Yes, RUS, but they also chose those actors and technicians. No one was part of the film which they did not approve.
I don’t find it any more fanboyish than acclaiming Shakespeare, or Rembrandt, or Michelangelo. One could say that in western culture we do have a fetish-cult for the Big Name, which could just as well be replaced by a communal thinking — but let’s face it, art is usually produced or guided by a single mind. It defies collectivism.
And yes, Matt, it was essential in making the case for film as an art form rather than film as an assembly-line “product.” In some ways, the case could be made that when auteurs began to take themselves too seriously, it had a bad effect on film for a while — the irony was that many of the directors who were cited as exemplars of auteurism (Hawks, N. Ray, Mann, Sirk, Hitchcock, etc.) were not completely in control of their films but working within the studio system.
Consider this… what’s the use of defending the intent and contributions of a single individual? Why are you caught up in the questions of authorship?
To me, those questions are pretty irrelevant. I tend to think of films as cultural texts, and feel entirely free to view a film as I interpret it even if a director states that he intended an entirely opposite reaction.
To worry about the elan of the director’s soul, or his intentions, the details of the production, or even his biographical background is somewhat beside the point to me. The film, such as it is, contains its own power, separate from any of these details.
In fact, I would add that auteurism becomes more functional once one stops assigning some evaluative measurement of quality to the term. Instead of separating out the directors who are auteurs from those who are not, it’s better, I think to attempt using this approach of analysis to all films.
Some works that can be grouped by director, actor, studio, etc…. will contain fruitful similarities… some will prove to be less fruitful, but might be better interpreted via, say, examining cultural context. Saying that those works that share themes or stylistic elements (i.e. those that are classically “auteur” films) are superior to those that do not, however, seems foolish to me. Auteurist analysis should be just one approach one takes in analyzing a film.
Much of the reason why this theory was so easy to reject in academic/critical circles was because of its tendency to group directors into “autuers” and “non-auteurs”. I think insisting upon it in defense of the theory is doing more harm than good.
I can remember from one of Ebert’s reviews where he himself admits to being guilty of putting too much (or even the sole) credit for the final product of the film to the director and not enough to the other individuals involved in the collaborative process. I wish I could see more distinction in print or online for the cinematographers, editors, etc. But it is understandable how, in a review with a limited amout of space, critics would cite only the director or maybe even the composer of the score and just leave it at that. Heck, before the Oscars earlier this year I was on their website and only the names for the actors are listed for the nominations and the rest of the categories are listed by the name of the movie and nothing else. What’s the deal with that? I know a lot the “average” movie-goers only care about the actors, but they can’t even be bothered to list the names of the other nominees?
Terrence Malick is a good example of a director who doesn’t follow in line with autuer theory but through collaboration with a lot of input from all individuals involved in the process of making the film, create distinctly unique films for a mainstream audience. Of course, many would probably call Malick an autuer, but he would most likely disagree with that assessment.
. . . also, I think it’s fair to say that auteurism is a kind of critical shorthand, it that it’s inherent reductive in the sense that it focus’s on a film as being “of the auteur.” when really as has been stated a number of different ways here, is an oversimplification, albeit often a useful one.
Well, if you’re going to view film as a “cultural text,” who’s going to argue.
@ Justin
Let’s be fair, making a movie is nowhere near as independent a process as writing a play or painting a canvass (even Michelangelo had his apprentices (it is unclear how much of Bernini’s great works are by his hand and how much are by those of his apprentices. Giotto painted very little himself; he conceived the paintings, but almost all the brushwork was done by his apprentices).
This is not the case with movies. I’m sure you’re well read on production histories etc., and how much is to be credited to technicians, actors, etc. (so much of the new wave look belongs to Coutard and Decae (they taught Godard and Truffaut about photography, and developed the look themselves, not to mention the improvisation work of the actors)).
So much of what is great about Citizen Kane is the result of Tolland’s work behind the camera, he was teaching Welles.
If art defies collectivism, I am curious how you account for cinema and the theater.
As I said months ago, let’s move beyond auteur theory, it works for literature, but not for film.
