Quote

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.

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
Percent
Afford
Actors
Spots
Able
Twenty
Right
Camera
Writing
Twenties
Good
Cameras
Eighty
Parts
Execution
Picture
Spot

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The best director is the one you don't see.
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If you're going to tell people the truth, be funny or they'll kill you.
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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.
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[on pop idol Donny Osmond] He has Van Gogh's ear for music.
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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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Well, nobody's perfect.
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Shoot a few scenes out of focus. I want to win the foreign film award.
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An audience is never wrong. An individual member of it may be an imbecile, but a thousand imbeciles together in the dark - that is critical genius.
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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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The more subtle and elegant you are in hiding your plot points, the better you are as a writer.
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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.
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When Chaplin found a voice to say what was on his mind, he was like a child of eight writing lyrics for Beethoven's Ninth.
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I met a lot of hard-boiled eggs in my life, but you - you're twenty minutes.
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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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I have ten commandments. The first nine are, thou shalt not bore. The tenth is, thou shalt have right of final cut.
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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.
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If something smells bad, why put your nose in it?
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Develop a clean line of action for your leading character
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Marilyn was mean. Terribly mean. The meanest woman I have ever met around this town. I have never met anybody as mean as Marilyn Monroe or as utterly fabulous on the screen.
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I just always think, 'Do I like it?' And if I like it, maybe other people will come and like it too.
Billy Wilder