Books › Conversations with Wilder
Conversations with Wilder
373 pages
Pull up a chair and listen to a sharp, funny Hollywood legend spill decades of behind-the-scenes secrets to an eager fellow filmmaker.
What it feels like
Reading this book feels like sitting in a room with a sharp-witted Hollywood legend, listening to him hold court. The pace is leisurely and deeply conversational, anchored by a staggering visual archive of over six hundred photographs that invite you to linger over the golden age of cinema. The tone strikes a perfect balance between the interviewer's reverent curiosity and the subject's candid, funny, and distinct voice. It cultivates an intimate, nostalgic mood that immerses the reader in the mechanics of screenwriting, camera work, and star-studded collaborations. This is a treasure trove for cinephiles and storytellers, offering an unfiltered, experiential journey through thirty years of studio-system history and the timeless art of making movies.
- Mood
- nostalgic
- intimate
- reflective
- glamorous
- Tone
- conversational
- sharp
- funny
- reverent
- candid
- Pace
- leisurely
- Themes
- creative legacy · the art of filmmaking · Hollywood history · artistic collaboration
- The writing
- A conversational blend of probing, respectful inquiry and sharp, humorous anecdotal storytelling.
- The arc
- Moves from a sense of historical curiosity to an intimate, appreciative understanding of a cinematic master's life and craft.
- Who it's for
- Cinephiles and aspiring filmmakers who crave unfiltered, behind-the-scenes wisdom from the golden age of Hollywood.
About the book
"In Conversations with Wilder, Hollywood's legendary director Billy Wilder agrees for the first time to talk extensively about his life and work."--BOOK JACKET.
"Here, in a book with more than 650 black-and-white photographs - including film posters, stills, grabs, and never-before-seen pictures from Wilder's own collection - the ninety-three-year-old icon talks to Cameron Crowe, one of today's best-known writer-directors, about thirty years at the very heart of Hollywood, and about screenwriting and camera work, set design and stars, his peers and their movies, the studio system and films today.
In his distinct voice we hear Wilder's insider view on his collaborations with such stars as Barbara Stanwyck, Gary Cooper, Marilyn Monroe, Jack Lemmon, Tony Curtis, William Holden, Audrey Hepburn, and Greta Garbo (he was a writer at MGM during the making of Ninotchka).
Here are Wilder's sharp and funny behind-the-scenes stories about the making of A Foreign Affair, Double Indemnity, Sunset Boulevard, Love in the Afternoon, Some Like It Hot, The Apartment, and Ace in the Hole, among many others."--BOOK JACKET.
Description from Open Library.
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