boston Society of Film Critics and the founding co-chair of the Boston Online Film Critics Association. For many years his reviews appeared in The Worcester Telegram and Gazette. Kimmel has taught film and media courses at Suffolk University and Emerson College. Kimmel is also the author of “The Fourth Network: How FOX Broke the Rules and Reinvented Television,” “I’ll Have What She’s Having: Behind the Scenes of the Great Romantic Comedies,” and “Love Stories: Hollywood’s Most Romantic Movies.” He has also written on the history of Dreamworks and on various aspects of scientific films.
Have you always been passionate about films?
I found the birth announcement my parents sent out when I was born. It was a movie marquee with my mother listed as producer and my father listed as director. I was marked from the moment I was born. I’ve been a movie buff all my life and I was fortunate enough to be able to turn in into a career.
How has movie storytelling historically impacted our society and shaped our culture?
We need stories. It’s a way we remember our past, it’s a way we communicate what’s important to us, it’s a way we challenge what we see in the world. I think storytelling is very much a part of the human condition.
You are the author of, “The Fourth Network: How FOX Broke the Rules and Reinvented Television,” can you briefly discuss how FOX radically changed the standards by which network television stations in America operate?
In the book I’m talking primarily of the 80’s and 90’s, and I open the book with a story of how two young executives at NBC go into the head of the network and tell him, “We’re leaving to join FOX.” He turns around to the board listed with the big three networks schedule for prime time and he said to them, “I will never put a fourth network up there.” No one believed FOX could do it, and they changed the rules in terms of what they put on, in terms of what they considered prime time. They changed the way networks dealt with cable television. FOX in a lot of ways changed the rules. They stole NFL football from CBS. They found a way to enter a market everyone thought was locked and cemented. The television market has greatly changed and I think the turning point is the story of FOX.
What do you believe is the role of Hollywood with regard to the public and to what extent the entertainment industry should be involved in politics?
The people of Hollywood have as much right as all other citizens to comment on public issues. There are stars and directors I agree with and stars and directors I disagree with, and I try to separate that out from their movies. I think Clint Eastwood is one of the great modern directors. I would not necessarily agree with his politics, but that’s one thing, and he has every right to speak out. Everybody has the right to their opinion and it shouldn’t affect the way I deal with you on some other level.
How has the legacy of Billy Wilder influenced the art of cinema and why was his directorial style so special?
As a director he directed out of self-defense; he was a writer. He had co-written a number of scripts, and he loved some of the people he worked with, and there were some directors he really didn’t like because they would change the lines of dialogue, they would let the actors improvise. For him it started with the words and you didn’t change those words lightly. He turned into a very good director. I do find he has an interesting style, but he is not Orson Welles, Alfred Hitchcock in that he has great vidsula set pieces. With Wilder, what we remember is the line of dialogue.
What effect did Wilder have on comedy in films and do we still see it today?
The thing about Wilder is that he made classic comedies and classic dramas. If you look at the dramas, they have their comic moments, and if you look at the comedies they have their serious moments. He kind of merged the two. He showed film makers that they could do both.