The auteur theory was invented in the late 1950s by some French film critics (like Trauffaut and Godard) who wanted to call attention to the director because they wanted to be directors themselves.
So why do so many people take it as the truth?
I can understand why, for example, Orson Welles was an auteur. He was a director, sure, but he also wrote his own scripts, designed costumes, designed sets, cut film, often put up the money, usually starred in the movie, and sometimes was the only consistent crew member (eg Othello or Chimes At Midnight).
But why does (for example) Ron Howard get credit for the authorship of his movies? Apollo 13 was written (uncredited) by John Sayles, Ransom was written by Richard Price, and their fingerprints are all over those movies. The look of A Beautiful Mind is significantly different from the look of The Grinch; is the same Ron Howard the reason for the difference, or is it down to one being shot by Richard Deakins while the other was by Donald Peterman? How is Ron Howard the author of any of these movies?
Who's responsible for this massive gyp?
Posted by pearce at April 20, 2004 12:43 PMWho's forcing you to accept it?
Posted by: davidr at April 20, 2004 2:41 PMDoes auteur theory posit that all directors are auteurs? Because that's clearly wrong. I think 'auteurs' is a subset of 'directors'. (Go the Venn diagramme.)
Posted by: iona at April 20, 2004 9:46 PMAuteur theory posits that the director is the author of the movie.
Noone's forcing me to accept it, but we're all being conditioned to accept it by the endless numbing repetition of things like A Stephen Norrington Film appearing at the start of the credits and reviews etc referring to David Cronenberg's Spider (written by Patrick McGrath from his own book).
It's embedded in our culture like a Fox journalist. It'll be tears before wrap time.
Posted by: Pearce at April 22, 2004 7:09 PM"Auteur theory posits that the director is the author of the movie."
Which, in turn, implies that authors work alone. Conveniently ignoring editors, researchers, ghost writers, all the people on the acknowledgements page, et al. There was an article about the Clancy book machine and others in the Sunday paper last weekend.
Oops, tangential. Sorry. :-)
Posted by: iona at April 22, 2004 11:11 PMRomantic theory (capital R), about art being the expression of the artist, and the artist being the lone genius (use of that last word dating from this period).
Dump lone, dump genius, dump expression , and if you can face up to the challenge, dump art. Most aesthetic theory is rubbish.
Posted by: andrew at April 24, 2004 4:14 PMauteur theory is just trying to get to the bottom of whether there is a true author of a film, orson welles would be an un problematic example. But all directors have a say in the artistic view of the end product of the movie. For example you can identify films by a partuicular director by the way it is shot and what the choices of the mise-en-scene are. eg. Ridley scott's lighting (usually dark with blue or other coloured lighting at least a couple of times in the film), helicopters, and fans - and lets fact facts that we can spot tim burtons films a mile off, no explanation needed! Auteur theory is just a tool that is used in film criticism and sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn't, David Lynch disowned Dune because the STUDIO system changed it but he is still named as the author or director of it by by the system. All in all theorists are part of something completly different and me personally...? I hate the system, not people who are entitled to their own opinions, i would never disregard that even if i thought it was crap, thaere are always some elements of truth even if it is only the original idea (In which one of the main players was Andre Bazin, of the cahier du cinema movemnet, of the 1950's.)Auteur theory does not discount the other people at the satrt it tries to determine IF there is a true author, but generally the director is favoured, which is also not fair...
Posted by: jodie at May 10, 2004 3:42 AMYeurgh! Somebody posted the grossest comment EVER! BANNED FOR LIFE!!!
Posted by: Pearce at November 4, 2004 2:30 PMIt's a deleted comment, not the above waffle, by the by.
Posted by: Pearce at November 4, 2004 2:30 PMcould Rid;ey Scott be considered an auteur?
Posted by: sarah at November 5, 2004 4:47 AMoopsie i meant ridley scott sorry!!!!
Posted by: sarah at November 5, 2004 4:49 AMYes.
Posted by: Pearce at November 5, 2004 7:46 AM