You want to know what tough is, try being born in
one place, leaving all familiar things as a young man, and learn to survive and support
yourself in an alien world. Then move to another place (and language) and
learn how to support yourself again. And then move to another place and another
language and not just learn the local ropes all over again but become a giant in
your chosen profession.
You don’t need to see one of his 76 films to
understand the genius of Billy Wilder.
Wilder was one of those mid-century
mittel-Europeans who knew how to survive and succeed. They walked across
Russia, they walked out of Auschwitz, they walked away from trouble and if it
ever found them again they knew what to do.
Wilder tells the story: “If you ever wake up in a
strange hotel room with a strange woman at your side and she is dead, call Sam
Spiegel. He will know what to do.”
If you want to survive, ask a survivor. If you want
to know how to succeed, figure it out. The story could be the opening scene
from a film noir, but in Wilder’s life and in Spiegel’s it is just a
dramatization of the danger and uncertainty that lurked around every corner of
it until they hit Hollywood.
In a tight spot? Buddy, the Gestapo aren’t even on
the train yet. The thing is, figure it out: be smart, resourceful and work
like hell. In other words, be “creative”. Immigrants have a great advantage
over the rest of us. They are continually called on to reinvent themselves, to
figure it out. While most of us have them given to us from birth, they have to
write their own parts. That’s why they are often so good at it and do so well.
That’s not a Mexican gardener in front of your house, that’s someone inventing
himself.
He’s in good company. Endre Friedmann left
Budapest, taught himself to take photographs, went to Paris, fell in love with
Gerda Taro, went to the Spanish Civil War, rehearsed for the Second World War, invaded
Normandy with the first landing craft, partied with Hemingway, made love to Ingrid Bergman, founded Magnum with Cartier-Bresson,
went to China, went to Russia, went to Utah, worked in New York, became an
American, went to IndoChina and before he died there, stepping on a landmine,
Robert Capa reminded all war photographers that if their pictures weren’t good
enough they weren’t close enough.
Immigrants are the quintessential Americans. Or
rather they have what we would like to think are American essentials.
Risk-takers because they have nothing to lose, full of innovation and energy
because that’s what’s in their bank, investors in the future because they have
no past to return to. Entrepreneurs, they have the potential to reinvent
themselves, and us.
And we are afraid of letting too many in. Go
figure.