i actually had this question on my film studies a-level exam. i used tom cruise as my example, it was at the time of the release of mission impossible 2’s theatrical release so was especially relevent. he controls all aspects of the archetypal tom cruise film, from supervising and ok-ing the script, to choosing the director. in recent years i guess this isnt as true, but in 2001 it made sense (and got me a really high score in the exam!).
Haha, deservedly so! I wasn’t even thinking actors but that’s a great example.
Paddy Chayefsky, the writer. He generally acted as producer to his films as well, but it’s impossible to miss his overwhelming contributions to films like Network, The Hospital, Marty or even Altered States.
Also, Edward Norton. From what I understand he takes control of movies and will blackmail directors into doing his will. Whether for better or for worse it’s an interesting approach.
Christopher Doyle is somebody who comes to mind.
i agree with both doyle and norton (no offence joshua, i dont actually know of paddy chayefsky, thats the sole reason i dont agree with your choice!). both have had well publicised confrontations with directors in the past, which would suggest a real power struggle! norton’s problems with tony kaye led to the latter wanting his name removed from american history x, and all but tarnished his career in hollywood for the best part of ten years, while doyle and wong kar-wai’s problems led to the disintegration of perhaps the finest filmmaking team of the 90’s.
I tend to fall under the Director’s vision more so than any other talents involved. Imagine Adaptation without Spike directing it or Confessions without Clooney. Any other filmmaker could have got a hold of these works and the results would be drastically different I’d think.
Perhaps the story and themes would be similiar, but imagine Eternal Sunshine without Gondry’s vision ? What if Burton had directed it ? Or Eastwood ? (Gasp)
Is auteur theory for real? I mean, Stan Brakhage is an auteur. And although it is silly to have to pick one Coen over the other, what about the contribution of Roger Deakins, the Coen’s longtime cinematographer? What about Jack Fisk? He was Art Director for Terrence Malick’s first two films and Production Designer for his last two as well as for There Will Be Blood, which was a stylistic departure for director P. T. Anderson but not for Fisk.
As for Chris Doyle, I don’t think his movies apart from Wong Kar Wai look anything but ordinary. But that’s a tricky one because besides Doyle’s cinematography Wong Kar Wai is known for his sets, costumes and temporally confusing editing style but William Chang designed the sets, costumes and edited every one of Wong’s movies since As Tears Go By – that’s too many auteurs for one oeuvre! Most “auteur” directors work with the same team on movie after movie so creative continuity is inevitable, and when style changes significantly because of a new DP or bigger budget the movies of a single writer will inevitable follow similar lines of discourse. Which should we preference: visual style or subject matter? What about sound style in the case of editor/sound designer Walter Murch?
You bring up Charlie Kaufman, on the one hand the movies he’s written have certain constants (tortured artists) despite very different directors but on the other hand, Eternal Sunshine and Science of Sleep, both directed by Michel Gondry but only one written by Kaufman are almost the same movie – do these similarities stem from directors or writers? Can they both be auteurs?
I’m excited to see Darren Aronofsky’s new movie because he is working with a new cinematographer and for the first time he has no writing credit. From what I’ve heard it looks nothing like his previous films (shot by Matthew Libatique) but has the same tragic downward spiral as all his other movies (written until The Wrestler by him) – if that’s true what is Aronofsky’s contribution?
I think rather than simplify our discussion, movies should be appreciated as a uniquely collaborative art form, why should we give one person all the credit when so many other people are doing interesting creative work evident on screen?
I’m with George on this one about the collaborative nature of cinema. But let’s play!
Anyone remember the first episode of “Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip”? Judd Hirsch’s character, the title program’s equivalent of Lorne Michaels, has a meltdown on camera a la Howard Beale in Network. In the rest of the episode, the 1976 film is referred to as a work by Paddy Chayefsky. Why not a film by Sidney Lumet? Well, for one, in the mind of Aaron Sorkin (one who probably belongs on this list) the writer is always king, but there is more to it. Our collective memory/history has this need to place someone at the top, and it tends to be the breadwinner: Chayefsky went home with an Oscar, Lumet did not.
