Typically, a chorus of disapproval accompanies the arrival of celebrated foreign filmmakers in Hollywood. The studio system, so goes the familiar song and dance, will suck the life right out of their work and excise everything special about them in favor of formula and higher box office returns. There are, of course, exceptions. Alfred Hitchcock and Paul Verhoeven, for instance, produced some of their best films their respective Tinseltown tenures, but they could well be examples that prove the rule; far more often we see directors visiting from overseas, like Susanne Bier and Fernando Meirelles, get chewed up and spat out on the sidewalk, their style rendered unrecognizable courtesy of…