Fedora (1979)

Overrated

Clever and entertaining enough to recommend even to members of the 1%

The film never slows down or bores, plunging from one harrowing sequence to the next.

The acting in this movie is really good.

Many reasons for see this little gem. the performances, the atmosphere, the crumbs of old Hollywood, the tragedy of glory in passing time. and a touching story. remembering "Sunset Blvd". but being, for its bitter poetry, so different. for me, the basic motif for see it was the presence in cast of William Holden. and this "key" works. for discover not exactly a world but a form of survive. and its precise limits. a film about the traits of past. and meeting with wise use of suggestion, from illustrious names to small details of biographies for transform the film in a form of trip across Hollywood Golden Age.

The former successful and famous Polish actress Fedora (Marthe Keller) commits suicide at the Mortcerf Station, jumping off in front of a train. The broken Hollywood producer Barry 'Dutch' Detweiler (William Holden) attends the funeral at her house in Paris and recalls that he might have caused her death.Two weeks ago, Dutch traveled to Greece Island of Corfu seeking Fedora out in the Vila Calypso, located in an isolated island owned by the bitter Countess Sobryanski (Hildegard Knef). Fedora has been living an unsocial reclusive life for the last years in the villa with the countess, the plastic surgeon Doctor Vando (José Ferrer) and her assistant Miss Balfour (Frances Sternhagen), since she abandoned the set of a film that she was shooting in London with Michael York.Dutch brings the screenplay with a version of "Anna Karenina" to offer to Fedora, with the promise that investors would finance the film if Fedora accepts the lead role. Fedora, who is impressively young, is receptive to the offer, but the countess and the doctor tell that she is mentally unstable and paranoid and can not act again. When Dutch discovers that Fedora will be secretly sent to a mental institution owned by Dr. Vando in Mortcert, he tries to rescue the actress from the island but he is hit on the head and faints with a concussion. One week later, when he awakes, he learns that Fedora is dead. Dutch travels to Paris and meets Countess Sobryanski that him the truth about Fedora. "Fedora" is the swan song of Billy Wilder, with an engaging story; a complex screenplay and many twists about aging, selfishness and loss of youth and identity. The plot has many elements of "Sunset Boulevard", with a washed-up producer looking for a former glamorous Hollywood actress that surprisingly has not aged like she should and might represent his comeback to the glory. The secret about Fedora and her friends is unpredictable. My vote is eight.Title (Brazil): Not Available

"Fedora" was made with German and French money.It speaks volumes about what America thought of the commercial potential of one of its greatest directors.As "Buddy Buddy" ,remake of a FRench comedy does not count ,"Fedora" is Wilder's last opus.And it is a good film,nay a splendid one regarded in context,the best last movie Wilder could make ,which is just as well ,because when epitaphs are seen as worthless,the things that came before can sometimes been retropectively tarnished by association."Fedora" stands in little danger to bring this about.It is a last film ,soon,like the others ,to yellow with age but never lose its poignancy.Some said it was a poor man's "Sunset Blvd" .There are similarities: flashbacks,real-life actors (Cecil B.De Mille in "Sunset" Henry Fonda and Michael York" in "Fedora" ) and the terror of getting old ,the longing for eternity.There the comparison ends.For "Fedora" was ,in 1978,a "modern" film which the European (notably the FRench critic) hailed as a young man's work."Fedora" is absorbing from start to finish:it is ,in turn,a romantic story (the affair with York) an investigation à la "Citizen Kane" ,a thriller and even a Gothic horror movie.William Holden,Hildegarde Knef , Swiss Marthe Keller,Mario Adorf and Jose Ferrer are all excellent.The first scene when the heroine throws herself under the train recalls the techniques of the forties/fifties .Whereas "Fedora " is a thoroughly modern film,it manages to display nostalgia for the things we lost when the cinema began to lose its innocence or became intellectual or "got small!"The same nostalgia we felt in "Avanti" .The luminous blue Mediterranean sky is in direct contrast to the darkness of Wilder's earlier films noirs.With "Fedora" Wilder came out blaring!

I enjoy the kind of outlandish stories like the one found in FEDORA. The whole story is so much larger than life that seeing the sorta mediocre result is disappointing because this story needed grandeur, big budget, big cast, big everything, to elevate the over-the-top story to its sublime glory. Oddly enough (and unfortunately for us) Billy Wilder's movie mimics the film's story to a tee. The story is about a famous but reclusive film star (obviously patterned after Greta Garbo) who lives on an isolated Greek island. A producer/writer (played by a too old William Holden) wants to meet with Fedora and have her come out of retirement so she can star in his new film. Fedora had already retired before but experienced a comeback a few years ago before disappearing from the silver screen, this time for good. When Holden meets Fedora, the woman seems totally crazy. The story that unfolds afterwards is preposterous, soapy, twisted, quasi-operatic and yet fitting, for a story about Hollywood.The funny thing about FEDORA is how Wilder critiques old Hollywood and the then current Hollywood of the 1970s and proceeds to shoot himself in the foot. The convoluted story of a Hollywood legend unable to live up to her famous past is exactly what happened to Wilder when he decided to direct this film: Wilder was too old to direct this film. FEDORA, the film itself, is a pale example of what the director could do when compared to his films of the past, like SUNSET BOULEVARD and SOME LIKE IT HOT. Not only that, but Wilder also samples his older films' glory to drive his point in FEDORA, which, in turns renders the whole thing even more pathetic than it needed to be.FEDORA, the film, is not really about the fictional story about a legendary actress but more about Billy Wilder, the director, a bitter old man trying to prove a point by showing to the world how over-the-hill he was.The casting in FEDORA can only be described as disastrous. Hiring Holden was a very bad idea. His presence kept reminding me of SUNSET BOULEVARD, which even if that film was made in the good old days of the 1950s, was more sharp, more ironic, more iconic, more modern in its understanding of how image can distort reality than anything seen in FEDORA, which was made in 1978. Showing Marthe's breasts does not equate to anything than a pathetic attempt to be with the times. Casting Marthe Keller and Hildegard Knef was also a very bad idea. The voices for both actresses were dubbed throughout the entire film, which was needlessly distracting and watered down whatever attempt at acting those two tried to achieve. And Jose Ferrer looks bored out of his mind. In fact, the whole film looks bored, sounds bored, moves boringly. THE LEGEND OF LYLAH CLARE, which share the same kind of improbable storyline, is, even as bad as it is, more fun and enjoyable to watch than this dreary thing.The film's bite would have been more convincing if FEDORA had more punch to it, more life, more style, more irony. As it is, FEDORA is just sad and pathetic. It's a shame because like I said, I love these kind of stories and it annoys the heck out of me that Wilder was more concern in trying to voice a (tired) opinion than actually trying to create a great film first. A proper remake, with grand production values and a bit more class (the film creates a sorta repellent image of Garbo), and hopefully without Michael York, should be done one of these days. The improbable, over-the-top, almost operatic story definitely deserves it.