The only pictures worth making are the ones that are playing with fire.
Interpretation
Creative endeavors that challenge norms are the most valuable.
Billy Wilder's quote emphasizes the importance of pushing boundaries and taking risks in the creative process. By 'playing with fire,' he suggests that true artistry involves experimenting with bold ideas and concepts, even if they may lead to failure or controversy, as these are often the works that leave a lasting impact.
In practice
An artist could use this quote when discussing their approach to new projects in an interview.
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.
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.
Use anger to emotionalize whatever thing you intend to do in life - being a painter, a poet or a photographer
Poetry consists in a rhyming dictionary and things seen.
I don't do fashion, I'm fashion
When a man understands the art of seeing, he can trace the spirit of an age and the features of a king even in the knocker on a door.
God does not ask for 'religious' art or 'Catholic' art. The art he wants for himself is Art, with all its teeth
Above all, I feel that the sounds of this world are so beautiful in themselves that if only we could listen to them properly, cinema would have no need for music at all.
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