Michael Laskin Studio

While doing some paperwork at home the other day, I had TCM (Turner Classic Movies) on in the kitchen.  Background noise….usually ignored.  They happened to be airing a short bio piece on Billy Wilder, the great screenwriter and director.

A note: for my younger readers who don’t know Billy Wilder’s work, he wrote and directed some of the greatest films of all time:  ”Sunset Boulevard”, “Some Like it Hot”, “The Apartment”, “The Lost Weekend”, among many others.  Check him out.  He won seven Oscars as a writer and director, and many other prestigious awards – among them an AFI LIfetime Achievement Award in 1986.  I attended that event and heard him speak with an undiminished razor-sharp wit about the state of the film business, art, and life.  A Jew who fled Nazi occupied Europe, his world-view was deeply informed by that experience; his body of work laced with irony, wit, depth, and a puckish sense of humor.

Back to my story……I was listening to this short bio of him on TCM, and as I worked away I heard a quote that simply stopped me cold.  Jack Lemmon was speaking in glowing terms about Wilder, and how much he meant to him as a mentor, a friend, a fellow artist.  At one point Lemmon quoted Wilder as saying, “Remember, you’re as good as the best thing you’ve ever done.”

Wow.  That hit home; a powerful concept that is easy to lose sight of, especially in tough times. Artistic lives have an ebb and a flow, and when we’re in the inevitable ebb phase our “go to” psychological position can be bleak.  I certainly have done my time in “I’ll-never-work-again-hell”. Precisely at these junctures, remembering the value of our very best work is terribly important.  In fact, it’s key.

Wilder had the “misfortune” of living to be 95 in a town and an industry that worships youth – and always has.  He made his last real feature at age 75, and it was not a success.  He tried for many years to get another film, and never succeeded.  I used to see him in Beverly Hills often.  He was out and about; a vigorous man who was still sharp, clever, and engaged in life.  I feel certain that this quote was something he also privately said to himself, and about himself.  His place in the pantheon of cinema history was secure, but he still wanted to work.  He still had stories to tell. Conventional wisdom was that he had lost it – whatever “it” is.  We will never know if he had another great film in him….I suspect he might have.  But I have to believe that he never lost sight of this core value: “You’re as good as the best thing you’ve ever done.”

Keep that in mind as you move forward.  I have often said that the very best thing I can do for any student of mine is to help them become their own guru.  I am not into the teacher-student co-dependancy thing, in case you hadn’t noticed!  In that vein, this wisdom from the great Billy Wilder is a tremendous launching-off point.

Do work that you are  proud of.  Embrace failure, when it happens. Learn from it.  And when times get tough, as they inevitably will, remember these words:

“Remember, you’re as good as the best thing you’ve ever done.”

Thanks, Billy.  Duly noted.

BIlly Wilder accepts AFI LIfetime Achievement Award

The ending of this is very powerful, as he talks about the culture of fear in Hollywood, and the very human element of our art and craft.