Billy Wilder (19062002) wrote and directed Double Indemnity, The Lost Weekend, Sunset Boulevard, Some Like It Hot, and The Apartment, among other films. Over the course of his career, he won seven Academy Awards. Noah Isenberg is the George Christian Centennial Professor and Chair of the Department of Radio-Television-Film at the University of Texas at Austin. His many books include We'll Always Have "Casablanca" and Weimar Cinema. Twitter @NoahIsenberg Instagram @noah.isenberg1967 Shelley Frisch is the award-winning translator of Dietrich & Riefenstahl and the three-volume Kafka (Princeton), among other books. Twitter @shelfrisch
"A Times Literary Supplement Book of the Year 2021"
"Longlisted for the Kraszna-Krausz Book Award, Moving Image
Category"
"Longlisted for the National Translation Award, American Literary
Translators Association"
"A revelation, a trove of snappy pieces that give the reader
tantalizing glimpses of the mature film satirist."---Marc
Weingarten, Washington Post
"The brightest moments here let you watch a little more of the
human comedy through Billy Wilder’s eyes. Few saw it as clearly he
did or had more fun writing it down."---Jeremy McCarter, Wall
Street Journal
"Readers who come to Billy Wilder on Assignment to find the seeds
of the films for which he is famous—nearly all of them, one
assumes—will not be disappointed."---Ryan Ruby, Bookforum
"A delicious compilation."---Tobias Grey, Financial Times
"The most successful story in this collection, ‘Waiter, a Dancer,
Please!,’ about being a hoofer for hire at a big hotel, is waspish
and (if you allow for the choppy sentences) jazz-era excitable, New
Yorker–ish, with a self-deprecating turn and a fairly urbane sense
of the perfectly ridiculous."---Andrew O'Hagan, New York Review of
Books
"Long before he became the celebrated filmmaker of 'Sunset
Boulevard,' 'Some Like It Hot' and 'The Apartment,' a young Billy
Wilder worked briefly as a dancer for hire in the ballroom of a
fashionable Berlin hotel. As he described the endeavor . . . for a
German newspaper in 1927, 'This is no easy way to earn your daily
bread, nor is it the kind that sentimental, softhearted types can
stomach. But others can live from it.' Wilder’s observations on his
experience—from one of his many delightfully acerbic pieces of
journalism anthologized in Billy Wilder on Assignment . . . get to
the heart of our enduring obsessions with show business and the
performing arts."---Dave Itzkoff, New York Times
"Sharp and witty. . . . Full of glorious turns of phrase,
entertaining narratives, and quirky characters. . . . . Thumbing
through Wilder’s essays from the 1920s will make you feel as if you
are enjoying yourself at a German coffeehouse, catching up on
popular culture, and planning your next weekend adventure in the
Weimar Republic. Isenberg and Frisch have done a great service for
film historians and fans of classic Hollywood."---Chris Yogerst,
Los Angeles Review of Books
"An irresistible collection of articles, profiles, and reviews from
Wilder’s salad-und-bratwurst days in Berlin, where he worked as a
roving journalist, critic, and scene-maker between 1926 and 1930. .
. . Isenberg is an expert guide to the Berlin-to-Hollywood axis,
and Frisch is a veteran translator."---Thomas Doherty, Tablet
Magazine
"Billy Wilder on Assignment is, as my colleague, TIME Magazine film
critic Stephanie Zacharek kvelled to me in an email, ‘the little
book you didn’t know you needed.'"---Jordan Hoffman, Times of
Israel
"A must-read for film buffs and history aficionados
alike."---Tobias Carroll, Inside Hook
"This new volume takes in the most significant staging posts of
Wilder’s early career."---Gavin Plumley, Literary Review
"[Wilder] quickly moved on to Berlin and became a prolific writer
of occasional pieces for papers such as Der Querschnitt and the
Berliner Börsen Courier. Selections of these articles have been
published before but are long out of print, and were never
translated into English. Now, thankfully, Professor Isenberg of the
University of Texas has put this frustrating situation to rights
with a lively anthology, translated by Shelley Frisch into a brisk,
punchy English which feels as though it must be an accurate
reflection of the young Wilder’s original tone."---Jonathan Coe,
Spectator
"The opportunity to read Wilder’s journalism in English is welcome.
. . . What’s particularly impressive, even slightly eerie, is how
many times this young film buff and Americanophile wrote about
people he would later work with in Hollywood."
*Bookforum*
"A delightful and illuminating collection."---Sam Wasson, Air
Mail
"There is no question that Billy Wilder on Assignment is the most
historically important recent book exploring the early days of a
major filmmaker. It compiles, for the first time, Wilder’s writings
as a young freelance reporter in 1920s Berlin and Vienna. The
result is an incredible glimpse of Wilder’s mind at a key
age."---Christopher Schobert, The Film Stage
"Billy Wilder On Assignment . . . explores the roots of one of
Hollywood’s most accomplished and acclaimed directors in the fervid
journalistic atmosphere of Central Europe between world wars. . . .
Shelley Frisch—one of the nimblest and liveliest translators
working today—renders Wilder’s journalism into an English that
leaps off the page with deadline urgency. . . . Isenberg's
collection offers those interested in the Golden Age of Hollywood
valuable new insight into one of its most significant
personalities. It is also a vivid account of the vanished world
that helped shape Billy Wilder."
*Wilson Quarterly*
"Let it be said that Billy Wilder on Assignment – Dispatches from
Weimar Berlin and Interwar Vienna, is an altogether wonderful read.
In fact it reads as if a fine, literary, malt-whiskey."---David
Marx, David Marx: Book Reviews
"The new anthology Billy Wilder on Assignment proves Wilder's
verbal and narrative gifts existed long before he set foot in
Hollywood during the 1930s."---Dan Lybarger, Northwest Arkansas
Democrat Gazette
"Readers will have fun picking out elements, traits and incidents
in these lively witty texts and attempting to match them with
Wilder’s later cinematic masterpieces."---Alexander Adams,
Alexander Adams Art
"Billy Wilder on Assignment . . . provides a long-overdue
translation of Billy Wilder’s early writings in German. . . . The
anthology will be of interest to both the academic and general
public."---Nora Gortcheva, EuropeNow
"Very nice."---Tom Stoppard, Times Literary Supplement
"In this first English-language compilation of Wilder’s early
journalism . . . we can see the mischievous humour and love of
snappy dialogue characteristic of his later movies."---Monica
Porter, The Jewish Chronicle
"Billy Wilder on Assignment: Dispatches from Weimar Berlin and
Interwar Vienna is a revealing collection of his lively reportage
from those two cities. . . . [The book] create[s] a portrait of a
man who is so much more complex than a mere cynic."---Kevin Lally,
Cineaste Magazine
"“Billy Wilder on Assignment is a beautifully assembled collection
of the early writings of a master storyteller whose body of work
has entertained moviemakers and movie watchers for
generations."---Leonora Cravotta, American Spectator
|
Ask a Question About this Product More... |
|
