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.
Poetry confronts in the most clear-eyed way just those emotions which consciousness wishes to slide by.
The problem of architecture has always been the same throughout time. Its authentic quality is reached through its proportions, and the proportions cost nothing. In fact, most of them are proportions among things, not the things themselves. Art is almost always a question of proportions.
Drawing is a means of obtaining and communicating knowledge
No one is an artist unless he carries his picture in his head before painting it, and is sure of his method and composition.
My partner sometimes liked to go into the studio and improvise voice things just for fun. When I returned from England I transcribed one of her melodies, and had some of the hospice participants sing it, because they said they liked to sing. Their singing is very raw, but I'm going to use it for the final work.
It takes 25 years to learn to draw, one hour to learn to paint.
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