Friday 30 May 2014

The Writer Speaks: Billy Wilder

Here is a one hour conversation with Billy Wilder, courtesy of the Writers Guild Foundation.


1 comment:

Unknown said...

With an intro by Jack Lemmon, this is an major interview but difficult to follow as Billy Wilder uses many half sentences and throw away comments and often poor word choice as English is not his first language. Nevertheless he has important things to say about movie making.

A movie is a mixture of architecture and poetry. The storytelling has to be solid so each act has the strength to support the next act. Billy never leaves a scene in draft and moves on, he perfects the scene first.

Casting is crucial, get the best actors you can afford, even for small parts. Offer parts which make sense, are original, are an intricate part of the story. The actor must be able to tell where the impact is in a scene.

I stopped watching after he made snide commends about Ronald Reagan.