Homelands

I just saw Talk to Her once more, which as I've written before is one of my favorite films. It reminded me of something Penelope Cruz mentioned in a recent interview. She said Pedro Almodovar had met his idol (and mine too) Billy Wilder before he died. Wilder had given him a piece of advice: don't come to Hollywood -- stay in Spain. It was a wise tip. Almodovar could not have molded his masterpieces out of the clay of a foreign culture. At the same time, it was poignant counsel. Wilder was an Austrian-born jew whose family died in the holocaust. He didn't have the option of staying in his own land. Despite overcoming his languague difficulties and becoming one of Hollywood's greatest dramatists, perhaps a small part of Billy Wilder wondered wistfully what his career might have been like in a Europe without Hitler.