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A director must be a policeman, a midwife, a psychoanalyst, a sycophant and a bastard.

Billy Wilder

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Billy Wilder
Age: 95 †
Born: 1906
Born: June 22
Died: 2002
Died: March 27
Film Director
Film Producer
Filmmaker
Journalist
Screenwriter
Writer
Samuel Wilder
Policemen
Filmmaker
Director
Directors
Bastard
Must
Psychoanalyst
Sycophants
Midwife
Policeman

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I am big. It's the pictures that got small.
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I had one life. And what did I do? Wasted it in some palooka preliminaries in Spain, just before Hitler and Chamberlain warm up for the main event.
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The more subtle and elegant you are in hiding your plot points, the better you are as a writer.
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[on pop idol Donny Osmond] He has Van Gogh's ear for music.
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If you're going to tell people the truth, be funny or they'll kill you.
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An actor entering through the door, you've got nothing. But if he enters through the window, you've got a situation.
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Shoot a few scenes out of focus. I want to win the foreign film award.
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If you have a problem with the third act, the real problem is in the first act.
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Jerry: Oh, you don't understand, Osgood! Ehhhh... I'm a man. Osgood: Well, nobody's perfect.
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We are on the track of something absolutely mediocre.
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Make subtlety obvious.
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Eighty percent of a picture is writing, the other twenty percent is the execution, such as having the camera on the right spot and being able to afford to have good actors in all parts.
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I'm not happy. I'm not happy at all.
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The ultimate trick is to convince, persuade. Every single person out there is an idiot, but collectively they're a genius.
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You have to have a dream so you can get up in the morning.
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Develop a clean line of action for your leading character
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My Aunt Minnie would always be punctual and never hold up production, but who would pay to see my Aunt Minnie?
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Trust your own instinct. Your mistakes might as well be your own, instead of someone else's.
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If something smells bad, why put your nose in it?
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The Austrians are brilliant people. They made the world believe that Hitler was a German and Beethoven an Austrian.
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