Wilder idea
USUALLY, I read the papers on a Wednesday morning and then write my diary. The first item is always political, based on what is making the news. When I read the papers on Wednesday, September 4, I was so disgusted, the headlines were so depressing, that I have decided to skip the political item. Instead, I am going to write about one of my favourite film directors, the Austrian-born Jew, Billy Wilder. Among the many films he made, three stand out in my memory. Sunset Boulevard, Some Like it Hot and The Apartment. Working with Marilyn Monroe in Some Like it Hot nearly gave him a nervous breakdown. To shoot one simple piece of dialogue—“It’s me, sugar”—the inept Marilyn made Wilder do 17 takes. But on screen, he would say later, she was “pure magic”.
My favourite Wilder film is The Apartment, made in 1960. I had the pleasure of seeing it again recently. It is described as a “poignant comedy” and stars Jack Lemmon and Shirley McLaine. The Apartment beautifully captures the bizarre corporate life in the America of the 1950s. Four company managers serially use Lemmon’s bachelor apartment for their extra-marital liaisons. For this service, Lemmon gets promoted steadily till he falls for the elevator operator (Shirley McLaine), who is being screwed by one of the managers in Lemmon’s apartment. Lemmon decides to stop the renting. The Apartment won five Oscars—best director, best picture, best art direction, best writer, best editing. At the end of his career, when he got a lifetime Oscar, Wilder, a master of quotable quotes, told the Academy, “Oscars are like haemorrhoids. Eventually, everybody gets them.” One more: “I have ten commandments. The first nine are, ‘Thou shalt not bore.’ The tenth is, ‘Thou shalt have the final cut.’”
Our well-rush
A couple of days ago on the BBC, I watched a live debate in the House of Commons on whether to send British troops to Syria in view of the sarin gas attack. It was a fierce, rowdy debate with Prime Minister David Cameron taking on the Leader of the Opposition, Ed Miliband, head-on. Voices were raised, tempers displayed. However, one word from the Speaker and every MP fell in line. So along with heated passions, one witnessed exemplary decorum. The rules of the House were sacrosanct.
Consider the goings-on in our Lok and Rajya Sabha. Parliament in India is beyond a joke. It is a farce. The highest form of parliamentary protest seems to be disruption. If a political party feels strongly on an issue, the best, most effective way of showing loyalty to that issue is not to let Parliament function. That has become the acid test. Politicians frequently ask why the general public holds them in such low esteem, and then quickly blame the media. If all that the aam aadmi sees MPs doing in Parliament is threatening the Speaker, tearing up bills, walking into the well, and, increasingly, coming to blows, is it any surprise they are perceived as dangerous clowns who the aam aadmi treats with contempt?
Frost-bitten
I caught David Frost’s first edition of the iconic satirical show That Was The Week That Was in 1962, and followed him ever since. Kitty Muggeridge, wife of the naughty Malcolm, put it best: “He rose without a trace!” And Peter Cook, who started Private Eye, confessed the biggest mistake he made was to save Frost from drowning. Among his more cerebral contemporaries, Frost, who died last week, was a figure of fun largely because he had left them far behind.
Frost pioneered a style of interviewing which was relaxed, gentle and non-hectoring. He introduced the “hanging sentence” in his interviews which paid him rich dividends. He would ask a tough question in his inimitable style, the interviewee would give a bland reply. Instead of rushing in with the next question, Frost would let the reply hang for a couple of seconds. In that gap, the interviewee would step in, feeling he had to add to his reply—and say something he never intended to say. That is how he trapped Nixon into the “I let my country down...” remark.
A Frost joke. He had interviewed Nixon’s vice-president, a useless fellow called Spiro Agnew, much lampooned in the media. Frost recounted, “Agnew told me, ‘Who says I don’t serve the President usefully? Why, this morning I served him fruit juice, boiled egg, toast...”
M-Seal moment
Leaks from sleuths are counterproductive. They must stop. Currently, the information offered to the nation allegedly from the mouth of Messrs Tunda and Bhatkal will surely be denied by the two in court—and make the sleuths look silly once again. Why do they do it?
Last week
I read a wonderful quote from Borges: “I write for myself and for my friends, and I write to ease the passing of time.”
Vinod Mehta is editorial chairman, Outlook, and its founding editor-in-chief; E-mail your diarist: vmehta AT outlookindia.com
