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| William
Wyler |
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| Director
/ Producer |
| 1902 - 1981 |
| Born July 1,
Mulhouse, Haut-Rhin, Alsace, France |
| Key
Production Country: USA |
| Key Genres:
Drama, Family Drama, Romantic Drama, Melodrama, Romantic Comedy, Romance |
| Key
Collaborators: Daniel Mandell (Editor), Robert Swink
(Editor), Samuel Goldwyn (Producer), Gregg Toland
(Cinematographer), Miriam Hopkins (Leading Player), Alfred Newman (Composer),
Hal Pereira (Production Designer), Bette
Davis (Leading Player), Audrey Hepburn
(Leading Player), Lillian Hellman (Screenwriter) |
| Highly Recommended: Dodsworth
(1936), The Best Years of Our Lives (1946), Detective
Story (1951) |
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Recommended: Dead
End (1937), Jezebel
(1938), Wuthering Heights (1939), The Letter (1940),
The Little Foxes (1941), Roman Holiday (1953), The Desperate Hours (1955) |
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Worth a Look: The Good
Fairy (1935), These Three (1936), Mrs. Miniver (1942), The Heiress
(1949), Carrie (1952), Ben-Hur (1959), The Collector (1965), How to
Steal a Millon (1966) |
| Links:
[
IMDB ] [ All-Movie
Guide ] [ Senses
of Cinema: Great Directors ] [
Film Reference ]
[ American
Masters ] [ Reel
Classics Profile ] [
An Ode to William Wyler
] |
| Books:
[
A
Talent for Trouble: The Life of Hollywood's Most Acclaimed Director ] [
William Wyler: The Authorized Biography ] |
| DVD's:
[ Amazon
] |
| 1,000
Greatest Films: The
Best Years of Our Lives (1946),
The Heiress (1949),
Roman Holiday (1953), Ben-Hur (1959) |
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250 Quintessential Noir Films:
The Letter (1940), Detective Story (1951), The Desperate Hours (1955) |
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"While
there's no denying Wyler's expertise with actors or his ability
to make the most out of a scene's topography in terms of the
characters' emotional and psychological proximity to or distance
from one another, his work could seem passionless and
schematic...Whether working in historical or domestic drama,
crime films or westerns, Wyler simply set about telling a story
elegantly and sensitively, though in later epics like The Big
Country and Ben-Hur, not to mention the musical
Funny Girl, his solemnity merely seemed stolid and overblown." -
Geoff
Andrew (The Director's Vision, 1999) |
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"Wyler's films,
although in recent times they have undergone critical
devaluation, are full of ringing, decisive and memorable
emotional moments, and sharply etched acting performances. Most
of the public, too, liked what they were seeing: it was crafted
for their benefit with such care and attention to detail that
the director at one time became known as '90-Take Wyler' for the
number of times he would re-shoot his scenes to get exactly the
right effect." - David
Quinlan (Quinlan's Illustrated Guide to Film Directors, 1999) |
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"During
the last decades of Wyler's career, many of the director's
gifts, which flourished in contexts of extreme dramatic tension
and the exigencies of studio shooting, were dissipated in
excessively grandiose properties and "locations." There were,
however, exceptions. Wyler's presence is strongly felt in the
narrow staircase of The Heiress and the dingy station
house of Detective Story." -
Charles Affron (The St. James Film Directors Encyclopedia, 1998) |
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"Much of Wyler's work is centered on characters who are severely
repressed, then give themselves over to their passions
(Dodsworth, 36; The Letter, 40; The Collector,
65). The cause and effect are usually examined by the
director, a fact which accounts for the high quality of Wyler's
pulsating melodramas. In the course of his films, there are
invariably images which brilliantly summarize a relationship or
a moment." -
William R. Meyer (The Film Buff's Catalog, 1978) |
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"I'm
here to make good pictures. If I don't see it, I won't touch it.
I may not make a good picture, but I still gotta believe in it!"
- William Wyler |
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