Mr Wilder and Me by Jonathan Coe 

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Mr Wilder and Me by Jonathan Coe: Episode 5

Mr Wilder and Me by Jonathan Coe

Episode 5

BBC Radio 4 - Mr Wilder and Me by Jonathan Coe, Episode 5

Billy Wilder continues to film Fedora on Lefkada with Callista on hand to help.

Billy Wilder continues to film Fedora on Lefkada with Callista on hand to help. The film crew have rather extravagant ways of travelling to the island. The locals look on.

In 1945, Billy Wilder made a film called "Death Mills" about the Holocaust. In it he showed “an entire field, a whole landscape of corpses”. He went on to make "Sunset Boulevard", "Some Like It Hot" and "The Apartment". 

"Mr Wilder & Me" is ostensibly a fiction about a young woman discovering her love of film, music and young men but it is also about the way that a generation of film-makers responded to the great cataclysm of the second world war and the seriousness with which they viewed entertainment, particularly comedy, as an escape from nightmarish reality.

The protagonist, Calista, is a film score composer and she tells the story of how she came to work for the legendary film director, Billy Wilder, whilst he was preparing to work on one of his last films, "Fedora".

Written by Jonathan Coe
Abridged by Florence Bedell


The reader is Jasmine Hyde

Produced by Clive Brill
A Brill Production for BBC Radio 4.

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Calista, a film score composer, tells the story of how she came to work for Billy Wilder.

Calista, a film score composer, tells the story of how she came to work for legendary film director Billy Wilder while he was preparing to work on his 1978 film, Fedora.

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