What critics call dirty in our pictures, they call lusty in foreign films.
Interpretation
This quote highlights the double standards in how critics assess art from different cultures.
Billy Wilder's quote exposes the hypocrisy in the way critics label and judge artworks based on cultural biases. What is deemed inappropriate or 'dirty' in one context may be celebrated or viewed as passionate and expressive in another, particularly when it comes to foreign films versus domestic ones. This reflects larger societal attitudes toward sexuality, art, and the subjective nature of criticism.
In practice
In a film studies class while discussing cultural differences in film reception.
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.
I have ten commandments. The first nine are, thou shalt not bore. The tenth is, thou shalt have right of final cut.
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.
Like books and black lives - albums still matter. Tonight and always.
To say that "the camera cannot lie" is merely to underline the multiple deceits that are now practised in its name.
'For Whom the Bell Tolls' was a problem which I carried on each day. I knew what was going to happen in principle. But I invented what happened each day I wrote.
All fiction, if it's successful, is going to appeal to the emotions. Emotion is really what fiction is all about. That's not to say fiction can't be thoughtful, or present some interesting or provocative ideas to make us think. But if you want to present an intellectual argument, nonfiction is a better tool. You can drive a nail with a shoe but a hammer is a better tool for that. But fiction is about emotional resonance, about making us feel things on a primal and visceral level.
The word theatre comes from the Greeks. It means the seeing place. It is the place people come to see the truth about life and the social situation.
Not only must you be an artist, must you be generous, and must you be able to see where you can help but you must also be aware. Aware of where your skills are welcomed.
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