Douglas Sirk
Sirk's movies were very successful at the box office, but the critics did not like them. They thought his movies unimportant and banal because they were about women and exaggerated emotions. His conspicuous style was considered unrealistic. Critical opinion changed in the 1970s.  Analysis revealed Sirk's movies actually criticized American society beneath a banal surface plot. His movies are now regarded as masterpieces of irony. Sirk's reputation was also helped by a widespread nostalgia for old-fashioned Hollywood films. His movies have influenced other directors. Todd Haynes's Far From Heaven, for example, is a conscious attempt to replicate a typical Sirk movie. Roger Ebert has remarked that "To appreciate a film like Written on the Wind probably takes more sophistication than to understand one of Ingmar Bergman's masterpieces, because Bergman's themes are visible and underlined, while with Sirk the style conceals the message."