Won best actor (milland), director (wilder) and screenplay (wilder and charles bracket)
There is a gorgeous opening shot that is actually pretty similar to the famous opening of psycho as they wilder floats over the new york city skyline and focuses in on the bottle of booze on a string (milland is hiding from brother and girlfriend) outside of the window. Of course this shot and film predates psycho by 15 years though Hitchcock was doing this at this time and prior as well
Wilder’s writing form is just superb (his visual form doesn’t always match) as he has milland bend down to get a kiss over and over again from jane wyman. Quite charming and effective
Visually in terms of mise-en-scene Wilder is no Von Sternberg but there’s some interesting foreground/background shots
Most notable for the great study of alcoholism and strong narrative, direction and performance by milland
[…] The Lost Weekend – Wilder […]