Billy Wilder
Billy Wilder
Billy Wilderwas an Austrian-born American filmmaker, screenwriter, producer, artist and journalist, whose career spanned more than fifty years and sixty films. He is regarded as one of the most brilliant and versatile filmmakers of Hollywood's golden age. With The Apartment, Wilder became the first person to win Academy Awards as producer, director and screenwriter for the same film...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionDirector
Date of Birth22 June 1906
CountryUnited States of America
Film’s thought of as a director’s medium because the director creates the end product that appears on the screen. It’s that stupid auteur theory again, that the director is the author of the film. But what does the director shoot-the telephone book? Writers became much more important when sound came in, but they’ve had to put up a valiant fight to get the credit they deserve.
It used to be that we in films were the lowest form of art. Now we have something to look down on. (Of Television)
I hate that word. It's return--a return to the millions of people who've never forgiven me for deserting the screen.
You know, that stuff about pink elephants, that's the bunk. It's little animals. Little tiny turkeys in straw hats. Midget monkeys coming through the keyholes.
The ultimate trick is to convince, persuade. Every single person out there is an idiot, but collectively they're a genius.
I am big. It's the pictures that got small.
I'm delighted with it, because it used to be that films were the lowest form of art. Now we've got something to look down on.
I would rather sleep in a bathroom than in another hotel.
Develop a clean line of action for your leading character
We are on the track of something absolutely mediocre...
I've met a lot of hardboiled eggs in my time, but you're twenty minutes.
Jerry: Oh, you don't understand, Osgood! Ehhhh... I'm a man. Osgood: Well, nobody's perfect.
Now, what is it which makes a scene interesting? If you see a man coming through a doorway, it means nothing. If you see him coming through a window - that is at once interesting.
One's too many and a hundred's not enough.