But as director of titles as varied as Fiddler On The Roof, In the Heat of the Night and Rollerball, Norman Jewison is under no illusions about the Hollywood dream.

In an interview with BBC World's HARDtalk, Jewison explains why he thinks that Hollywood has finally lost the plot.

"Prizes skew the reality"

"Hollywood is only interested in money. The studios are only interested in the highest rating and the highest buck and the biggest return."

"What kind of a world do we live in that's full of such hype and nonsense? The highest grossing film isn't necessary the best film, the highest selling book isn't necessarily the best book so why does the media jump on this and perpetuate this nonsense?"

The Russians are Coming got a preview showing in the Kremlin

The director is equally sceptical of the effect of prize-giving rituals on the art of film-making.

"I think prizes skew the reality, if indeed film is an art. You don't give prizes for paintings, you don't give prizes for sculpture. I believe in films that endure, films that last. Films are forever."

But for a man who's won so many prizes in so many fields, including a Golden Globe, an Emmy Award, a TV directors' award and soon an Oscar, Jewison has a relaxed attitude to winning.

"Winning isn't everything"

"Winning isn't everything, I think that's my British upbringing. It's the work that really gives me the buzz."

It was also this British upbringing that brought Norman Jewison into contact with the world of stage and screen at the BBC.

Toronto-born Jewison moved to London in his youth, where he acted and wrote scripts for BBC radio.

Hanging around the BBC, the young hopeful had the opportunity to talk to directors, watch productions and pick up enough knowledge to return to Canada and land a job as a leading director of TV programmes at CBC.

In 1958, Jewison went to the States to direct musical-variety shows for CBS in New York, featuring such performing greats as Judy Garland, Frank Sinatra, Danny Kaye, Harry Belafonte, and Andy Williams.

Moonstruck picked up three Oscars

Jewison turned to feature films in the 1960s and achieved recognition for films like The Cincinnati Kid (1965), Jesus Christ Superstar (1973) and Moonstruck (1987), which picked up three Oscars.

But more than the awards, it is Jewison's struggle to get a deeper message across to the audience, that drives him to keep making films.

"The idea behind the film is what I'm interested. It's the idea behind a work of art that makes it a work of art.

"If it's there just to entertain you, it may be a hit for a week but it's not going to be part of your life."

One of the director's chief concerns is the dangerous impact of big business, an idea which formed the basis for his film Rollerball, a ghastly game show where consumer-contestants are literally dying to win.

"To have access to information is power today. But unfortunately power is misused because the world of information is controlled by multinational corporations.

"They control what we see, they control what we hear and eventually they'll control what we think."

Politics isn't the only weighty issue the director has tackled in his film-making.

Racial conflict forms the back-drop for The Heat Of The Night, which won an Oscar for best picture in 1967, at the height of the Civil Rights movement.