Scott's World -- UPI Arts & Entertainment

HOLLYWOOD, Dec. 27 (UPI) -- Movie producers, writers, actors and directors -- like other mere mortals -- are transient, as are athletes, coaches, musicians, composers and authors.

They bloom, blossom and fade with time and age, leaving behind reputation, glory and adherents, abandoning future eminence to younger, fresher minds and creativity.

And so it seems the turn of the new millennium brings with it new faces and names to a younger generation, with whom audiences may resonate to fresh concepts and thoughts.

So at the beginning of the year 2002, the tried-and-true names of the past will lose some of their luster to newcomers as the buds of springtime push former blossoms from branches looking for their place in the sun.

Early wonders John Ford, Frank Capra, William Wyler, Billy Wilder and Victor Fleming gave way to Alfred Hitchcock, George Stevens, George Cukor, Robert Wise and George Roy Hill.

They were replaced by Steven Spielberg, George Lucas, Sydney Pollack, James Cameron, Michael Cimino and Francis Ford Coppola.

Perhaps it is a matter of diminishing ideas and creativity. But those champions of recent yesteryear no longer are young, their prominence beginning to wane as evidenced by box-office decline and Academy Award ennui.

The next generation is upon us, making better movies to greater critical acclaim and box-office grosses.

Younger filmmakers are garnering lavish praise this holiday season, a high point of the new millennium and a promise for continued change in the years to come.

This is not to say Spielberg and his generation will disappear, but rather, as did Gen. Douglas MacArthur's old soldiers, they will simply fade away.

And taking their places?

The candidates for future greatness already have taken the spotlight with superb new movies that surpass films that pandered shamelessly to teenage audiences with scatological humor, sex, nudity and violence.

There will be some carry-over of that nonsense to be sure, but the major hits will draw broader audiences with sophisticated themes and mature treatment.

And who might they be?

Start with Steven Soderbergh ("Ocean's Eleven"), Jean-Pierre Jeunet ("Amelie"), James Mangold ("Kate & Leopold"), Wes Anderson ("The Royal Tenenbaums").

There are other, better-known names that have been around a bit longer but still with major careers ahead of them.

To wit: Ron Howard ("A Beautiful Mind"), Lasse Halstrom ("The Shipping News"), Baz Luhrmann ("Moulin Rouge") and Chris Columbus ("Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone").

Among the shining newcomers: Cameron Crowe ("Vanilla Sky"), Todd Field ("In The Bedroom"), John Moore ("Behind Enemy Lines"), Sharon Maguire ("Bridget Jones's Diary") and Alejandro Amenabar ("The Others").

Veterans still in in top form are filmmakers David Lynch ("Mulholland Drive"), Ridley Scott ("Black Hawk Down") and Robert Altman ("Gosford Park").

Perhaps the brightest ascending star of all is Peter Jackson, who directed the amazing "Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring" from J.R.R. Tolkien's novel.

At 40, this New Zealand native brings a different energy to the screen with this classic fable for every generation.

Jackson has a background in horror pictures and his "Lord of the Rings" is his first major film. He brings a fresh eye and ear to an enormous project without the baggage of other, lesser pictures he has directed.

Unlike super-celebrity directors in Hollywood and New York, Jackson was unencumbered by a big reputation and the pressures of living up to advance billing.

He was free to let his imagination and creativity explode on screen, creating a new entertainment that defies analysis by critics.

"The Lord of the Rings" has the imprimatur of a master craftsman at the height of his powers. And it must be taken into account that while filming this epic movie, he also was shooting the two sequels that will follow in the next three years.

Like other breakthrough directors whose movies fill theaters this season, Jackson has broken new ground at every turn.

With "The Lord of the Rings" he has raised the bar almost out of reach of his aging colleagues who are too accustomed to falling back on their feats of the past.

But there can be no "E.T. The Extraterrestrial II" any more than there can be a "Titanic II."

Nor is it a matter of super-refined digitizing or special effects. Tolkien did not rewrite Aesop, nor has Jackson simply translated Tolkien's novel to the screen.

The hungry, younger faces behind the cameras are breathing new excitement into a 100-year-old medium that remains in its adolescence.

Together and individually, the new generation will provide the moviegoing public with entertainment that will make the last century's films look repetitive and banal.

As with every new generation in every art form, Jackson and the others will build on the past to bring new wonders to the world's prime international source of story-telling, drama, comedy and action.