The Thinking Machine #103

In their series The Thinking Machine, critics Cristina Álvarez López and Adrian Martin create a new video essay for Filmkrant every month.

On so many levels, Billy Wilder’s films are obsessed with mechanics and machines – the precisely structured scripts he co-wrote have even been described as ‘narrative machines’ in their own right.

On the one hand, Wilder’s preoccupation reflected the 20th century ‘machine age’ he lived through, with all its most sinister implications. On the other hand, he used metronomic, robotic rhythms as a richly expressive source of drama, comedy and filmmaking style. The weave and texture of his cinema is, in every way, truly ‘machinic’. Let us enter the Wilder Thinking Machine.