re: Welcome to the Era of the Fanboy Filmmaker

quote:

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John Ford was a Fanboy of Westerns and natural locations.
Alfred Hitchcock was a Fanboy of Suspense

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You're seriously distorting the word "fanboy"

Ford got started in westerns, didn't make one for almost 15 years until he found a script he liked (Stagecoach), then after WWII returned to the genre as it was having a resurgence in popularity. Also his close friend and frequent collaborator John Wayne became more and more popular, so it made sense for him to work in the genre.

Hitchcock's first big hit (The Lodger) was a thriller, then he worked in other genres but did not have another hit until the first Man Who Knew Too Much. AH made occasional attempts to get out of the thriller genre -- the historical drama Jamaica Inn, the screwball comedy Mr and Mrs Smith, the historical soap opera Under Capricorn, the black comedy The Trouble With Harry, not to mention the stylistic experiments of Lifeboat and Rope, (and his first, never made Hollywood project, Titanic) -- but they were all boxoffice disappointments. So it was quite natural for him to return to the genre that had been most successful for him.