Also, knowing Godard doesn't somehow give you insight into all things cinema. America is responsible for the majority of quality through the ages - although often using foreign talent. Orson Welles, Hitchcock, Lean, Kubrick, Scott(Ridley, of course), Polanski etc. are all from elsewhere but the Americans realised they should put up the money for these people. Not to forget, then, the great Americans out there - Spielberg, De Palma(the early years), Anderson(Wes and PT), Tarantino, Lynch, Coppola(father and daughter), Scorcese, etc..
That's just plain wrong.
First, 'pretentious' is an over-used term, guess is used generally when the viewer does not get the filmmaker's intention. I've never bought into the fascination of that term, it hardly makes sense. No filmmaker pretends to make a film that he/she does not want to make. Indulgence - yes, Godard's films are self-referential and indulgent, but that doesn't make them good/bad by itself.
And America is clearly not responsible for majority of quality through the ages. You are just either ignoring/ignorant on the contributions to Cinema from countries around the world. Welles, Hitchcock, Kubrick and Polanski - I give it to you (Although Hitchcock was from the UK and made quite a few films there, Kubrick made a few films there as well and Polanski made a number of French and other European films - surprised he doesn't get under your criteria of pretentious!). Lean is considered primarily a filmmaker of the UK. Scott - just no! Lynch and Scorsese - yes again! Mr. Coppola is borderline even though he made a few great films. Tarantino, Anderson (both), Coppola (daughter), Spielberg and De Palma are just hyped filmmakers and aren't high on quality. You can find a lot of hyped filmmakers in America anyway compared to rest of the world. Anyways, if this is what America has given, which is fortunately not true (you've missed Griffith, Chaplin, Keaton, Wilder, Lubitsch, Lang, Lumet etc. etc. - quite a number in there who migrated from Europe), it would be a travesty considering the quantity of films produced so far in America.
Anyways, coming to the 'majority' part - Cinema of France alone can talk about the following filmmakers and their quality - Gance, Duvivier, Clair, Renoir, Cocteau, Clouzot, Carne, Becker, Bresson, Clement, Renais, Tati, Melville, Rivette, Varda, Rohmer, Sautet, Malle, Chabrol, Franju, Truffaut, 'pretentious' Godard, Demy, Costa-Gavras, Blier, Pialat, Techine, Chereau, Leconte, Carax, Assayas, Audiard, Ozon and the likes who are/were great filmmakers in their own way. I'm talking about one country in all. There are several other European, Asian and African industries that vary from small to large that have been churning out quality films and have contributed great filmmakers. This gross assumption that America has churned out the majority of quality films out of all remaining countries put together is downright appalling.
Isn't it fascinating that Titanic is the most watched film in history? Doesn't that say something about it? Or does it say that everyone who watched it is a simpleton because they didn't watch Godard instead?
No surprises there, as Titanic's not that hard to get by. It's available around the world. It is just popular. There are quite a lot of ordinary popular films out there - one reason why imdb ratings are often skewed. This is exactly what I was talking about above when talking about hype.
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