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Auteur Theory. Unit 12: Specialist Study in Creative Media Production. The Auteur: A Definition. Auteur
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Auteur Theory Unit 12: Specialist Study in Creative Media Production
The Auteur: A Definition Auteur A Film Director whose personal influence and artistic control over his or her Films are so great that he or she may be regarded as their author and whose Films may be regarded collectively as a body of work sharing common themes or techniques and expressing an individual style or vision. Given this general definition of an auteur, can anyone identify someone who they think is an Auteur?
Possible Auteurs • Tim Burton • Guillermo del Toro • James Cameron • Ridley Scott • Kathryn Bigelow • Alfred Hitchcock • Stanley Kubrick Woody Allan Sergio Leone Quentin Tarantino Christopher Nolan David Lynch Terry Gilliam Jane Campion If you choose to undertake an Auteur Study, you can use any of the above Directors or an Auteur Director of your choice.
Film Studies and the Auteur • The term Auteur is French for ‘author’ and the word derives from the prefix ‘auto’, meaning one. • When applying ideas of Authorship to the field of Film Studies it is typically the Director that is acknowledged as the creative force. • The idea of the Director as a single controlling figure was acknowledged as early as the 1910s in the British Film magazine Bioscope where certain Directors were identified as special. Similarly, in Germany, the term AutorenFilmwas used, which also promoted the idea of the Director as Author.
Auteur Theory: Alexandre Astruc • It is generally agreed that the Auteur Theory was initiated by an influential text from Filmmaker and Novelist Alexandre Astruc. • Astruc coined the term caméra-stylo, which literally translates as ‘camera pen’. He wanted to bring Film into line with other forms of Art, namely raising its status from a working-class form of entertainment to match that of Opera, Ballet, Poetry, Literature and Fine Art. • His article, The Birth of a New Avant-Garde: La Caméra-Stylo(1948), called for a new language in Filmmaking. Hesuggested that the camera should be used in the same way that a writer would use a pen. He rallied Filmmakers to move beyond institutionalised forms of cinema in favour of more personal ways of storytelling.The emphasis that Astruc placed on the personal and individualauthorship began to form the theory and fuel the debate surrounding it. The most vigorous participants in this debate came from France…
Auteur Theory: The Cahiers Group • The CinémathèqueFrançaisein Paris was much more than a typical cinema, it was home to agroup of Film enthusiasts who collectively sought to revolutionise cinema. • Led by Henri Langlois, the group showed a vast range of Films throughout the day and night, attracting the attention of likeminded individuals. Their fascination in Cinema instigated a forum for debate and experimentation. For example, they would watch Films without any sound so that they could focus solely on the importance of the image. This fanaticism and attempt to comprehend the very essence of cinema resulted in two major developments in Film History: the journal Cahiers du cinémaand the French New Wave school of Filmmaking.
Auteur Theory: The Cinephiles • These ‘Filmoholics’ were often referred to as cinéphiles as they were obsessed with Filmmaking.Among the key members of the group were: • André Bazin (theorist) • Claude Chabrol (New Wave Director and writer) • Jean-Luc Godard (New Wave Director, writer and theorist) • Alain Resnais (New Wave Director) • Jacques Rivette (New Wave Director and writer) • François Truffaut (New Wave Director, writer and theorist) • Roger Vadim (New Wave Director and writer) • From within this influential group of Filmmakers and thinkers, François Truffaut emerged as a young and gifted Director who also engaged with the development of Auteur Theory with his article, Une Certaine Tendance du Cinéma Français (1954).
Une Certaine Tendance du Cinéma Français • Truffaut’s key text Une Certaine Tendance du Cinéma Français, signalled a radical shift in the Auteur debate. • He and his fellow cinéphiles found traditional French Filmmaking conservative and unexciting. Tradition de la qualité was a term they used to describe Films that were typically based on adaptations of literary classics. The Cahiers Group mocked this mode of production, calling it Cinéma du Papa (Daddy’s Cinema) as they felt it was stuffy and outdated. More importantly this form of Filmmaking privileged the role of the Writer rather than acknowledging the Director. • In contrast to ‘tradition de la qualité’ the Cahiers aspired to create Films that spoke to their (young) generation.
