TSPDT

Key Production Country: USA
Key Genres: Drama, Family Drama, Melodrama, Romantic Drama, Romantic Comedy, Romance, Psychological Drama, Epic, War Drama, Crime Drama, Thriller, Period Film
Key Collaborators: Robert Swink (Editor), Daniel Mandell (Editor), Samuel Goldwyn (Producer), Gregg Toland (Cinematographer), Alfred Newman (Composer), Miriam Hopkins (Leading Actress), Hal Pereira (Production Designer), Bette Davis (Leading Actress), Audrey Hepburn (Leading Actress), Herbert Marshall (Leading Actor), Teresa Wright (Leading Actress), Lillian Hellman (Screenwriter)

"There was a time when William Wyler was hailed as one of the finest of all directors, praised for his use of deep-focus cinematography and long, unbroken takes. Today his reputation has declined - a filmmaker dethroned by critical fashion, damned for those very qualities for which he was once lauded. His restraint has come to be seen as impersonality, his good taste as complacency, his seriousness as pomposity, his technical skill and lucidity as bland... Whatever the genre or the scale, Wyler never brought to any of his films less than impeccable craftsmanship." - Philip Kemp (501 Movie Directors, 2007)

"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)

"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)

"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)

"From 1936 onwards, he made sturdy, tasteful, smooth, respectable, quality entertainments that generally won Oscars... Gregg Toland's camerawork, especially his deep-focus photography, gave Wyler's films a definition they might not have had." - Ronald Bergan (A-Z of Movie Directors, 1983)

"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)

“Attracted to quality properties, most often plays like Dodsworth (1936), which earned him his first Oscar nomination, and Dead End (1937), Wyler soon established himself as one of Hollywood’s classiest directors, known as a perfectionist and hard taskmaster who demanded much of his cast, but achieved results which justified the hard work and multiple takes for every scene.” - Joel W. Finler (The Movie Directors Story, 1985)

“In a career spanning 45 years, he directed nearly 50 features. During his long and fruitful association with independent producer Samuel Goldwyn, Wyler became a director of prestige projects that were often adaptations of stage plays, many of them by the leading playwrights of his era. In an effort to remain true to the spatial relations of the plays he filmed, Wyler pioneered the use of deep-focus photography with the help of his cinematographer, Gregg Toland.” - The Encyclopedia of Hollywood, 2004

"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