Mozart and Hawkes

On the surface there's not much similarity between the work of Mozart and that of the film director Howard Hawkes except that they were both great in their own fields; but look a little closer and you'll find some things that make you think "Ah yes, they do resemble each other a lot".
They both created works that are very popular still: a lot of Mozart's music doesn't seem to fade with age; neither do some of Hawkes's films. Neither are artists in the romantic sense: people who practice their arts without caring what the general public thought of it. They were both in a sense "jobbing" artists, Mozart getting commissions where he could find them and working within the system of patronage essential for him to be able to earn a living for him and his family and Hawkes working within the Hollywood system of film moguls (like princes) controlling the way the films were produced, what was produced and what sort they were.
I don't think either was political. Hawkes had a disdain for progressive ideas and Mozart probably didn't have time to worry himself with what was going on in the wider world - "Mozart spent almost his entire life locked in the old feudal order, at the beck and call of princes, bishops, emperors and aristocratic patrons who treated him with disdain, amused or otherwise" (Richard Morrison in The Times this week).
Again, "Mozart learned voraciously from others" but adapted what he learned to his own style of composition. Hawkes had no definable style and used the studio style to the best advantage.
Mozart composed operas, religious music, concertos, symphonies etc. Hawkes did Westerns, Musicals. gangster films ("Scarface") etc. They both turned their hands to whatever was available and then did their own thing with it - a lot of the sparkling dialogue in Hawkes's films was written by him.
Jean-Luc Godard said of Howard Hawkes: "He is the greatest of all American artists". Many have said of Mozart something similar, the greatest composer of all time. Both resisted intellectual pretension, Hawkes claiming his approach was pure instinct: "Just one question: do you like it or don't you?" Mozart had not time to swim in pretensious waters, he was too busy, like Fred Asdtaire said, "making a buck".