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October 29, 2005
He's so rude about Billy Wilder: a defense at 100
Novelist Jonathan Coe has been a Billy Wilder obsessive for years, and opens a nimble consideration of critical contumely still directed toward the writer-director like this: "Recently a friend came round to my house and was examining the bookshelves, as friends so often do. He came to the part where most of my books about cinema are loosely gathered together, and seemed to be staring at it for an inordinately long time. Something was obviously bothering him. "Where is it?" he asked... "Do you keep it somewhere else?"I didn't even have to ask what he was talking about. David Thomson's 'Biographical Dictionary of Film' is, as everybody will tell you, indispensable. Far more than just a reference book, it is also [a]... passionate, opinionated work of literature. Everybody in this country who loves film seems to have a copy. Everybody except me, that is. And when my friend asked me why not, there was only one truthful answer I could give: "Because he's so rude about Billy Wilder."
Posted by pride at October 29, 2005 12:02 PM