Video Interview: Billy Wilder

Scott Myers

14 Aug 2011 • 1 min read

My favorite writer-director, the late great Billy Wilder. These clips from a 1986 appearance at AFI:

Part 1

Part 2

Part 3

Quote: “I try to make a picture that is on a certain level, but not for a special audience of cinema gourmets. I try to give them [studios] merchandise that is sellable. There’s only so low I can sink. Even I. I try to give them marketable merchandise.”

We may aspire to art, but if we want to work in Hollywood, the reality is this: Movies are a business. They are commerce. This may affront our aesthetic sensibilities, but if Billy Wilder could deliver such “marketable merchandise” as Double Indemnity, Sunset Blvd., The Apartment, and Some Like It Hot, there’s no reason we need to feel like what we do can’t be about great filmmaking while creating content for a mainstream audience.

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