Directors Who Were Not Popular In Their Country?

Cafe Society
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I use “Were” specifically because things can change for a living director. Maybe they make one great movie and their country loves them forever. Name a dead director who IS popular in other countries, but not their own. Specify all you can… The country/countries a particular director IS popular, maybe reasons why you think (or know) this?

I’ve heard Kurosawa say he was disliked in Japan. One reason I read was that he drew from Western influences (Shakespeare, for example) and wasn’t Japanese “enough”. I’ve heard the same being said about Bergman as well. My guess is that his movies might paint a dark picture of Sweden. I heard a director in this Bergman documentary say that Fellini wasn’t liked in Italy, but I find it hard to believe. He mentioned that his last few movies didn’t make any money as a possible reason, but that’s usually standard anywhere.

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Critically, at least, Jerry Lewis.

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I had a college professor who knew Bergman and who was present at the Swedish premiere of one of his classic (might have been The Seventh Seal). The theater was nearly empty. So it does look like he was less popular in Sweden.

Howard Hawks was more appreciated in France than in the US. He did well enough at the box office, but no one considered him a top-notch director until the tail end of his career. It’s possibly because he didn’t specialize, directing war pictures, westerns, comedies, horror, and whatever struck his fancy.

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Wow, I had no idea Howard Hawks was popular in France… Do you know when the height of his popularity was? In the late 50s, with the “New Wave” dominating the noise around French films, I noticed they never did a Western. It’s too bad, because I think a Western is a great genre where you can be philosophical without the pretense (The Professional, 1966). I would have never guessed he’d be popular in France, especially with the small tensions in culture between the two countries I observed while in Europe, etc…

I just remembered using this site called ChatRoulette, and sometimes I would select a country just to ask about their respective directors, and I still remember a guy saying he didn’t care for Bergman, and mentioned how “Death the Character was silly” (I think it’s creative as hell).

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Alan Smithee

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Alexander Korda and Zoltan Korda.

I don’t know if they were unpopular in Hungary, but they spent most of their careers in the US and the UK.

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We might throw current Woody Allen into this mix.

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And speaking of mondegreens (we were speaking of mondegreens, right?), I first mis-read the title of this thread as “Dictators Who Were Not Popular In Their Country?” and wondered what this thread is doing here in Cafe Society.

I’ve gotta quit reading so much about Trump these days.

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Woody Allen is definitely regarded as a serious director more in France, Italy and Spain than he is in America. Curiously, when Jean Doumanian and her boyfriend were handling his business affairs, they forgot to release his movies abroad. Oops!