Billy Wilder accepts the 14th AFI Life Achievement Award (1986). AFI FACEBOOK APP: / afiytapp CONNECT WITH AFI: / americanfilm AFI.com/members / americanfilminstitute
I got here from listening to Ron Perlman mentioning this Billy Wilder speech to Bill Maher on the Club Random podcast. It's very interesting the hear old man Billy Wilder talk about internet, streaming tv and ai years before their creation.
Amazing how he could forsee the present day where we do have small screens we hold in our hands and with the simple power of a HandiCam and a Mac we can make our own movies without a studio. The audience chuckled thinking this the humorous musings of an old man- but he really saw where the future of film was going. All of us watching this on RU-vid is the truth of this.
It's like writing. We are all writers now, thanks to the phone with the keyboard, but we are not all writing Shakespearean plays or Montaignesque essays. The ones who can still produce quality movies and writing are still few and far in between, but they are perhaps less noticeable.
@@monikaherr3562 Exactly. The fact that anyone can make a film does not mean anyone can ever match anything made by the great Billy Wilder. In fact, the big screen now is just ridiculous, infantile franchises.
+Jorge Ponce She is beaming: her smile starts from a place deep inside her. What a fabulous, gorgeous, kind and beneficent woman! (and she could dance...)
That's some amazing intuition. This man looked at the trajectory of technology in his time and perfectly extrapolated the imminent conclusion. We need more thinkers like him.
There are so many of Wilder's films that have stood the test of time and his work has, in a fundamental way, advanced the art of moviemaking. One need only consider Sunset Boulevard, Sabrina, Some Like It Hot and The Apartment; they are a "master class" in directing and acting. He was also one of the most articulate and sophisticated men in the film industry.
Double indemnity, Five graves to Cairo and The lost weekend are his first movies he made, but we cannot forget he was fundamentally a screenwriter who wrote for many other prior movies, like Ninotchka.
Greatest and the most versatile director of all-time... Hard to imagine that the same man directed Double Indemnity, Sunset Boulevard, Sabrina, The Apartment, Ace in the Hole, Some Like it Hot, Stalag 17 & The Fortune Cookie. Astonishing range and sweep. Salute u, sir !!!!
Look at what that man made! Sunset boulevard, some like it hot, Sunset Boulevard, the Appartement. They don't get any better then Billy. Most profound respect for this man. Unbelievable director and writer.. Greatness beyond believe. He made me love movies from my earliest days. Thank you Billy!
Agree. And everyone in it was brilliant. Laughton, Power, and the only reason why Marlene Dietrich didn t get an Academy Award nomination for this was they didn't want to give the plot away. O well, Billy Wilder could film the worst of scripts and still make it into a classic.
In terms of work that "stands the test of time", when Wilder was at his best, he was without peer-look at Sunset Boulevard, Sabrina, The Lost Weekend, The Apartment, Some Like It Hot. These films leave a lasting legacy and they will be re-discovered by new audiences and cherished.
I am so happy he acknowledged Charles Brackett - a great screenwriter and gentleman. Manny Wolfe's move to pair up Wilder and Brackett back in 1936 is one of the wisest decision made in Hollywood ever when it comes to screenwriting.
One of the greatest of all artist Billy Wilder I will love his movie's forever I loved hiss speech so introspective puts things into perspective and I'm so appreciative for his conviction to great movie making for he parlayed it out
How appropriate that Audrey Hepburn, his starring actress in "Sabrina" was at his side; he adored her. Wilder should have continued to work throughout the 80s; the commercial failure of his last four films: Avanti, The Secret Life Of Sherlock Holmes, Fedora and Buddy Buddy, effectively ended his directorial career. His masterpieces, Sunset Boulevard, Some Like It Hot, The Apartment and Sabrina are still shown frequently and are wonderful.
A brilliant cad. A wonderful person. A true American immigrant. I love this guy and his films. "Double Indemnity" puts him in the top slot of any director, to say nothing of the amazing comedies he has directed. The fact that he knew, got along with, and worked with Raymond Chandler (another genius, and a prickly pear, as I understand it), is a testimony to his genius. Top 5 directors for all time, and what it would be like to sit over a glass of wine or whiskey with this gentleman. Not to mention, how extraordinarily prescient he was.
Great call on having a high ball with this guy, or one of those nights by the fireplace where you're just listening to The Shaman drop knowledge. I was thinking of the exact word that you used in describing him - he was ahead of his time and obviously could extrapolate three decades down the road even while the audience was like "wha?" But those still alive are like, I remember when Wilder dropped knowledge. Respect.
Thanks so much for your words. RU-vid is so great; 4 years after I watch this video and make this comment, here you come along, another person who thought this person was a wonderful talent. Cheers!@@jmanderpubes
The following year the same award went to Barbara Stanwyck who starred in Double Indemnity after Wilder convinced her to take the controversial role of Phyllis Dietrichson. She later said that it was one of the best roles of her career.
"Wilder, when are you going to learn? In life you have to take the bitter with the sour." ~ Sam Goldwyn Cameron Crowe, who was a huge admirer of Billy Wilder, later used this line in his film "Vanilla Sky."
The irony is that if any of the last five films that Wilder directed, The Front Page, Buddy Buddy, Avanti, The Private Life Of Sherlock Holmes or Fedora, had been commercially successful, he probably would have continued making memorable movies into the 80s. Instead, he was thrust into the role of "elder statesman" and he was the subject of fascinating books and interviews. On his headstone at Westwood Memorial, it says," Billy Wilder-I'm A Writer But Then Nobody's Perfect".
I'm somewhat surprised that Wilder, in enumerating the actors and actresses who starred in his films, didn't give credit to Jack Lemmon, who appeared in his biggest critical and commercial hits, Audrey Hepburn, his star of Sabrina, Shirley MacLaine and Walter Matthau, Oscar winner for The Fortune Cookie. He was extremely prescient in forecasting the future of the film industry and the use of I pads and I phones to watch movies. He would bemoan the absence of literate screenplays in today's films
Wyler and Wilder are the best directors that came out of the American cinema between 1940 and 1960. Not in talent so much as much as talent combined with perfection in all aspects of the film, fine performances by actors and relatively more massive production of movies. We have maybe 10 movies to greatly remember from their works. While from Coppola we have two mastepieces and one or two more good films, Hitchcock was a creator of films on an industrial rate but he was genre specific. He did not made comedies or westerns or musicals to diversify. Hitchcock was master in his own genre and we can not know how he would perform in another genre. Maybe John Ford ranks among them as well, but I have no opinion as I have only seen very few of Ford's films.
Its amazing that he can be so right about all the things that were going to happen. And yet still so wrong about his conclusion. Actors are great. And we like them doing the stuff, but how many content creators are there now? How many truly independent, creative actors are making their own channels and companies? He thought it wouldn't effect their exclusivity on the market. But now literally anyone with a phone can get online and make content for free and make a go of it. Its the furthest away from what he was hoping would happen.
They say none of this could have been predicted, but all you have to do in order to see an early cell-phone envisioning is watch an episode of the tv show Star Trek played all over for anybody to see that wanted to expand their mind!
Just think that being jewish and Austrian born, he could’ve died in the camps like so many others, had he not fled his country before it became impossible. And consequently, we wouldn’t have Sunset Blvd and we would never have heard and seen MM singing and dancing Diamonds are a girl’s best friend. Oh god, what a loss it would’ve been!
PLease watch the David Lean AFT show after this. Real genius can predict the future. P.S. then watch that movie he made with Monroe, Curtis and Lemmon (is it 2 m's??).
