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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.
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
Parts
Execution
Picture
Spot
Percent
Afford
Actors
Spots
Able
Twenty
Right
Camera
Writing
Twenties
Good
Cameras
Eighty
More quotes by Billy Wilder
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.
Billy Wilder
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.
Billy Wilder
The more subtle and elegant you are in hiding your plot points, the better you are as a writer.
Billy Wilder
An actor entering through the door, you've got nothing. But if he enters through the window, you've got a situation.
Billy Wilder
Make subtlety obvious.
Billy Wilder
Jerry: Oh, you don't understand, Osgood! Ehhhh... I'm a man. Osgood: Well, nobody's perfect.
Billy Wilder
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.
Billy Wilder
I am big. It's the pictures that got small.
Billy Wilder
Develop a clean line of action for your leading character
Billy Wilder
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.
Billy Wilder
If something smells bad, why put your nose in it?
Billy Wilder
The best director is the one you don't see.
Billy Wilder
I have ten commandments. The first nine are, thou shalt not bore. The tenth is, thou shalt have right of final cut.
Billy Wilder
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.
Billy Wilder
The ultimate trick is to convince, persuade. Every single person out there is an idiot, but collectively they're a genius.
Billy Wilder
A director must be a policeman, a midwife, a psychoanalyst, a sycophant and a bastard.
Billy Wilder
[on pop idol Donny Osmond] He has Van Gogh's ear for music.
Billy Wilder
Well, nobody's perfect.
Billy Wilder
The Austrians are brilliant people. They made the world believe that Hitler was a German and Beethoven an Austrian.
Billy Wilder
I just made pictures I would've liked to see.
Billy Wilder
