Conversations with Wilder by Cameron Crowe is a book length interview with Billy Wilder in the same style as Francois Truffaut's book on Alfred Hitchcock. The book dissects Wilder’s favorite moments in his films and bounces around switching topics frequently and focusing more on the voice of the man behind the camera. Wilder also provides commentary on other great filmmakers such as Stanley Kubrick and Steven Spielberg. The book is interesting because it is Wilder’s own opinion of his work and what each film meant to him. Although he was in his nineties when the interview was conducted, he is still sharp and remembers almost every detail on each of films.

One delightful anecdote he mentions about Sunset Boulevard is concerning the last shot in which Norma Desmond transcends the staircase and pronounces “All right, Mr. DeMille, I'm ready for my close-up.” In typical Wilder fashion, he claims that he came up with the final shot of the film, the close-up on Norma, on the day of the shoot. Cameron Crowe then asks him how he got the shot to go fuzzy at the end to which Wilder replies “the focus gets thrown out by the focus carrier. I left the camera running. I didn’t know were to cut.” That is what symbolizes the most interesting part of this book. Wilder, even though he was a seasoned veteran by the time he made Sunset Boulevard, still had moments where he did not know what to do or how to end a shot.

The book continues to analyze other Wilder films as Crowe and Wilder both come to the conclusion that The Apartment is their favorite Wilder film. However, Conversations with Wilder is not only about his films but also about Wilder’s opinion of the medium. This candid portrait of one of the great writer-directors of all time is fascinating as his personality jumps off the page and Crowe discovers exactly what is meant by the “Wilder touch.”