“The cinema is not a craft. It is an art. It does not mean teamwork. One is always alone; on the set as before the blank page.” – Jean-Luc Godard
I’m not saying that the various technicians should be ignored. I’m saying that they are usually under the control of the director.
I don’t know how many people here listen to classical music, but the director is like the orchestra conductor. The conductor does not play every instrument, but he controls when and how the musicians play. He has a general idea of the score which he “imposes” on the orchestra — so when the orchestra sounds good or bad, a lot of it has to do with the conductor. If you take away the conductor, you’d have chaos.
If we don’t believe in auteurs, why do we follow certain directors under the assumption that if we like them we will want to see all their films? I don’t know many people who track down and follow the work of costume designers or set designers — certainly actors, but how sad is it when a good actor ends up in a terribly directed movie? Maybe DPs — but then again, pretty or astounding shots do not add up to a coherent vision — that’s something the director provides.
My argument is there is only an auteur if there is only one person giving creative input.
On film, this is not the case. I’m not saying every gaffer ought to be credited for a great film being great (but keep up the good work), but there are about half a dozen or so people on a film that do the real creative work:
The Director (yes, we all agree on this one)
The Cinematographer
The Set Designer
The Editor (don’t even argue that editors don’t have creative input)
The Costume Designer
The Composer (do you really want to give all the credit to Fellini? Such a big part of those films belongs to Rota)
The Actors
This is why I say the Director (though not always the director, sometimes it’s the producer (i.e. Selznick)). is more of an Impresario than an auteur. He may have the most say, but his chief responsibility is bringing the best out of a talented group of performers and technicians.
I forget who said this, but it is a quote from a cinematographer in this month’s issue of “Sight & Sound” (which contains an excellent set of articles focusing on cinematographers and cinematography): “Directing is a Mug’s game.”
do you guys really feel that a set designer, or an editor, or a costume designer has as much or possibly more effect on a film being good than the director does? that their creative input can outweigh and surpass that of a director? thats laughable to me. sorry. i know there are talented people working on a film in a number of departments, but come on. now we’re taking the position opposite the auteur theory to an extreme pole. maybe neither extremity makes sense, but this one seems extra ridiculous.
ORMOND: CATHEDRAL BUILDERS
They climbed on sketchy ladders towards God,
With winch and pulley hoisted hewn rock into heaven,
Inhabited sky with hammers, defied gravity,
Deified stone, took up God’s house to meet Him,
And came down to their suppers and small beer;
Every night slept, lay with their smelly wives,
Quarrelled and cuffed the children, lied,
Spat, sang, were happy or unhappy,
And every day took to the ladders again;
Impeded the rights of way of another summer’s
Swallows, grew greyer, shakier, became less inclined
To fix a neighbour’s roof of a fine evening,
Saw naves sprout arches, clerestories soar,
Cursed the loud fancy glaziers for their luck,
Somehow escaped the plague, got rheumatism,
Decided it was time to give it up,
To leave the spire to others; stood in the crowd
Well back from the vestments at the consecration,
Envied the fat bishop his warm boots,
Cocked up a squint eye and said, “I bloody did that”.
-
-
No you didn’t said Gaudi, I did.
No you didn’t said God, I did.
We need our heroes, clear identity markers. Auteur theory values the individual over the collective. Are Chaplin and Satyajit Ray more of an auteur for contributing the music? Is a self-effacing director less of an auteur than someone with a clearly identifiable style? Bresson turned his actors into models, but he didn’t create them. Does lack of collaborators make for a truer auteur? Is a Brakhage film any better than it really is for suiting auteur theory? No. Intellectuals tend to overvalue auteurship, it separates the knowledgeable film buff from the run of the mill filmgoer out for a good time oblivious of the theory even while they’ve heard it’s a Scorsese film. Did Scorsese create himself? No, his parents did, and so on back to the beginning of time. We need certainty, but nothing is certain, we know nothing..
Did Hitler create World War 2? No he didn’t. Are we each responsible for who we are and what we do? No we are not. Everything is interlinked and interdependent.
