Auteur

An auteur (French: [o.tœʁ], author) is a singular artist who controls all aspects of a collaborative creative work, a person equivalent to the author of a novel or a play. The term is commonly referenced to filmmakers or directors with a recognizable style or thematic preoccupation. Auteurism originated in French film criticism of the late 1940s as a value system that derives from the cinematic theories of André Bazin and Alexandre Astruc—dubbed auteur theory by American film critic Andrew Sarris. Such critics invented the concept as a way of distinguishing French New Wave filmmakers from studio system directors that were part of the Hollywood establishment. Auteur theory has since been applied to producers of popular music, as well as directors of video games.

The definition of an auteur has been debated since the 1940s. André Bazin and Roger Leenhardt presented the theory that it is the director that brings the film to life and uses the film to express their thoughts and feelings about the subject matter as well as a worldview as an auteur. An auteur can use lighting, camerawork, staging and editing to add to their vision.

Starting in the 1960s, some film critics began criticising auteur theory's focus on the authorial role of the director. Pauline Kael and Andrew Sarris feuded in the pages of The New Yorker and various film magazines. One reason for the backlash is the collaborative aspect of shooting a film, and in the theory's privileging of the role of the director (whose name, at times, has become more important than the movie itself). In Kael's "Raising Kane" (1971), an essay written on Orson Welles' Citizen Kane, she points out how the film made extensive use of the distinctive talents of co-writer Herman J. Mankiewicz and cinematographer Gregg Toland.

Some screenwriters have publicly balked at the idea that directors are more authorial than screenwriters, while film historian Aljean Harmetz, referring to the creative input of producers and studio executives in classical Hollywood, argues that the auteur theory "collapses against the reality of the studio system". In 2006, David Kipen coined the term Schreiber theory to refer to the theory of the screenwriter as the principal author of a film.

Reference

Santas 2002, p. 18.

Min, Joo & Kwak 2003, p. 85.

Caughie 2013, pp. 22–34, 62–66.

The Editors of Encyclopædia Britannica (n.d.). "Auteur theory". Encyclopedia Britannica.

Thompson & Bordwell 2010, pp. 381–383.

Kael, Pauline, "Raising Kane", The New Yorker, February 20, 1971.