Five Directors of International Cinema

David Wark Griffith was born in Kentucky on January 22, 1875. He began his career as an actor in small touring companies. He tried his hand at writing but had little success in the theater. Eventually, he became a writer at Biograph Studios, working in the new medium of motion pictures. Eventually, he was directing most of Biograph's films. In a little more than five years, he directed more than 450 films, many of them one-reelers.

The experience allowed him to experiment constantly, learning how to use film to tell stories. He became remarkably adept at the film aesthetic. Kevin Brownlow quotes Lloyd Morris' evaluation of Griffith's genius: "He had no respect for the medium in which he was working, but his temperament compelled him to treat it as if it were an art

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his father died, and the orphaned boy was enrolled in school and made the ward of Maurice Bernstein, a Chicago physician. Instead of attending college, Welles decided to travel throughout Europe, occasionally bluffing his way on stage by posing as an American star on holiday. He eventually made his Broadway debut with Catherine Cornell's acting company. In 1937, he and John Houseman formed the Mercury Theatre; the following year, the company leapt to fame (or infamy, depending on the perspective) for its sensational production of H. G. Wells' War of the Worlds, which caused a national panic with its all-too-real portrayal of an alien invasion on Halloween night. Although he was involved in several films before Citizen Kane (1941), this classic production became the first to be seen by the public, and it established his reputation. Welles' earlier film projects gave him opportunities to experiment and gain experience that prepared him well for the astonishing project he had in mind. Katz describes Citizen Kane as "a film of cataclysmic power, a screen work whose inventive construction and innovative cinematographic and sound techniques have greatly influenced filmmakers in America and elsewhere" (1220). Citizen Kane consi
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Approximate Word count = 4511
Approximate Pages = 18 (250 words per page)

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