More Hollywood gentiles
D.W. Griffith. Birth of a Nation was the first hit feature length film. He invented the Hollywood blockbuster (or tentpole picture) that studios still rely on to keep them profitable.
Orson Welles. Citizen Kane was so innovative it still looks modern today. Director Welles broke with the filmed stage play conventions and the technical limitations of primitive sets, cameras and lighting to make one of the greatest films ever. To create an illusion of reality Kane uses more special effects than most early fantasy films. Every music video lifts tricks from Kane. Despite Welles' anti-fascism and a pathetic love for Jews his innovation was rewarded with forty years of shrinking budgets, frustration, bit parts in bad movies and humiliating commercial work until his final role as a robot planet in a Transformers cartoon.
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