Let’s move behind the camera to The Prince of Darkness, Gordon Willis. On the set of The Godfather, he and Francis Ford Coppola were often at odds, not an entirely uncommon relationship for directors and DPs working together for the first time. In the end, they were able to make som beautiful movies together, but Coppola moved on to make some real dreck over time, while Willis fostered one of the great cinematic collaborations with Woody Allen. The 8 Willis/Allen films show a mutual growth of the two “auteurs” through the 1970s and 1980s. Annie Hall was their first collaboration and Allen’s first real departure from slapstick. What we see after Willis in Allen’s career is a form that is visually stimulating consistently regardless of the cinematographer, which tends to tell us who is pulling the strings.
I could go on for days, so let me just list some names (and films I think this applies to) and maybe revisit later. Good post Catherine!
Walter Murch (Apocalypse Now, The Conversation)
Thelma Schoonmaker (The Departed, Goodfellas)
Sven Nykvist (Crimes and Misdemeanors, Autumn Sonata)
Robert Elswit (Hard Eight, American Dreamz)
Lowel Ganz and Babaloo Mandel (Parenthood, City Slickers)
Harvey Weinstein (the whole year of 1994)
Jerry Bruckheimer (The Rock, Pirates of the Caribbean)
PS Actors! I’ll almost agree with Tom Cruise, but only if he would ever pick the right projects to produce, which he wont. George Clooney for his Section Eight collaboration and Tom Hanks for his Play Tone efforts.
If control of of film from soup-to-nuts is how you’re defining it, you have to go back to a lot of the early producers, like Selznick and Sam Spielgel and Jack Warner.
But that isn’t the original FRENCH concept of the theory — they went directly for the directors even WITH such powerful producers in the mix.
@ GEORGE O: I absolutely agree that auteur theory is reductive and, to a certain extent, dishonest; a movie directed by Spike Lee would not exist without the efforts of dozens to hundreds of other people, so why is it a Spike Lee Joint? What’s interesting to me, though, is that when you refer to the new movie directed by Darren Aronofsky — a movie that you’ve heard looks nothing like his previous films — you still refer to it as “Darren Aronofsky’s new movie.” I would refer to it the same way, even though I have issues with auteur theory as well. To me, this says something about how we consciously or unconsciously assign authorship to a film. We question whether “Aronofsky’s film” is Aronofsky’s film, but we don’t talk about whether “Libatique’s film” is this or that.
This could mean that we assign authorship to whoever’s publicized the most, but that of course leads to the question of why the director is the most publicized, which kind of begs the initial question of why society at large regards the director as the auteur. I’m definitely no expert, but it appears to me just from looking at the movie industry that the less easily one can discern a specific style or point of view in the resultant film (as in various big-budget movies where directors and actors often seem interchangeable with other directors and actors), the more willing audiences are willing to overlook any potential artistic merit. This is partially due to the fact that too many cooks tend to create a bland, characterless soup, but also because our idea of art these days is not of superior technical craftsmanship, as it was during the Renaissance, but of conceptual innovation, unity between style and concept, and the aforementioned strong point of view/world outlook. It doesn’t seem to be an accident that the idea of the auteur became popular at the same time the arthouse movement was gaining momentum.
In the end, I think this was a long-winded way of saying that I agree with you that many people are responsible for the creative work that shows up in the final product, but that it’s exciting to see in the midst of the collaboration a singular style or worldview that one can follow from film to film. Certainly it’s not always that of the director — I’d go see a Charlie Kaufman movie regardless of the director, just as I’d go see a Michel Gondry movie regardless of the writer — and certainly oftentimes it’s the result of the unique synergy certain people have with one another — a movie written and directed by the Coen brothers is something I usually can’t wait to see, but a movie with only part of that equation is….Intolerable Cruelty. But whoever is responsible, it’s that ongoing thread of a set of ideas or aesthetic principles that gets us to go to that film. So maybe a better question is, who, other than the director, is someone for whom that singular thread is identifiable and exciting enough to get you to go see his/her/their films? Or, if it’s not exciting to you, whose unexciting “brand” is visible to you and seems to permeate the resultant work to the point that the work links itself to the person? If that makes any sense.
