Exploring Auteur Theory
WHAT MAKES A HITCHCOCK A HITCHCOCK?
In the 1950s, the writers of a French magazine called Cahiers du Cinema began to ask the
question: “Who is the author of a film?” The question of who could be considered the creative
“owner” of a film was very problematic one. Whereas a novel, a painting, or a song often only
has one or two authors, a film requires a large network of people who all contribute to the film
in different ways—if you don’t agree, just watch the entire credits of any given film as proof.
But of all these many individuals, is there one individual whose contribution has the greatest
influence upon the style, form, and content of the final film? Was it the screenwriter? The
cinematographer? The actors?
Eventually, Francois Truffaut, a writer for Cahiers stated that if anyone should be considered
the author of a film, it would have to be the director. In his opinion, the director exhibits the
most control over the final product of the film. The director, he argued, is responsible for
maintaining the overall vision of the film. He or she alone has direct control how the screenplay
is interpreted, how the actors will act, how the final shots in the film will look, how it will be
edited together, etc. The theory that the director is the primary creative influence on a work of
art is now known as “the auteur theory.” The idea is that if the director is the author, then you
will be able to discern the director’s distinctive creative “signature” upon the films that he or
she directs. That means that many of the films will be somewhat similar in their narrative form,
artistic style, and thematic content.
Now, like all theories, this is just a belief or idea that hasn’t been necessarily proven to be true.
Your task for your final project is to prove or disprove this theory. To do this, you must select a
director from the list which is provided and watch five films by that director. For each film you
will fill out a questionnaire which will help you to analyze the artistic style, narrative form, and
thematic content of the film. After you have watched all five films, you will write a 3 page,
typewritten, double-spaced paper either defending or disproving the auteur theory, using your
selected director’s films as proof of your argument. You’re welcome and encouraged to watch
these films and fill out the questionnaires with some of your fellow classmates, but each person
must write their own paper. We’ll talk more about how to construct your argument later...
Possible Directors and a few of their films...
The following is a list of some directors you could select to analyze. Listed below their name is a
few of their more well-known films. You don’t have to just watch the films that are listed here;
you are welcome to go to the Internet Movie Database (imdb.com) and type in your director’s
name for a more comprehensive list of all the films they made.
Alfred Hitchcock
Strangers on a Train (1951)
Rear Window (1954)
The Man Who Knew Too Much (1956)
North by Northwest (1959)
Psycho (1960)
The Birds (1963)
David Lean
Blithe Spirit (1945)
Brief Encounter (1946)
Bridge On the River Kwai (1957)
Lawrence of Arabia (1962)
Doctor Zhivago (1965)
A Passage to India (1984)
Billy Wilder
Double Indemnity (1944)
Sunset Boulevard (1950)
Sabrina (1954)
The Seven Year Itch (1955)
Some Like It Hot (1959)
The Apartment (1960)
John Huston
The Maltese Falcon (1941)
The Treasure of the Sierra Madre (1948)
We Were Strangers (1949)
The Asphalt Jungle (1950)
The African Queen (1951)
Frank Capra
It Happened One Night (1934)
Mr. Deeds Goes to Town (1936)
You Can’t Take It With You (1938)
Mr. Smith Goes to Washington (1939)
Arsenic and Old Lace (1944)
It’s a Wonderful Life (1946)
Stanley Kubrick
Dr. Strangelove: Or How I Learned to Stop Worrying
and Love the Bomb (1964)
2001: A Space Odyssey (1968)
Barry Lyndon (1975)
He has several other films which may not be
appropriate for your age group...
Other Possible Choices…
William Wyler
Wuthering Heights (1939)
The Best Years of Our Lives (1946)
Carrie (1952)
Roman Holiday (1953)
Friendly Persuasion (1956)
Ben-Hur (1959)
Howard Hawks
Scarface (1932)
Bringing Up Baby (1938)
His Girl Friday (1940)
Sergeant York (1941)
The Big Sleep (1946)
I Was a Male War Bride (1949)
John Ford
Stagecoach (1939)
The Grapes of Wrath (1940)
My Darling Clementine (1946)
She Wore a Yellow Ribbon (1949)
The Searchers (1956)
The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance (1962)
Orson Welles
Citizen Kane (1941)
The Magnificent Ambersons (1942)
Touch of Evil (1955)
Charlie Chaplin
Robert Altman
Arthur Penn
Martin Scorsese
Steven Spielberg
Woody Allen
Roman Polanski
Sam Peckinpah
Francois Truffaut
Ingmar Bergman
Akira Kurasawa
Bernardo Bertolucci
Francis Ford Coppola
Frank Capra
Joel and Ethan Coen
Frederico Fellini
Jean-Luc Godard
Terry Gilliam
Spike Lee
Sergio Leone
Christopher Nolan
M. Night Shyamalan
Paul Thomas Anderson
Steven Soderbergh
Quentin Tarantino
Tim Burton
Danny Boyle