Conversations with Billy Wilder - Softcover

Crowe, Cameron

4.31

1,144 ratings by Goodreads

9780571203864: Conversations with Billy Wilder

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0571203868 ISBN 13: 9780571203864

Publisher: Faber and Faber, 2000

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At the age of 93, and just a few years before he died, the legendary maestro, director of classics such as Sunset Boulevard, Some Like it Hot and The Apartment, among others, talked to Cameron Crowe about thirty years at the very heart of Hollywood. Wilder's distinct voice provides a fascinating insider's view of the film industry past and present. Sharp and funny behind-the-scenes stories, candid reflections on stars as fabled as Greta Garbo, Marilyn Monroe and Gary Cooper, and recollections of his early years in Vienna and Berlin, all told with his trademark dry wit, tough-minded romanticism and elegance, make this an unforgettable memoir of Hollywood history and lore.

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Review:

Conversations with Wilder, an invaluable, photo-intensive volume, is a kind of remake of Truffaut's must-read interview book Hitchcock, with Cameron Crowe in the inquisitive Truffaut role and wily 93-year-old Billy Wilder as the crafty master director. Drawing on his experience interviewing the monsters of rock and his deep, shot-by-shot knowledge of Wilder's work, Crowe gently and cunningly coaxes answers from Wilder--arguably today's most influential living director--on what made his hits tick and his flops suck, along with glimpses of what might have been. Did you know Mae West and Mary Pickford spurned Sunset Boulevard and Wilder spurned Marilyn Monroe for Irma la Douce? That The Apartment was inspired by Brief Encounter and the look of Double Indemnity was based on M? The gossipy insights are great too. Bogart spat when he talked, so Wilder couldn't back-light him in Sabrina, and Audrey Hepburn's wardrobe woman had to towel her off after each take--discreetly! Wilder loathed Raymond Chandler (partly because Chandler disdained James M. Cain when adapting Double Indemnity) but gives him his due as a screenwriter: Chandler could do dialogue and descriptions but he couldn't construct a scene; "He was a mess but he could write a beautiful sentence", says Wilder. Agatha Christie was the opposite: "She had structure but she lacked poetry."

Some critics scoff at Crowe (who cried while directing emotional scenes in Jerry Maguire) for taking on the cynic Wilder. But they're brothers under the skin. Both leaped from popular music journalism to directing. Both incorporate actual events in their films. Wilder keenly regrets not filming this scene in The Spirit of St. Louis, which he claims really happened: the night before his historic flight, Lindbergh's handlers talked a pretty waitress into having sex with him. They claimed he was a virgin, and likely to die on his voyage. In the hero's parade upon his return, she waves at him through the ticker-tape but he doesn't see her. "Would have been a good scene", mourns Wilder. Without this book, we'd never have known about it. --Tim Appelo, Amazon.com

Synopsis:

The renowned director talks to Cameron Crowe about 30 years at the very heart of Hollywood. Wilder's distinct voice provides a fascinating insider's view of the film industry past and present.

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