Charlie Kauffman is brilliant honestly.
One could argue John Barry and Ken Adam are the two auteurs of the James Bond films; Barry’s scores and Adam’s sets are far more significant contributions to the iconography of those films than any of the hired hands that directed them.
@ Christopher: You’re absolutely right, but we be hitting an esoteric wall.
@ Catherine: I’ll pull that thread.
I would say Robert Elswit is someone whose work is really something that keeps me coming back. A great example for me is “American Dreamz”. I happen to be a huge Paul Weitz fan anyway (in terms of what got me to the theater), but Elswit’s cinematography is almost always spot on. One could certainly call his for “unexciting” in that film, especially when pitted against his resume of “Boogie Nights”, “There Will Be Blood”, “Good Night and Good Luck” and so on, but as far as unexciting goes, it is pitch perfect.
Walter Murch is another. If he is doing both editing and sound on a film, I am more likely to go check out a film I wouldn’t otherwise see. He has been so consistently innovative over the years, I am just taken aback by his skill.
Anyone familiar with Michel Foucault’s theories with questioning the significance of the author (or in this case, the “auteur”)?
For many years I’ve been an advocate of the auteur theory, but in the past few months, not so much. A film is a collaborative effort and I see the director as the center of it, but without certain talent, the movie might or will fall apart, despite the direction. That’s why directors will have stinkers every once in a while.
But to answer the original question, who are non-director auteurs in their own right?
Roger Deakins, Charlie Kaufman—yes!
But we can’t forget Greg Toland.
As much as I like Orson Welles, I don’t think Citizen Kane would be what it was if it weren’t for Toland.
@ JONATHAN PORITSKY: This is slightly off-topic, but I just imdb’d Walter Murch (didn’t know who he was) and saw that he’s the writer/director (auteur?) of one of my all-time childhood favorites, Return to Oz! I’m going to have to do a Films of Walter Murch festival to see if I can detect any Return-to-Oz-ness in his sound and editing work. Right after my Films of Tom Cruise, Christopher Doyle, Paddy Chayefsky, Gordon Willis, and Robert Elswitt festivals, of course.
@ Catherine: Ha! Murch only got the W/D title on Return to Oz, but I believe he is close to earning both titles on The Conversation. That movie is such a sound guy’s reverie. If you really want to geek out on Murch, pick up his book “In the Blink of an Eye”. It’s probably the best book on editing.
I actually suggested that Charlie Kaufman should be added as an auteur in a different topic. I think that he, Wes Anderson and Paul Thomas Anderson can be considered, as a group, to be the hope for the future of American cinema.
catherine krummey -this book may interest you -
http://search.barnesandnoble.com/booksearch/isbnInquiry.asp?r=1&ISBN=9781842432532&ourl=Charlie%2DKaufman%2Dand%2DHollywoods%2DMerry%2DBand%2Dof%2DPranksters%2DFabulists%2Dand%2DDreamers%2FDerek%2DHill
altohugh its inclusion of david o russell takes it down a few notches in my eyes!
I think there’s a lot of misunderstandings in terms of the auteur theory. CATHERINE, First off, there are some things to clear up about your points on Aronofsky. A true auteur brings a certain style, his or her own aesthetic and narrative technique to each of his films. That encompasses most, if not every aspects of productions. Aronofsky has shown us through his body of work that he is a very dynamic film-maker, who is constantly trying to reinvent himself as an artist with every film he makes. I do believe Aronofsky himself said this, and that idea is his style of film-making. An auteur in very lament terms is simply the author of the film. In his case, there is no doubt in my mind that he is an auteur because he writes almost every film that he directs. To be an auteur you have to control of the narrative aspects and editing to some degree. As a result of having a major hand in the writing, filming and editing, the film takes on a large part of his creative vision.
The reason why The Wrestler may not seem look like a film that he’s done is because it’s also the first major film he’s done that he did not write. And the aesthetic should be different from his other films to complement the film. A hand-held, more gritty almost verite style is what you can see from it so far.
