American director and screenwriter born on 22 January 1953 in Akron, Ohio. He graduated from Columbia University with a B.A. in English in 1975, after which he attended the Tisch School of the Arts, New York. His directorial debut was Permanent Vacation (1980). His most notable works include Ghost Dog: The Way of the Samurai (1999), Broken Flowers (2005), Only Lovers Left Alive (2013), and Paterson (2016).