Re: William Wyler radio show
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Originally Posted by Robin9
I too think there is no one best film director of all time. Wyler's position as one of the very best cannot be sensibly denied. That many people who write about movies don't give William Wyler due credit is lamentable but not especially surprising because there is a great deal of fashion following among people who profess to have a scholarly approach to movies.
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Most film critics aren't interested in style, which was one of Wyler's major concerns. So it isn't surprising that many critics don't see Wyler's significance, because they aren't sensitive to what he was trying to do.
In contrast, all of the French critics around Cahiers, and especially Bazin, were keenly interested in how filmmakers differentiate themselves via style. Hence they championed Wyler because they could see what he was trying to do with the use of deep focus and complex staging. The French were writing laudatory essays about him in the mid 1940s. Probably the most famous essay is Bazin's "William Wyler, or the Jansenist of Directing", written in 1948.
Sadly, many American critics didn't - and still don't - realise the capability of the artists working in Hollywood; it took a bunch of outsiders to comprehend the significance of what the best Hollywood directors were doing.
This snobbery still persists. Recently I read in Foster Hirsch's book on Otto Preminger that Preminger's family don't consider him a particularly good director, they simply think he was an extremely talented producer who knew what sort of stories would make good films. This is hilarious because amongst academics interested in film style, Preminger - along with Minnelli - is revered as one of the best long take, and widescreen directors ever to work. But for people not interested in film style (i.e. most people) it seems to be easy to completely dismiss the directing skills of some of the best filmmakers of all time.
Another problem may be the fact Wyler was a master at whatever he touched. Ford is primarily associated with a genre - Westerns. Hitchcock is recognised for the use of suspense, Billy Wilder is most noted for comedies and use of snappy dialogue. Of course all these are comical generalisations that don't do any of those filmmakers justice. But Wyler was a jack of all trades who can't really be pigeonholed. This makes it hard for mainstream critics to come up with a pithy summary of what is good about "Wyler", so instead they just don't talk about him at all.
I think the answer is that he always seemed interested in stylistic experimentation, especially the use of staging in depth. But that is a difficult summary to make for people that aren't interested in the choices directors need to make when lining up a shot.
