Category: Filmmakers
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My Encounters with Billy Wilder, Part 2
For my second interview session with Billy Wilder on March 4, 1994, at his office in Beverly Hills, the legendary writer-director allowed me 45 minutes—and served as my personal countdown clock. In our wide-ranging conversation, we talked about his relatives in Vienna, his early days in Hollywood, his reasons for becoming a director, his high…
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My First Encounter with Billy Wilder
It’s now 117 years since the birth of Billy Wilder on June 22, 1906. I had the good fortune to interview the great writer-director of the classics Double Indemnity, Sunset Blvd., Some Like It Hot, The Apartment and so many others in his office in Beverly Hills on September 17, 1993, the first of six encounters (two in…
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For Clint Eastwood’s 93rd Birthday, A Look Back at ‘Million Dollar Baby’
Clint Eastwood turns 93 on May 31, 2023—and he’s still at it, in pre-production on his 40th feature, Juror #2. I was lucky to get him on the phone in 2004 to discuss one of his two Best Picture Oscar winners, Million Dollar Baby. A last-minute addition to that year’s release schedule, Million Dollar Baby…
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Polish Master Andrzej Wajda, Five Years Before Solidarity’s Triumph
I’m eternally grateful that early in my Film Journal career, thanks to the late, great publicist Renee Furst, I got to sit down with legends of the international film world like Alain Resnais and Andrzej Wajda. This fall 1984 interview with arguably Poland’s most acclaimed director is especially compelling to revisit, since Wajda had been forced to…
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Paul Schrader Encounters a Japanese Icon in ‘Mishima: A Life in Four Chapters’
Paul Schrader made an auspicious directing debut 45 years ago with Blue Collar, a hard-hitting drama about three struggling Michigan auto workers who turn to crime. Already celebrated as the screenwriter of the landmark Taxi Driver, Schrader continued to pursue parallel tracks as writer-director (Hardcore, American Gigolo, Cat People, The Comfort of Strangers, Light Sleeper, Affliction, Auto…
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Thirty-five Years Ago, Costa-Gavras Made a Film About White Supremacists in America
The great Greek-French filmmaker Constantin Costa-Gavras turned 90 on February 12, 2023. Best known for his Oscar-winning 1969 classic Z, the director seldom made a film that wasn’t fueled by political urgency. That certainly applies to the movie that was the subject of our 1988 conversation, Betrayed. His third English-language film, it stars Debra Winger as an…
Kevin Lally on Film 