Hundreds of years from now, when people look back at the major artistic contributions of the 20th century, I suspect they will not focus so much on our music, literature, paintings or sculpture as they will on our movies. That's because our directors, producers, screenwriters, actors and cinematographers are in some ways like the ancient Greek poets. They are interpreting the spectacle of their time in the art form of their time. The art form that truly moves the people of the world today, that gets into the fiber of their being, is film. Certainly much of what we see at the movies is irrelevant, silly, exploitive or degrading, but there are a special few truly important films that may well dominate our cultural contributions to the future.
Filmmakers touch the masses.
The very best among them are visionaries who create, communicate and reflect what it means to be human in our age. Yet like so many of the artistic geniuses who came before them, filmmakers are often not recognized as artists. They are more often seen as entrepreneurs and as simple purveyors of popular culture. During the Italian Renaissance, men such as Leonardo da Vinci were considered craftsmen and decorators as much as artists. Leonardo himself was an architect, engineer and inventor.