I have ten commandments. The first nine are, thou shalt not bore. The tenth is, thou shalt have right of final cut.
Interpretation
This quote humorously emphasizes the importance of engaging storytelling and creative control in filmmaking.
Billy Wilder's quote highlights the essential elements of captivating an audience and maintaining creative authority. By stating that the first nine commandments revolve around avoiding boredom, he underscores the need for entertainment and engagement in film, while the final commandment stresses the importance of having the ultimate say in editing and presentation, which ensures the filmmaker's vision is preserved.
In practice
This quote would be perfect to use during a filmmaking workshop to emphasize the significance of audience engagement.
Film’s thought of as a director’s medium because the director creates the end product that appears on the screen. It’s that stupid auteur theory again, that the director is the author of the film. But what does the director shoot-the telephone book? Writers became much more important when sound came in, but they’ve had to put up a valiant fight to get the credit they deserve.
What critics call dirty in our pictures, they call lusty in foreign films.
Happiness is working with Jack Lemmon.
Hindsight is always twenty-twenty.
I'd worship the ground you walked on if only you walked in a better neighborhood.
He has Van Gogh's ear for music.
When I was younger I could remember anything, whether it happened or not.
It is the test of a good religion whether you can joke about it.
The longest sentence you can form with two words is: I do.
The gentle reader will never, never know what a consummate ass he can become until he goes abroad.
It amused me to think that one can tell the truth when one is drunk and nobody will believe it.
There is one thing more exasperating than a wife who can cook and won't, and that's a wife who can't cook and will.
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