I watched a lot of silent directors who were absolutely great like John Ford and Fritz Lang Tod Browning and also some very modern directors like The Coen Brothers. The directors take the freedom within their own movies to be melodramatic or funny when they chose to be. They do whatever they want and they don't care about the genre.
A good man often appears gauche simply because he does not take advantage of the myriad mean little chances of making himself look stylish. Preferring truth to form he is not constantly at work upon the facade of his appearance.