Auteur theory, theory
of filmmaking in which the director is viewed as the major creative force in a
motion picture. Arising in France in the late 1940s, the auteur theory—as it
was dubbed by the American film critic Andrew Sarris—was an outgrowth of the
cinematic theories of André Bazin and Alexandre Astruc. A foundation stone of
the French cinematic movement known as the nouvelle vague, or new wave, the
theory of director-as-author was principally advanced in Bazin’s periodical
Cahiers du cinéma (founded in 1951). Two of its theoreticians—François Truffaut
and Jean-Luc Godard—later became major directors of the French New Wave.
The auteur theory,
which was derived largely from Astruc’s elucidation of the concept of
caméra-stylo (“camera-pen”), holds that the director, who oversees all audio
and visual elements of the motion picture, is more to be considered the
“author” of the movie than is the writer of the screenplay. In other words,
such fundamental visual elements as camera placement, blocking, lighting, and
scene length, rather than plot line, convey the message of the film. Supporters
of the auteur theory further contend that the most cinematically successful
films will bear the unmistakable personal stamp of the director.
The auteur theory is
a way of reading and appraising films through the imprint of an auteur
(author), usually meant to be the director.”
Andre Bazin was the
founder, in 1951, of Cahiers du cinema and is often seen as the father of
auteurism because of his appreciation of the world-view and style of such
artists as Charlie Chaplin and Jean Renoir. It was younger critics at the
magazine who developed the idea further, drawing attention to significant
directors from the Hollywood studio era as well as European directors.
François Truffaut,
possibly the most polemic Cahiers critic, coined the phrase ‘politique des
auteurs’ (referring to the aesthetic policy of venerating directors). The
French critics were responding to the belated influx of American films in
France after World War Two (they had been held back by import restrictions for
a number of years). Thus, directors like Howard Hawks, Alfred Hitchcock and
John Ford were hailed, often extravagantly, as major artists of the cinema.
Critics like
Truffaut knew that American filmmakers were working within the restrictions of
the Hollywood system and that the types of films and their scripts were often
decided for them. But they believed that such artists could nonetheless achieve
a personal style in the way they shot a film – the formal aspects of it and the
themes that they might seek to emphasise (eg. Eric Rohmer and Claude Chabrol
wrote a book on Hitchcock in which they highlighted recurrent themes in his
films, including the transfer of guilt). With other, often European directors,
the stamp of the auteur often involved them scripting and fashioning their own
material.
With their auteurist
approach, the French critics justified their appreciation of the Hollywood
films they loved and to criticise the respectable French mainstream, which they
viewed as having gone stale and uncinematic. It was an idealist declaration
which provided something of a blueprint for their ensuing careers as film
directors in their own rights, distinctive artists with a discernable personal
styles and preoccupations.
The idea of the
auteur gained currency in America in the 1960s through Andrew Sarris. He
devised the notion of auteur theory (the French critics had never claimed the
concept to be a ‘theory’). He used it to tell the history of American
filmmaking through the careers and work of individuals, classifying them
according to their respective talents.
“Over a group of
films a director must exhibit certain recurrent characteristics of style, which
serve as his signature.” Andrew Sarris
Sarris’s approach
led to the formation of a canon of great directors. But Hollywood was wary of
the idea that it produced art rather than entertainment. Biographer Donald
Spoto says that Hitchcock’s book of interviews with Truffaut “hurt and
disappointed just about everybody who had ever worked with Alfred Hitchcock,
for the interviews reduced the writers, the designers, the photographers, the
composers, and the actors to little other than elves in the master carpenter’s
workshop. The book is a valuable testimony to Truffaut’s sensibilities, and to
Hitchcock’s brilliantly lean cinematic style. It is also a masterpiece of
Hitchcockian self-promotion.” Many other Hollywood directors rejected the idea
of themselves as serious artists: they just made movies. Many directors in the
studio system would see themselves as un-self-conscious craftsmen. Others, like
Hitchcock, cultivated their persona (he revelled in the guise of ‘the master of
suspense’, introduced his own TV series and appeared in cameo form in many of
his films.
Today, the notion of
the individual as auteur is less theoretically constrained, so that we might
consider actors as auteurs as well as directors and producers. The key thing is
that a recognisable imprint is left on a body of films, and this may involve
varying levels of creative input. For example, in the Laurel and Hardy
partnership, Stan Laurel made the significant decisions about their act whilst
Oliver Hardy did little more than turn up and get on with his job. But on
screen we are only aware of the combined and instantly recognisable effect of
the two performing together. When considering an actor, the important question
to address is the kind of identity he/she projects and how this identity is
created through their performances. Is their persona stable, or does it vary?
Sometimes, actors are cast against type or give a markedly different
performance to that with which they are associated – what is the effect of
this?
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