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.
And I taught acting for years, and without knowing it that was the real thing that started bending me toward directing.
What's so powerful about the Psalms are, as well as they're being gospel and songs of praise, they are also the blues.
On film you put all your energies into a single glance.
If you're going to play human beings, and you're going to play them three-dimensionally, you have to show every side of them.
Music is art, and art is important and rare. Important, rare things are valuable. Valuable things should be paid for. It’s my opinion that music should not be free, and my prediction is that individual artists and their labels will someday decide what an album’s price point is. I hope they don’t underestimate themselves or undervalue their art.
When asked, 'How do you write?' I invariably answer, 'one word at a time.'
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