Of course the director is usually the person with the vision and control, but then what of the classic studio system, producers, the power of money? Of course the director will usually be the “auteur” rather than the set designer or cinematographer, but it’s still a collaborative effort. Take Citizen Kane. Welles the huge auteurist figure but wasn’t Toland part-auteur? Wasn’t Storaro important to Bertolucci? What of actors? Bogey in Casablanca, De Niro in Raging Bull. Louise Brooks in Pandora’s Box. Was she not the auteur of the film? Pabst didn’t create her.
Stylistic and thematic consistency: why should someone who fits this mould be greater than a more eclectic and wide- ranging director?
Auteur theory is useful and makes sense but it is not definitive. And certain films and directors are overrated because of it. And the baby has sometime sbeen thrown out with the bathwater. Tavernier is right to challenge the certainties of Truffaut in his bonfire of cinéma de papa. Auteur theory is valuable but it can be an ego trip, an ego trap for directors and critics alike.
A plane is headed across the sky, right towards where the moon is. I take my camera out, and there, capture the moment, “a trip to the moon”. I’m an auteur. What of the light, of engineering, the Wright bros (or ws it Bill Frost?), the sky, fate, chance.
We like to feel we are in control, that we command and understand, to categorise and place clear values. Life isn’t so easily contained. Films can’t be pigeon-holed. I love Mizoguchi, but he was only a collection of molecules, the product of genes and environment and the actions of other human beings. Yoda was a great help to him.
great thread. I just want to pick up on something said 4 months back which I never noticed and which now has critical relevance…
“I believe a “purest auteur” can only exist on smaller projects with a limited crew. Where one person really is calling all of the shots from the start. Perfect example: the garage project on this website!
So we’re the auteurs! Not them!”
Yes.
We are.
I believe the emphasis by cinaphiles on the director as the end all be all of a film is warrented for the most part. Ageed that it’s ridiculous to discount the contributions of writers, editors, cinematographers, actors, soundmen, etc, etc. BUT the person who corrals these people together, recognizes their talent, uses them to illustrate their vision, and manages to mold all these elements into a cohesive whole within the film is the Director. All while retaining his particular vision and M.O. that manages to show up in numerous other works by said director. True that it was the contributions of Gregg Toland that many critics cite when listing why Citizen Kane revolutionizes filmmaking But Toland was experimenting with depth of focus in long voyage home and thats not considered the greatest film ever. It was the urging of Welles, recognizing what Toland was capable of in cinematography, that made Toland experiment so freely and create such a beautiful movie. As well as Welles’ using the uniqe gifts of mankiwitz writing and insider knowledge of Hearst to create such a great screenplay but the one common factor in all these parts of what make Citizen kane great is…Orson Welles. His vision, not tolands, not Manks and certainly not Bernard Herrman. This could apply for any other movie created by a “auteur”
Taxi Driver directed by Spielberg but with all other principal figures remaining aint the same film.
Directors use a set of tools to create an artistic vision that is thier own. I hate to refer to other genius’ in thier respective fields tools but thats what they are to the director who uses or collaborates if you will, with them
My thoughts exactly with the director being the figure that brings them all together, Willis.
excellent example. the coincidence that those artists did their best work under the directorial eye of welles. well, i dont believe in coincidences. but i do believe in auteurs. in other words, i do believe in artists. and i do believe in their vision. not the collective vision of 20 or 30 different people.
is a modern songwriter less of an auteur because of the brilliant contributions of the sound engineer or the re-recording mixer?
“is a modern songwriter less of an auteur because of the brilliant contributions of the sound engineer or the re-recording mixer?”
exactly. as I see it, one of the most important qualities that defines/marks an auteur is having the judgment to recognize and choose A+ talent whose expertise will make the vision flesh, and to know how to get the very best from them. and in circumstances when they can’t choose, when there are limited resources and obstacles and opposition > to know how to get something great from a barrel of rotten apples.
an auteur is part imagineer, part collaborator, part alchemist > the art-science of turning shit into pure gold.
