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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Jerry: Oh, you don't understand, Osgood! Ehhhh... I'm a man. Osgood: Well, nobody's perfect.
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If you're going to tell people the truth, be funny or they'll kill you.
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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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I met a lot of hard-boiled eggs in my life, but you - you're twenty minutes.
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I am big. It's the pictures that got small.
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Well, nobody's perfect.
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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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If you have a problem with the third act, the real problem is in the first act.
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[on pop idol Donny Osmond] He has Van Gogh's ear for music.
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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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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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Make subtlety obvious.
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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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Hollywood didn't kill Marilyn Monroe, it's the Marilyn Monroes who are killing Hollywood.
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I just made pictures I would've liked to see.
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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.
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Develop a clean line of action for your leading character
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We are on the track of something absolutely mediocre.
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If something smells bad, why put your nose in it?
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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.
Billy Wilder