French film critic Michel Ciment interviews Billy Wilder about his life and film-making. Cast Billy Wilder Himself Michel Ciment Himself - Interviewer Jack Lemmon Himself Walter Matthau Himself I.A.L. Diamond Himself
Frankly, it's hard to decide between The Apartment, Ace in the Hole, and Sunset Boulevard. His last film, Fedora from 1978. I don't know what to make of. It was disappointing but I haven't been able to figure why. It bombed at the time it was released, but a few years ago was fully restored and revalued. I did like it, but I can't say I was blown away.
I worked as an assistant to Mr. wilder as he developed two films that unfortunately were never made. The first was a picture about a man who invents a new mousetrap that eventually leads to the downfall of the world economy, titled, Mouse Trap. The second was a comedy about two twelve-year-old serial killers who move unobserved throughout a small city in France, racking up dozens of murders before one killed the other. That one was titled Our Days In Heaven. He was ahead of his time, certainly.
You couldn’t invent Billy Wilder. A man that saw hypocrisy, tragedy, love, comedy, pathos in so many different things. What a treat to listen to him in these wonderful interviews.
I agree! He is absolutely fascinating to listen to, and one of my favorite screenwriters. I do wonder, however, if he directed "Sabrina" for the money or to fulfill a contractual obligation.
"I love it you know to irritate everybody.. Ultimately naturally they're gonna put me against a cellophane wall and shoot me from both sides.. The Communists and the Capitalists..I love it" I'm glad I watched this..To find that Billy is as marvellous a character as any of his marvellous movies, is immensely pleasing.
This is a great documentary about one of the greatest movie makers ever. It gives an invaluable insight into the man behind the camera. Priceless! Thanks for posting!
brilliant little doco...brilliant guy who made some of the best movies that will ever be made..howeevr, .made me feel a real lament and sadness for the loss of a whole medium that was once a great art form of the USA. RIP Billy..and RIP Cinema.
B.Wilder has to have at least 5 or 6 Masterpieces.One of the greatest Cinema Director.. Without any doubt. Wonderful documentary and the Interviewer, the French Gentleman, is just perfect asking the right questions. Thanks so much for uploading it🧤🧤🧤🧤
The Apartment Sunset Boulevard The Lost Weekend Ace in the Hole Double Indemnity Some Like it Hot Stalag 17 Avanti All masterpieces in my eyes and his other films are not that far off :)
The ONE person I would've loved to have dinner with - the most creative mind! I agree with all the previous posts !.........especially those who described Wilder as brilliant!!
What an outstanding and stylish documentary! And like Sunset Boulevard, also full of self-irony and self-reflection, so the style of the documentary says something about the subject matter. Billy Wilder and Michel Ciment in top form! And, I must admit, incredibly more stimulating and profound than the chatterbox Karasek's conversations with Billy...
He considers his first film as a director in America, "The Major and the Minor", a small picture. What he doesn't tell is that the writing is SO funny and intelligent.
In my top ten movie list there's always number 5 or 6 which is Double Indemnity. What a director Billy Wilder. What a career! One of few directors you could call a genius.
I am so very glad that I didn't passed over this documentary. I'm also very thankful that you posted it. Though I knew who Billy Wilder was, and have seen 90% of his films. I knew absolutely nothing about him as a man. What an incredible, self possessed, sincere, disaffected, consummate professional he was. It must've been an amazing experience for anyone who had the opportunity to work along side this genius. I have saved this documentary for posterity and I intend on sharing it with others fellow cinephiles.
This is fantastic, thanks for uploading. I like how relaxed the format is, letting him move around as he pleases and following him to different places.
The last part of the interview where he is told he has become a romantic and he rejects that and doesn't want to be thought as a "softie" is very lol funny.
Genius And imagine walking the beach - a beach less groomed and developed than today, and see Mr. Wilder... flying a kite ~ And back when remote Broad beach had an expansive non- eroded beach
One of the most brilliant geniuses in hollywood, made some of the best films of all time. Yet he couldn't even get a meeting at the end of career. Hwood sucks.
13:43 He tells from his first script for a film directed by Robert Siodmak "People on Sunday" (Menschen am Sonntag) filmed at the Cafe Kranzler Alexanderplatz Berlin
I'm glad the program takes the time to discuss his later, 1970s films, which are not bad, and "Fedora" is quite good, despite its punted-around history. Wilder has to be in the discussion of the best directors ever. I'd put him Top 5. Maybe #3, behind Hitchcock and Kurosawa. He's already the greatest screenwriter. It's funny to see him and his writing partner sort of act out the writing scene from Sunset Blvd between Holden and Nancy Olson.
Wilder's films couldn't get made now. People long ago lost interest in hearing actors speak witty dialog. And he would never have made a film with superheroes.
People lose their accent when they want to lose their identity. Billy Wilder wanted to add new layers to his identity, not to replace it with an American one.
Care to add any argumentation there? English people in Greece don't lose their accents, becuase their 'Westernness' conveys some cultural cachet; ALbanians do (entirely), because being Albanian conveys no cultural cachet. They want to shed their identity, so they shed their accent. Billy WIlder was proud of his Hapsburg background (and probably disdainful of Hollywood and American culture)... @@massi6528
Lol... 75 years old... Drinking.. smoking.... probably stressed most of his life making pictures... and he lived to be 95!!!! 90% of vegan, yoga, gym freaks who wont smoke, wont drink, wont eat sweets or eat carbs wont even make it past 85! LOL He sold some of his art collection 7 years after this interview for like 32 million dollars... 32 million in 1989!!! thats huge money....
Untrue- Billy was born in Austrian Hungarian Empire before WWI ruled by the Hapsbergs. The influences were Vienese from age 6. Vienna was key element in his develoopment. Leaving there to come to USA.
Doubtful - since his well ordered mind produced classic diverse cinema magic. Perhaps his focus on his vocation and preference for small spaces such as the office, as he can not be bothered fussing over what he has around him. The beach is where he restores himself.
In general as an aside, perhaps. In a diagnostic sense, hoarding is a lack of insight on top of an overrun of stuff that interferes with a safety and self sustaining life. It poses a danger to which the hoarder is blind to this state.
Jack Lemmon is very confusing regarding his retelling of the decision to visit the ladies room in preparation for "Some Like It Hot" - in some interviews it's Tony Curtis' idea, in some it's his - in this one, it's Billy Wilder's idea. I love love Jack Lemmon as a performer but it kind of makes me doubt anything that comes out of this guy's mouth.
The joke about Russians... hilarious! What a sense of humour, with such brilliant sarcasm he had. Funny it was a kind of an American or British type of sense of humour, more than Austrian, German. Germans are not exactly known for their sense of humour.