Few here would argue over the director as creative vision, organiser and controller (whoever and however many the collaborators) and the great value of a theory that helps us recognise and highlight qualities that can easily help distinguish the work of some directors from others. Of course Welles was more the auteur of Kane than Toland (though to cite weaker Toland films as proof could be turned against Welles, with his weaker films). Mizoguchi didn’t always have the same cinematographer but it’s still (“mature” mid 30s phase on anyway) pretty clearly a Mizoguchi film- and his style is less obvious than Bresson and Ozu. But the limitations and pitfalls of the theory cannot be discounted either. The film director is not exactly the same as the author of a novel, and to then look for purity of authorship at the expense of the collaborative qualities behind many great films is i think a mistake. It’s the taking to extremes i object to.
Wheter or not The “theory” that some guy came up with to explain how, despite the restrictive studio system of classic hollywood, certain directors were able to retain thier original vision doesnt seem applicable. The way I see it is, no, it’s not like writing a novel, thats because a film is a visual medium. You take a director with no budget (look who’s knocking on my door) versus the same a director with HUGE budget i.e. more collaborators (Gangs of New York) and the same underlying themes that fuel this directors art will remain. Same with any great auteur. Thire are of course holes in the original “auteur theory” but the reason films have come some such a long way in respect and recognition in the 20th century is the fact that they have been recognized as pieces of art you can hang up alongside the mona lisa and even the worst can be held up along side Warhol’s cans of soup. And what seperates these greats from the other run of the mill fare is the Auteur of the film. I would argue that auteur does not have the same definition as author. Film is just so different from all other forms of expression. To compare books and films doesnt work because they arent the same thing at all.
And just to throw it out some of the best auteurs are in the field of music, Elvis presley never wrote his own stuff but created something so new by using other peoples shit and making em gold. This is 50s elvis by the way
I’m not really arguing with the auteurist points just made above. But also a director who is more eclectic whether thematically or stylistically can be greater than someone who fits the auteurist model more purely. I don’t like the tendency to overvalue a work because of auteurism. Of course i agree the auteur theory is valuable, as i’ve said, and not least for helping raise the status of films to an artform on an equal footing with other arts. Then again, it was already considered that by many in the 20s and auteurism was hardly a new concept created in the 50s.
With music, obviously the original auteur would be the songwriter or composer, but even there we muddy the waters with applause for the conductor’s interpretation or the particularly brilliant rendition by a singer or musician. I’ve heard it said that Elton John isn’t a songwriter as Taupin (mainly) has done the lyrics, but that would be to say Puccini or Mozart didn’t write their operas when they had a librettist. Ridiculous. Again, it’s this taking to extremes i don’t like. And more power to Elton for recognising his limitations and valuing the quality of lyrics, i say. Too often music critics overvalue lyrics just because they came from the same person (or group) who wrote the music- or vice-versa.. I think there’s a risk of snobbery here. But i also think we shouldn’t overvalue a performer who relies on others’ songwriting talents; without the music where would they be? Elvis was exceptional and charismatic, but they weren’t his songs even if they’re considered his and in most cases the writers are unknown. That raises the issue of frontman/woman and celebrity. In India film stars can be equally massive, and then we come back to the contribution of film stars generally. It’s all fluid, interconnected and not something for pure exclusivity.
getting back to the autuer and film theory. actually, it already served its purpose. it was designed to elevate film to the level of high art, and therefore, the director to the level of a true artist. it was a polemic more than a theory. and it was highly successful.
but maybe we can think of it as scaffolding in the construction of the history of film and the history of film theory. it can be done away with, because as jean-luc godard had said, the battle was won. and the old questions are no longer questions, but common knowledge.
I agree with everything Bobby has said on this thread. I’m a traditional auteurist.
@Bobby
Y’all might have to stomach the fact that Truffaut and Godard were wrong about a lot of things.
It’s not that Welles made them better artists, it’s just that he didn’t restrict their art.
Like a good impresario, he stepped back and let pros do their best work.
It seems that everyone’s arguments against me are just restating what I said. But let me define it properly. Gathering the best talent and letting them do their job is called being an impresario. Saying “oh, so-and-so is a great DP, I’ll hire him” is not a truly brilliant stroke of authorship. Rather, it’s saying “I like his/her work, I work well with him/her, he/she can bring a lot to this.”
