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
My English is a mixture between Arnold Schwarzenegger and Archbishop Tutu.
Shoot a few scenes out of focus. I want to win the foreign film award.
I just always think, 'Do I like it?' And if I like it, maybe other people will come and like it too.
If you don't like what you're doing, it's unlikely anyone else will either, so be sure you are happy with your own work first.
Hollywood didn't kill Marilyn Monroe, it's the Marilyn Monroes who are killing Hollywood.
France is a place where the money falls apart in your hands but you can't tear the toilet paper.
Don't be too clever for an audience. Make it obvious. Make the subtleties obvious also.
The more subtle and elegant you are in hiding your plot points, the better you are as a writer.
Well, nobody's perfect.
I never overestimate the audience, nor do I underestimate them. I just have a very rational idea as to who we’re dealing with, and that we’re not making a picture for Harvard Law School, we’re making a picture for middle-class people, the people that you see on the subway, or the people that you see in a restaurant. Just normal people.
Happiness is working with Jack Lemmon.
If something smells bad, why put your nose in it?
The forest of Compiegne. Look at it. Like a kind grandmother dozing in her rocking chair. Old trees practicing curtsies in the wind because they still think Louis XIV is king.
They've tried to manufacture other Marilyn Monroes and they will undoubtedly keep trying. But it won't work. She was an original.