Val Lewton.
Haha, a thumbs down but no actual rebuttal. Someone obviously doesn’t like aronofsky or doesn’t like being wrong haha
And Adam you hit it on the head in my opinion
Catherine caught me in a slip of the tongue – the new movie directed and produced by Darren Aronofsky – touche. I think we, the viewers, respond to the advertisers, we call it a Charlie Kaufman or Darren Aronofsky movie because it is branded as such to sell – and we buy it. Along those lines, it is my understanding that the “A Film by John Doe” or the “A John Doe Film” credit is part of the Directors Guild of America (DGA) contract so it isn’t the moviemaker but their handlers who decide to call it such. Spike Lee (a DGA member) acknowledges collaboration by using the word “joint,” it is not his movie but a gathering place for creative people of which he’s in charge.
As for non-director moviemakers whose thread I follow, I like thinking about it that way, Walter Murch is a perfect example, his book is great. I would add Valdis Oskarsdottir, editor of Festen, Eternal Sunshine, Julien Donkey Boy and others. Richard Portman sound guy who worked with Murch on The Godfather, as well as on Nashville, Star Wars and The Deer Hunter. Emmanuel Lubezki, director of photography for Ali, The New World and all Alfonso Cuaron’s movies. And I’d watch anything with Jennifer Jason Lee: Mrs Parker and Vicious Circle, Short Cuts, The Hudsucker Proxy, Margot at the Wedding, Fast Times at Ridgemont High, etc.
TAXI DRIVER is a Paul Schrader Film.
CHINATOWN is a Robert Towne Film.
LOST IN TRANSLATION is a Bill Murray Film.
Whenever a movie is profoundly dominated by one of the collaborator’s voices, then that person might as well be considered the “auteur.” Just because the Martin Scorsese did a great job of directing Taxi Driver, that doesn’t mean that he was the dominant voice in that film. He was along for the ride. GOODFELLAS is a Scorsese Film, TAXI DRIVER is a film that Scorsese worked on.
While I also understand the Auteur Theory and will agree with it to a point, I think of film as more collaborative and it, without a doubt, depends on film to film, person to person. I wholeheartedly agree that Charlie Kaufman is an auteur under the theory. While Synecdoche, New York confirms that Gondry and Jonze were able to sift his vision a bit, he is still a brand unto himself. I think, in general, that the writer doesn’t get enough credit. In essence, they are the first director of the film, but it is not always their exact vision that they are left with. Still, Kaufman is the one that stands out in my mind the most. Although there are countless cinematographers who I’m sure have influenced a film’s viewing in much the same way the director has. Same for editors. But I still think that writers and directors are the most important aspect of film making. Photography and editing is just the icing on the cake that can make or break the final product.
I think a lot of people are unaware of how much control directors, especially those like Scorcese and Polanski, have over almost every aspect of production. Especially if you’re trying to bring up a film like Taxi Driver, where so much of the creative reigns, especially in the narrative, was controlled by Scorcese.
Even though Schrader’s script was largely biographical, there are so many creative changes and decisions that Scorcese made to the picture, because once pre-production gets started, all those elements and ideas can change and take on different shapes, especially the script. And I also must ask, do you not think that Scorcese controlling the edits in the film warrants him any discussion as an auteur just because he didn’t write the original script? He changed many aspects of the screenplay and the editing only finalizes and furthers that notion. If you have seen the commentary, then you get a very strong understanding of his overall influence of the film and how his creative vision took on a large part of the film.
bizarrely someone has given my first post in here a thumbs down, despite me only reciting an anecdote!
Catherine
It’s most often the director that’s seen as the one “behind” the movie, but what about the rise of screenwriters like Charlie Kaufman whose work is identifiable no matter who the director? Also, what about collaborations like the Coen brothers? (I’m basically asking this because I tried to add “Coen Brothers” to my profile and had to pick “Joel Coen” instead, which seemed a little silly and started me thinking about this.) Are there any other non-director filmmakers that you think have a strong vision and style that comes across in their films, or is there a reason directors are singled out as the auteurs?