Background
Hiller, Arthur was born on November 22, 1923 in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada.
Hiller, Arthur was born on November 22, 1923 in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada.
Educated at the University Toronto and University British Columbia, Alberta, Toronto and British Columbia. F.V.Ch.C., Victoria College, Glasgow, 1967. Master of Arts in Psychology.
Doctor of Humane Letters, London Institute Applied Research, 1973. Doctor of Fine Arts (honorary), University Victoria, 1995. Doctor of Laws, University Toronto, 1995.
Long before 1971, the filmgoer might have safely given up Arthur Hiller. What is authorship if it is not the capacity to make a dozen consistently impersonal and unexciting movies? To which, in 1970, was added the irrelevant commercial success оf Love Story, a film only justified by its deflation at the end of What’s Up, Doc? But in 1971, there emerged, under Hiller’s name, The Hospital, a most despairing comedy and a witheringly accurate portrait of the lunacy of attempting a benevolent act. It is easy to point out that The Hospital has a scurrilous script by Paddy Chayef- sky, which flies like a vulture round the noble wreck of George C. Scott. Nothing in it smacks of direction, but not many films of its year were as entertaining or touching. Had it been a first film, we might have cherished high hopes. But a dull first dozen, and the immediate reversal to type with Man of La Mancha indicates only that even a trimmer has his day. Rod Steiger was his W. C. Fields: a brilliant impersonation in a film that studiouslv avoids the contrasts of the man and his surreal refusal to seem a comedian. Silver Streak is a heartless and uncommitted running of a great old locomotive—one of the first worthless train movies.
Among the later films, Teachers is the most engaging: it has a little of the institutional gallows humor remembered from The Hospital. Making Love was announced as a breakthrough—it had a married man character who found he was gay— but the picture was hushed and reverent about its own daring, and it lacked any bold or challenging actors. As one of his titles suggests, Hiller is the kind of director who gets pictures done on time, on budget, without troubling or threatening anyone.
Member Directors' Guild of America (president 1988-1992), Academy Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (president 1993-1997), National Film Preservation Board of Library.