Makes sense about the art vs pop culture. I for one am more interested in real artists then what society deems popular because most of what is stinks. Probably why people like me are outcasts and listens to ambient music.
I think Kubrick can point a camera, light a scene and get it right. The guy was a perfectionist much like Chaplin who i believe both would have contests on how may times a scene would be re-filmed.
Cameron for Avatar had an artistic vision even though his vision was greatly inspired by the world around him and the past. I can in that sense consider him an artist. For the others, i would say less so. What i like about Spielberg at least the way he used to be is he can take his actors and make them seem like ordinary people who are caught up in events bigger then themselves and react accordingly. Jackson is a workhorse indeed but who would have thought this is the guy that made Bad Taste.
Private Ryan or Schindler's List he felt very passionate about those due to the subject matter he deeply felt for. This is why he wanted those moments to impact the audience such as they did. Jaws was great and the only good one.
Kubrick was a filming genius in many ways but as said he does have limitations.
It has been a few years sense i had seen LOTR again. Not to big in the film like i used to be even though they are well made films but i think i tend to feel there is so much going on that is is hard to remember any memorable moments from any of the three films.
What worked for Star Wars, Empire Strikes Back and some of Return of the Jedi is Lucas was held back from having absolute control of the production and that is a good thing to. He can not direct any actor no matter who they are. Case and point are all of the pre-equals. Star Wars was better acted by his direction in the distant past but not nearly as well as Irvin Kershner and Richard Marquand for the others. Lucas however was heavily inspired by Flash Gordon, fairy tales and Akira Kurosawa and you see a lot of the all throughout the universe which is not a bad thing but i do also feel it is a limited universe and has been overdone. Did we need to know about Anakin's past and how the Empire came to power, not really. Best to leave some things alone. If more were to made anyways i think what would have made for better films would have been the Timothy Zahn books. Hollywood seems to have this obsession with pre-equals and re-makes. Why not move forward.
Star Wars worked well at the time it was released because Lucas was doing it at the right time when these types of productions were new, experimental and exciting that no one has ever seen before. Any other decade and Star Wars would probably not have been a success. Then let's have Star Trek TMP and Alien, Ridley Scott's play on the sci-fi film rise. What made Star Wars form additional ideas was not so much Lucas but the people who worked around him, the conceptual artists, matte painters, sculptors and so on. Lets not forget massive piles of RPG supplements and endless piles of novels. I don't think his material is anything revolutionary or vastly unique as was the youthful ''awe'' of the time of Star Wars' debut.
I think if done right films if this genre can be fun and intellectual but it seems very difficult to cleverly blend the two.