I’ve never heard of many experienced directors talk about auteurs. They’re usually really grateful for the people who work with them on films and always credit creativity and great work where it’s due.
auterism is an impossibly romantic and naive point-of-view when it comes to cinema.
“Saying “oh, so-and-so is a great DP, I’ll hire him” is not a truly brilliant stroke of authorship. Rather, it’s saying “I like his/her work, I work well with him/her, he/she can bring a lot to this.”
Look, Bobby said it, I’m down with his definition and his point about it being the scaffolding. BUT to reiterate my point—- I disagree that hiring people for a job and then working closely with them is just being an impresario. that’s not what I’m saying, for sure. a director directs. simple enough. what does this mean? I cannot speak for all, but in my experience, I would like to think that when I hire someone to work on a project, I don’t simply sit back in a chair and “let them do their work” That’s not directing, that’s sitting in a chair. I hired them bec. I cannot be everywhere at once, and I need to know that the people on the film are going to do as good a job as I would if I were simply the boom mic operator, etc. This is important— good directors know as much about the technical aspects of filmmaking (from cinematography to acting) as the experts/artists with whom they work. It’s about trust.
When directing, I am constantly aware of everything around me. To the most minsicule detail. All focus is on the work, and the focus is absolute. My DP isn’t filming randomly while I muse over some abstraction. I’m there, with them, guiding, explaining, reworking, sharing a vision. Same with all the crew (when there is one)… And when these relationships build and communication flows, when we are all on the same page, the process is then and only then mutually inclusive, because that’s also part of being a director, having the judgment to let go when the time is right. the same goes with actors: until they are in a space where they are ready to fly, I’m not doing my job if I let them jump off the cliff.
anyhow, that’s my experience, I am sure there are many approaches.
You know what a film director is?
It’s Anton Walbrook’s character in The Red Shoes (1948).
something of an impresario, something of a creator.
but not an auteur.
OK enough redundant academic wrangling.
I just balk at being called an impresario on any level.
impresario is a slang term for middle-class entrepreneurs.
Uh, go back to the original meaning of impresario.
I’m talking like your old school theater impresarios.
Like I said, Anton Walbrook.
how far back? to Mozart’s era, where it just meant manager. I hate that approach. this is my point. you cannot be absolute in this. you must accept that there are such directors as auteurs, and while many may not fit that definition, it is nevertheless true that some do, and the theory is therefore not only valid, but valuable.
are we talking about film directing as an act of showmanship, or grand scale entertainment only? you’re pretty much reducing the work of a director to little more than megaphone ringmastery.
do the actors simply walk onto set and begin acting? does the camera-operator just point where they feel it’s appopriate? of course not. it’s an intense process, and the director is the channel by which it is all created.
the better parallel with impresario would be producer, and even that’s pushing it.
Auteur, or author, is a kind of metaphor when applied to a director. It comes from Alexandre Astruc’s theory of the camera-stylo, or camera pen, which predated the theory of auteurism by a number of years. Again a metaphor (the French love to think in metaphors), camera-stylo said that a director uses the camera to “write” the way an author uses a pen.
RUS- T. is right, impresario means something entirely different. An impresario has no real talent of his own. The Red Shoes is an ok film, but I wouldn’t base a theory of the director’s vision on the character Anton Walbrook plays. Nor would I base it on the characters Edward G. Robinson and Kirk Douglas play in Two Weeks in Another Town.
Directors actually do a great deal, pre-production, on the set, and post-production. Movies that just show directors saying “Action” and “Cut” like a glorified traffic cop are not showing the entirety of the director’s work.
there are NO auteurs, unless the film was made solely by one person.
@Justin
We’re all aware of what directors do.
Why can’t we all just do the adult thing and admit that I’m right?
“there are NO auteurs, unless the film was made solely by one person.”
: )
exeunt T, to take up that challenge. Back in a month.
Matt Parks
I think autuerism, particularly the Sarris school, was valuable in that it shifted discussion (to a certain degree) from emphasis on content to emphasis on form.