Une Certaine Tendance du Cinéma Français • During World War II foreign imported Films were limited due to the Nazi occupation of France. Post-war the influx of Films, particularly from Hollywood, strongly inspired the Cahiers Group and they recognised that, despite studio control, certain Directors’ Films exhibited identifiable stylistic traits. • As a result of these observations Truffaut developed la politique des auteurs (The Auteur Policy). It is important to establish that Truffaut never intended for his work to form the basis of a Theory; it represented a policy, an attitude and a critical approach to reading Film. The two overriding principles he put forward were…
Une Certaine Tendance du Cinéma Français • 1) Mise-en-scène is crucial to the reading of Cinema and is essential in Film analysis and criticism. • 2) The Director’s personal expression is key in distinguishing whether they should be afforded the title of Auteur. • As a consequence of this, Truffaut was concerned with a focus on Film style (mise-en-scène and thematics) rather than Film plot (content). With this in mind Truffaut suggested that the best way to identify an Auteur was to…
Truffaut: How to Identify an Auteur • Examine the Mise-en-scène for repeated elements across the Director’s Films. • Identify how the Story and Mise-en-scène communicates the Director’s personal expression. • Investigate whether or not a Director used the same Performers and Crew consistently across their Films.
Andrew Sarris and the Auteur Model • In his essay Notes on Auteur Theory Andrew Sarris, one of the leading developers of the theory, argues that an Auteur can be classified by their adherence to three distinct qualifications…
Andrew Sarris: The Auteur Model The Technician The Stylist The Artist Possession of all three traits indicates the presence of the Auteur
The Technician The first distinct qualification is technical competence: can the Director make a good Film? For Sarris, one cannot be an Auteur if they are incapable of making a technically proficient Film to begin with. The Stylist The second distinct qualification is “the distinguishable personality of the Director as a criterion of value”. This is Sarris’ way of saying that a Director’s personality should be conveyed stylistically through their Films, or in other words their Films should have a personality unto themselves, a certain stylistic uniqueness that can be noticed recurring over the Director’s body of work. The Artist The third and final distinct qualification for Sarris regarding Auteur Theory “is concerned with interior meaning, the ultimate glory of the cinema as an art”. Sarris himself admits that this final qualification is hard to actually describe, but he essentially says that ‘interior meaning’ is, in a way, the unquantifiable feeling you get when you watch an Auteur’s Films. It is the feeling that connotes to you that you are watching a Film by a specific Director; in a way it is the Film’s ‘soul’, its very essence as an artistic text. Andrew Sarris: The Auteur Model
The Scene Setter • In contrast to the Auteur, Film Theorists have worked to understand what all the other Film Directors are: surely they must be something, despite the fact that they do not posses all three of Truffaut's qualities of the Auteur? • Film Theorist Andre Bazindefined these Filmmakers as a metteur-en-scene; the scene setter. These Directors are avery good technically (and, as such, fully understand the Film Form in all its technical detail) but crucially they merely adapt material given to them rather than making it their own. In effect, they have, from Sarris's’ perspective, Techniques and possibly some Personal Style but they do not consistently integrate Interior Meaning into their growing body of filmic work. • Given this definition, can anyone suggest a director who is metteur-en-scene?
Peter Jackson: The Scene Setter? • Peter Jackson uses pre-established material for a Signiant number of his Films. Although he has a (strong) personal style, these Films are not overtly remembered for him being the director with a strong artistic vision but rather the Plot/Events/Action/CGI of the Film. The story was already written for Jackson, he then interpreted it and made it visual. It is worth noting that Jackson’s wife, Fran Walsh, has written the screenplays for virtually all of his Films since 1990…
The Problem of Auteur Theory • The idea that Film is the sole work of a single contributor – the Director - is problematic. Film is a collaborative process and therefore to attribute control to the Director above all others is contentious. This is because the number of people involved in producing a Film is extensive: actors, writers, set designers, camera operators, musicians, financial backers, technical advisors, costume and make-up artists, editors, marketing and distribution staff. • What do you think? Is the Director the author of the Film or is such a significant collaborative effort that no one singular person can be identified as the sole author?
