Architectural, Classic hollywood, Classical, Drama, Elegant, Implosive, Layered, Masculine, Populist-mythists, Spectral, Technology, Tragic, Violent

"My characters are not violent or vile. They're everyday people. They have some money, but find themselves discontented with their own loneliness, their own mortality, the sameness of life." Championing a gritty, unencumbered approach to filmmaking, John Cassavetes directed his art toward a new front

Anxiety, Event, Gritty, Intense, Intimate, Open-ended, Psychological, Sincere, Sprawling

Joel and Ethan Coen cut their teeth on relatively low budget, fringe films. The black-humored brothers' deviant reinterpretations of Hollywood formulas laugh in the face of the studio system. Influenced more by cartoons, B-movies, and exploitation flicks than by pretentious prestige productions, the

Absurd, Bombast, Cartoonish, Grotesque, Playful, Smart, Witty

"Waaaake up!" yells DJ Mister Senor Love Daddy at the start of Spike Lee's "Do the Right Thing" -- a call to awareness that seems to be the message of all Lee's movies. Lee isn't interested in forcing any one ideology down his audience's throat; instead, he wants to expose us to the issues that preoc

African american fiction, In-your-face, Political, Urban