Introduction to Auteur Theory

Introduction to Auteur Theory

Film had been considered a collaborative exercise.

Consider the amount of people involved in a film (credits) Is it possible to say the one person has creative oversight of a film?

Post war Europe  and Hollywood films

French film critics began to notice certain dominant stylistic and thematic preoccupations in some directors' works.

La Politique les auteurs

François Truffaut, writing for the influential French film journal Cahiers du Cinéma  was the primary critic propounding this idea.

Truffaut and other Cahiers du Cinéma writers set forth the theory that some directors can be seen as artists rather than as technician, by imbuing the films they direct with their personal touches. This way of analyzing films quickly spread to England and then to the United States.

Andrew Sarris championed the auteur approach, first in his newspaper column and then in his 1968 book The American Cinema, which has been touted as "the manifesto of the auteur theory."

Sarris said 'The strong director imposes his[sic] own personality on a film; the weak director allows the personalities of others to run rampant.'

Who were the original Auteurs?

Hollywood directors initially praised by the French film theorists as auteurs were not necessarily revered at home.

Harold Hawks

John Ford

Alfred Hitchcock

Who is an Auteur?

Another thing to note is that while the French pinpointed directors as film auteurs, and almost all film auteurs are directors, some critics with more open minds feel that an auteur does not have to be the director. A writer, cinematographer, even a producer may be an auteur.

Case Study: ALFRED HITCHCOCK

     In the case of Alfred Hitchcock, a confluence of factors led film theorists to label him an auteur. As already mentioned, Hitchcock worked primarily in the thriller genre, giving his formulaic movies his idiosyncratic touches.

    The way Hitchcock worked also propelled him to auteur status. He pre-planned EVERY aspect of every shot, on storyboards. The set design, costumes, lighting, camera placement and angles, etc., were all decided ahead of time. Hitchcock even dictated the shade of blonde he wanted Grace Kelly's hair to be on the pictures she made with him.

    Working out the details in advance enabled Hitchcock to "cut in the camera." This means that his ratio of film shot to film actually used in the final cut was very low. Some directors, such as Charlie Chaplin, improvise in front of the camera, and they'll shoot literally hundreds of thousands of feet of film, with most winding up on the cutting room floor. This is both time-consuming and expensive. Hitchcock, on the other hand, having worked out everything in advance, worked quickly and economically. Very little editing had to be done, hence the term "cutting in the camera."  Indeed, the few times Hitchcock worked with hands-on producers such as David O. Selznick, they were frustrated by their inability to cut a film any way other than how Hitchcock cut it, as there was no gratuitous footage, such as master shots.  

    Since Hitchcock planned every detail in advance, the actual shooting of a film was boring for him. To stave off ennui during the actual filming process, Hitchcock would invariably start working on the storyboards for his next film project.

CASE STUDY: Tim Burton

Tim Burton is one example of a Director that could be considered an Auteur. His films all have a very distinct style and often deals with similar themes in his work. Take the lead character; generally they are separated from normality, society and, in some way, they are misfits. This is best exemplified by Edward Scissorhands, in which this idea is taken to the very extreme so that the main character can not even touch another person. Other examples of this character type include Batman, Beetle Juice, and to a certain extent Jack Skelington from the Nightmare before Christmas.

Tim Burton’s movies also have a very unique and distinct style, generally sporting a very gothic feel. In addition Tim Burton is known for using a particular style of Animation known as Stop Motion, the prime examples being The Nightmare before Christmas and the Corpse Bride. He is also quite well known for using recurring actors and actresses – Namely Johnny Depp and Helena Bonham Carter. He also often uses Danny Elfman to provide the right music for the films soundtracks. Tim Burton has directed many movies, each of which can be examined and compared for similar styles and recurring themes.

            Summary of the auteur policy

· The aim of the auteur policy is to distinguish between directors as artists (auteurs) and directors as mere technicians (metteurs-en-scene).

· An auteur is a director who manifests a consistency of style and theme across his or her films.

· The director is privileged by auteur critics because he or she is the one who visualises the script on screen.

· The auteur policy was formulated by Francois Truffaut in his essay 'A Certain Tendency of the French Cinema', in which he attacks the French 'tradition of quality' school of film making, particularly for its over reliance on scripts.

· Auteur critics privilege the work of Hollywood directors (including Hitchcock, Hawks, Welles, Lang, Ford, Sirk, Fuller and Ray) whose visual style transcends the scripts imposed on them by the studios.

· Many of the auteur critics associated with Cahiers du Cinema in the 1950s (Truffaut, Godard, Chabrol, Rohmer, Rivette) started to make their own auteur films in the 1960s; they abandoned the script in favour of improvisation and spontaneity.

· The auteur policy was developed in Britain in the magazine Movie and in North America by Andrew Sarris.