Hollywood's foreign affair

But bringing an outsider's perspective to an "American" tale doesn't always work. "Windtalkers," released earlier this year and directed by John Woo, was both a critical and financial disappointment. "He didn't really seem to have the insight to get the World War II details down the way [Steven] Spielberg would in 'Saving Private Ryan,' " says Thomas Doherty, who teaches film history at Brandeis University in Waltham, Mass. To his mind, Woo missed the "American-ness" of the story.

Despite these occasional misfires, Los Angeles is ramping up its import business. This may partly stem from a bit of an inferiority complex – a belief that directors from other countries are, by definition, more creative. "Hollywood has always cast a jealous eye at foreign filmmakers," says Kevin Hagopian, a film historian who teaches at Penn State University. "The work of these directors is thought to bring a visual flair and a narrative variety to the American cinema. And Hollywood only has to look at its most successful era – the 1930s and 1940s – to recollect that foreign directors like Billy Wilder, Ernst Lubitsch, and Michael Curtiz were at the helm of the greatest films ever made."

But while they may admire foreign filmmakers' craft, studios aren't anxious to buy foreign films.

"Nobody's asking for 'foreign' films – subtitles, cultures we don't understand, myth structures unfamiliar to the average mall teenager," points out Jerry Herron, who studies American culture as director of American studies at Wayne State University in Detroit. "What we are asking for is somebody who can figure out how to make the same stuff we already ... desire, except cheaper and also maybe with a piece-worker's obligation to pay more attention to details."

Perhaps, he says, Hollywood is becoming "the Lower East Side of the media age: the place that people come to from all over to make our product."

But besides seeking fresh ideas, producers today are also thinking of foreign sales as they decide both who is behind and in front of the camera.

"We realized [Mr. Polson] has some [fame] in Australia," Penotti says. His marketing strategy for the film included the hope of strong ticket sales in Australia. "A lot of American films are based on being able to put together interesting packages for foreign distributors," he says, "so you absolutely have an eye on making a film work for certain territories."

Along with locking up foreign markets, American studios simply are seeking talent.

"Hollywood has always been pretty generous and promiscuous in exploiting talent wherever they can find it," says Professor Doherty. Between World War I and World War II, he notes, mogul Louis B. Mayer went to Germany "basically buying up anybody he could find with talent."

Foreign directors may first have art-house hits, often not in English, that bring them to the attention of American audiences – and Hollywood producers. Mr. Lee shot "Eat Drink Man Woman" in Chinese before directing "The Ice Storm," a story of a troubled American suburban family, for example.

Not that language is necessarily a barrier, either. What about the classic Hollywood tales of directors who could understand little or no English?

To this day, on a sound stage the acronym MOS means filming without sound, he says. It's attributed to German-speaking director Michael Curtiz ("White Christmas," "Casablanca"), who is supposed to have yelled in mixed German-English: "Mit out sound, please."

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