At Least Bi-: Migrancy, Masks, and Language in Billy Wilder’s Double Indemnity, Sabrina, and The Apartment
David Malcolm (University of Gdansk)
Jennifer Zielińska (University of Gdansk)
translated by James Malcolm
The full version of this article is available in Polish in the printed version of Tekstualia and in the on-line subscription.
One of the most important groups of twentieth-century émigré artists is that which came from Central Europe in the 1930s to work in the film industries of Britain and the USA. One of the most prominent of these was Billy Wilder. This essay focuses on little discussed aspects of Wilder’s most successful fi lms in the 1940s and 1950s. An attempt is made to see him as a émigré/bilingual fi lm maker/writer. Double Indemnity and The Apartment are discussed in terms of their exploration of motifs of isolation and anonymity. Sabrina is read as a study of the marginalization of the “displaced” Sabrina, but also her ability successfully to mutate and move socially in America. The essay examines Wilder as a co-writer of self-advertisingly accomplished scripts, texts in which the immigrant director from Central Europe exhibits a fl air that appropriates the English language itself.
The sample of Polish version of this article is available here: https://tekstualia.pl/files/360724e3/malcolm_david_zielinska_jennifer-przynajmniej_bi-.pdf