Auteur Theory

Auteur

French for “Author”

Auteur Theory

A way of critically analyzing a film or corpus of films through viewing its director as the film’s author and principal creative influence.

Is used to describe a director who exerts a high level of control across all aspects of a film.

Andrew Sarris

first used the term, “autuer theory“

film critic for The New York Times, expanded on Truffaut’s writing and set out a more comprehensive definition for auteurs according to three main criteria.

André Bazin

He furthered the idea of the camera-stylo (camera-pen) style insisting the director in charge of penning the idea, blocking the scenery, and conveying the overall message is the true author of the film.

Cahiers du cinema (Notes on Cinema), a post-war France film magazine

It viewed the director as the primary individual responsible for creating a valuable film. Auteurs, in the view of the Cahiers writers, could influence multiple aspects of the filmmaking process through the force of their personalities.

François Truffaut

• developed the concept of the auteur in his 1954 essay “Une certaine tendance du cinéma français” (A certain trend in French cinema).

• wrote about the films of several new French filmmakers who he termed auteurs.

• He drew contrasts between auteurs and directors of mainstream studio movies.

• He argued that the filmmakers who made the best films were those who wrote and directed their own films and who had a unique, personal vision.

metteur en scene

Truffaut dismissed directors as merely metteur en scene, or “stagers” of a script written by another artist or also known as ____.

La politique des auteurs

Truffault called that approach, the policy of the authors also known as ____.

“A certain trend in French cinema.”

english of “Une certaine tendance du cinéma français”

Technical competence

Auteurs must be at the top of their craft in terms of technical filmmaking abilities. Auteurs always have a hand in multiple components of filmmaking and should be operating at a high level across the board.

Distinguishable personality / Signature Style

What separates auteurs from other technically gifted directors is their unmistakable personality and style. When looking at an auteur’s collected works, you can generally see shared filming techniques and consistent themes being explored. One of the primary tenets of auteur theory is that auteurs make movies that are unmistakably theirs. This is in sharp contrast with the standard studio directors of the era who were simply translating script to screen with little interrogation of the source material or editorial input.

Interior meaning

Auteurs make films that have layers of meaning and have more to say about the human condition. Films made by auteurs go beyond the pure entertainment-oriented spectacles produced by large studios, to instead reveal the filmmakers unique perspectives and ruminations on life.

John Ford

The American Landscape:

• Absent Family

• Cowboys and Indian

• The Wild West

• Playing the Fool

Howard Hawks

Screwballs and Higballs:

• Variety is the spice of life

• One of the guys

• Role reversals

• Snappy dialogue

Alfred Hitchcock

Master of Suspense:

• Guilt and Innoncence

• The Killer Inside

• Dissecting Stardom

• Look and Listen

Michael Powell & Emeric Pressburger

Two for the price of one:

• Poetry and Propaganda

• Flights of Fantasy

• Highbrow Ambitions

• Technicolor Dreams

Orson Welles

The self-styled genius:

• Tragic Heroes

• Actor-Director

• Deep Focus

• The Illusionist

Stanley Kubrick

An epic perfectionist:

• Behind the mask

• Pushing boundaries

• Careful composition

• A chilly distance

Martin Scorsese

Storyteller of the streets:

• New york, new york

• Guilt and redemption

• Moments in time

• Pop music

Steven Spielberg

The kid who never grew up:

• The inner child

• High concept

• Emotional storytelling

• Keep on moving

Quentin Tarantino

Uber-movie-geek:

• Stuck in the middle

• talk the talk

• pleasure and pain

• hollywood and beyond

David Lynch

The american nightmare:

• Small town america

• dream logic

• symbolic motifs

• music lover

Ang Lee

The hidden dragon:

• Unspoken desires

• East meets West

• Global Cinema

• The third dimension

Christopher Nolan

Worlds within worlds:

• Memories are made of this

• Doodlebug

• Realistic Fantasies

• Moral Uncertainty

Kathryn Bigelow

Boys and their guns:

• Boys’ films

• Packing a pistol

• Points of view

• Casualties of war

Guillermo del Toro

Monster moviemaker:

• Metaphorical Monsters

• Comic book guy

• Mexican movies

• Director - Producer

Film is a collaborative process that involves a number of people.

It involves editor, actors, music directors, and hundred more people who leave their fingerprints on the work. But there are directors who are writers, producers, and director themselves that one can say that the work is truly theirs, and they are truly living the name “auteurs“

(1) Debates towards the Auteur Theory

The author is shaped by his/her socio-cultural contexts, hence, personal style is socially and culturally constructed.

Authors are “written by“ a series of social cultural, and historical determinants. Critics need to understand the phenomenon of the author dialectically, with an awareness of the complicaed, dynamic relationship between institutions and artists, and with the appreciation of the aesthetic choices made by individual agents in particular circumstances.

(2) Debates towards the Auteur Theory

Auteurs are used as target of marketing. One watches the film because of the established name of the director regardless of quality.

(3) Debates towards the Auteur Theory

• The joy of auteur theory is in noticing vital similarities across a director’s body of work.

• Auteurs are directors of sublime technical competence and ability.

• The mark of an auteur is the distinguishable personality of the director.

• Auteurs have an ‘elan of the soul’ that other directors lack.

• The auteur’s inner meaning comes from the tension between his material and his personality.

Key Issues of the Auteur Theory by Andrew Sarris

• All directors borrow and steal from each other and their own work. Some repeat themselves incessantly.

• Why prefer technically competent films to exciting experimental ones?

• The smell of a skunk is more distinguishable than a rose; does that make it better?

• This statement isn’t criticism, it’s a vague, subjective feeling at best.

• Why waste time watching mediocre films to find a bit of personality? See all the great work instead.

Pauline Kael

• The theory allows a general definition of a genre and as a means of categorization.

• It started or established of the history of film criticism.

Pros of Auteur Theory

• To use Auteur Theory, one must not only focus on directors but also relate the film to various other disciplines.
  

• One must allow emerging directors and marginalized directors to make their names in film institutions.

As Film Critic Using the Auteur Theory