02109cam a22002417 4500001000700000003000500007005001700012008004100029100002300070245017300093260006600266490004200332500001500374520110600389530006101495538007201556538003601628700001901664710004201683830007701725856003801802856002701840w11486NBER20140713034731.0140713s2005 mau||||fs|||| 000 0 eng d1 aGalenson, David W.10aFilming Images or Filming Realityh[electronic resource]:bThe Life Cycles of Movie Directors from D.W. Griffith to Federico Fellini /cDavid W. Galenson, Joshua Kotin. aCambridge, Mass.bNational Bureau of Economic Researchc2005.1 aNBER working paper seriesvno. w11486 aJuly 2005.3 aWhy 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. aHardcopy version available to institutional subscribers. aSystem requirements: Adobe [Acrobat] Reader required for PDF files. aMode of access: World Wide Web.1 aKotin, Joshua.2 aNational Bureau of Economic Research. 0aWorking Paper Series (National Bureau of Economic Research)vno. w11486.4 uhttp://www.nber.org/papers/w11486 uurn:doi:10.3386/w11486