TY  - JOUR
AU  - Galenson,David W.
AU  - Kotin,Joshua
TI  - Filming Images or Filming Reality: The Life Cycles of Movie Directors from D.W. Griffith to Federico Fellini
JF  - National Bureau of Economic Research Working Paper Series
VL  - No. 11486
PY  - 2005
Y2  - July 2005
UR  - http://www.nber.org/papers/w11486
L1  - http://www.nber.org/papers/w11486.pdf
N1  - Author contact info:
David Galenson
Department of Economics
University of Chicago
1126 East 59th Street
Chicago, IL  60637
Tel: 773/702-8258
Fax: 773/702-8490
E-Mail: galenson@uchicago.edu

Joshua Kotin
University of Chicago
E-Mail: jkotin@uchicago.edu
M2  - featured in NBER digest on 2005-07-18
AB  - Why have some movie directors made classic early films, but subsequently failed to match their initial successes, whereas other directors have begun much more modestly, but have made great movies late in their lives? This study demonstrates that the answer lies in the directors' motivations, and in the nature of their films. Conceptual directors, who use their films to express their ideas or emotions, mature early; thus such great conceptual innovators as D. W. Griffith, Sergei Eisenstein, and Orson Welles made their major contributions early in their careers, and declined thereafter. In contrast experimental directors, whose films present convincing characters in realistic circumstances, improve their techniques with experience, so that such great experimental innovators as John Ford, Alfred Hitchcock, and Akira Kurosawa made their greatest films late in their lives. Understanding these contrasting life cycles can be part of a more systematic understanding of the development of film, and can resolve previously elusive questions about the creative life cycles of individual filmmakers.
ER  -