What about Hitchcock? Lang? Sturges? Von Sternberg? Welles?

Directors enjoyed top-billing prior to the articles and films by the Cahiers du Cinéma critics. While they made a huge contribution to the form of cinema, how many people really saw Breathless or read Hitchcock/Truffaut?

New Hollywood was mostly egged on by whip-smart critics with a wide circulation like Andrew Sarris and Pauline Kael, who further elevated the director as artist in the public mind. The studios followed suit and thought they could make a buck with these prestige films, until there were too many self-indulgent flops.