Kirk and Jan Sterling
Two great performances playing truly despicable characters in Billy Wilder's desperately cynical, jet-black satire. I think this may be Douglas's finest performance, and Sterling matches him step for step.
sharesatire?
shareA satire of the media, yes.
shareSatire requires some humor like Nashville or some over the top characters like Howard
Beale (Network) or Lonesome Rhodes (A Face In The Crowd). Ace In The Hole was much too serious to be considered satire, imo.
The Oxford English Dictionary defines satire as a ‘work of art which uses humour, irony, exaggeration, or ridicule to expose and criticize prevailing immorality or foolishness, esp. as a form of social or political commentary’
I would agree that the most common form of satire is that based at least partly on humour, but it’s not a requirement. Ace in the Hole is generally considered an example of (very dark) satire with its scathing indictment of the media.