"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

One of America's most critically acclaimed filmmakers for more than 20 years, Scorsese has won worldwide plaudits with a body of work that is informed by his Italian-American Catholic upbringing. As a young man, Scorsese decided to enter the priesthood, but dropped out of seminary after his first yea

Open-ended, Polychromatic, Surreal, Tense

Unfortunately, little is known about the personal life of Thomas Pynchon, the man behind such innovative texts as "The Crying of Lot 49" (1966) and "Gravity's Rainbow" (1973). Carefully guarding his privacy ever since the 1961 publication of his first novel, "V.," Pynchon has nevertheless dazzled cri

Deconstructive, Excessive, Funny, Manic, Open-ended, Paranoid, Post-war literature, Postmodern fiction, Surreal, Trippy

The pioneer of American Pop art began using mass-media images in his work in the mid-1950s. His use of appropriated newspaper and magazine images and found objects is central to his aesthetic theory: "Painting relates to both art and life. Neither can be made. I try to act in that gap between the two

Chance, Composed, Improvised, Kaleidoscopic, Open-ended