Auteur Theory
Auteur Theory
Auteur Theory - The theory that the director is viewed as the major creative force in a motion picture.
The director who oversees all audio & visual elements of the film, is more to be considered the 'author' of the movie compared to the writer of the screenplay. Visual elements>plot line.
- Supporters of this theory convey that the most cinematically successful films will contain the personal stamp of the director.
- This theory is a reflection of the director's artistic vision so a movie directed by the filmmaker will have recognisable & recurring themes & shows a consistent artistic identity throughout the director's filmography.
- Example of Auteur Directors are Alfred Hitchcock and Quentin Tarantino.
Origins of Auteur Theory:
- Origins: France in the late 1940's. Auteur = French for author.
- Auteur Theory was a foundation stone of the Nouvelle Vague (the French cinematic movement)
- Two of the theoreticians (Francois Truffaut & Jean-Luc Godard) became major directors of the French New Wave. Truffaut stated 'there are no good and bad movies, only good and bad directors'.
- Andrew Sarris (an American film critic) dubbed auteur theory as an 'outgrowth of the cinematic theories of Andre Bazin & Alexandre Astruc'.
- The theory of director-as-author was advanced in Bazin's 'Cahiers du Cinema' (founded in 1951)
- Auteur theory was derived largely from Astruc's clarification of the concept of camera stylo (camera-pen).
Features of Auteur Theory:
- Auteur Theory differs from Genre Theory as the auteur draws attention towards the differences between the film.
Auteur theory focuses on:
- Individual stylistic features
- How texts are determined by artists' creativity
- How texts emerge as a part of an artists body of work
- 1960's: film critics criticised the auteur theory's focus on the authorial of the director due to the collaborative aspect of shooting a film. Pauline Kael & Andrew Sarris feuded in newspapers and film magazines over Auteur Theory. In Kael's essay on Citizen Kane ('Raising Kane), she states how the film made use of the talents of the co-writer and cinematography and that they were as important to the film as the director.
- Film historian Aljean Harmetz argues the auteur theory 'collapses against the reality of the studio system' and that the screenwriters/producers/studio executives are more authorial than the directors.
- Another Film historian, Georges Sadoul, argues the main author of the film could be the main actor/screenwriter/producer/author of the original story in the case of literary adaptations.
Auteur Theory in Hitchcock's Work:
Auteur Theory in Quentin Tarantino's works:
Showing examples of common themes throughout Tarantino movies
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