From Capra to Coen, Burton to Bergman, Kazan to Kurosawa, Sayles to Spielberg, FilmDirectorsSite.Com provides an insightful study of our greatest directors, as originally selected by the often controversial and always enlightening Andrew Sarris and expanded for this site. The most important role in any film is arguably that of the director, the creative center whose inspiration, vision and control can make the difference between mediocre and masterful.
Spike Lee is the most famous African-American to have succeeded in breaking through the Hollywood establishment to create a notable career for himself as a major director. What makes this all the more notable is that he is not a comedian—the one role in which Hollywood has usually allowed blacks to excel—but a prodigious, creative, multifaceted talent who writes, directs, edits, and acts, a filmmaker who invites comparisons with American titans like Woody Allen, John Cassavetes, and Orson Welles.
Spike Lee is the most famous African-American to have succeeded in breaking through the Hollywood establishment to create a notable career for himself as a major director. What makes this all the more notable is that he is not a comedian—the one role in which Hollywood has usually allowed blacks to excel—but a prodigious, creative, multifaceted talent who writes, directs, edits, and acts, a filmmaker who invites comparisons with American titans like Woody Allen, John Cassavetes, and Orson Welles.
