The Auteur Theory
The Hollywood Model
The Studio System
Big Five:
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Fox
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RKO
Paramount
Warner
Brothers
MGM
America comes out on top
• American and European cinema equally
influential until World War II
• American films not
seen in Europe for
the duration of the
war
• German Occupation
prohibited import of
American films to
France
• When ban was lifted, influx of four years worth
of movies in 1945 - more than 2000 films to
distribute
(Compare with 603 American films released in 2007...)
American Directors Who Inspired the Auteur Theory
Formally ranked as “B” directors
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Howard Hawks - Bringing Up Baby
Alfred Hitchcock - Notorious
Fritz Lang - The Big Heat
Nicholas Ray - Rebel Without A Cause
Orson Welles - Citizen Kane
John Ford - The Searchers
Alexandre Astruc
"The Birth of a New Avant-Garde: The Camera-Stylo”
1948
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Moviemaking was an industrial
process...
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The director should use the
commercial apparatus the way a
writer uses a pen (camera-stylo)
and, through the mise en scène,
imprint their vision on the work.
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Challenge the traditional
storytelling structure.
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Writer becomes less important.
Andre Bazin
• Films should reflect a director's personal vision
• Beginning of auteur theory provided a way to
organize film criticism and to rebel against the
French filmmaking establishment - “Papa’s
cinema”
• Founded Cahiers du Cinema 1951
“The Tradition of Quality emphasized
craft over innovation,
privileged established directors over new directors,
and preferred the great works of the past to experimentation.
Literary adaptation provided fertile ground for this decade, on the part of those who were
anxious to prove the cultural superiority of French film in the face of a massive influx of
Hollywood movies into the French market.”
“A Certain Tendency of the French Cinema”
Francois Truffaut
"Une Certaine tendance du cinéma française" (1954)
• The French weekly
news magazine
L'Express called
Truffaut
... "a hateful enfant
terrible who puts his
foot in his mouth with
unbearable self-conceit"
The 400 Blows
1959
• The Nouvelle Vague - (New Wave) -
was born
Francois Truffaut - 400 Blows
Jean-Luc Godard - Breathless
Claude Chabrol - Le Beau Serge
Jacques Rivette Céline and Julie Go Boating
Alain Renais - Last Year at Marienbad
Eric Roehmer - Claire’s Knee
A story should have a beginning, a middle, and an end . . .
but not necessarily in that order.
Jean-Luc Godard
Tenets of New Wave style
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Jump cuts: a non-naturalistic edit, usually a section of a
continuous shot that is removed unexpectedly,
illogically
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Shooting on location
Natural lighting
Improvised dialogue and
plotting
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Direct sound recording
Long takes
American New Wave
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1950s - Death of studio system due to television
1960s-70s - Coppola, Scorsese, Spielberg, Altman, Lucas
Andrew Sarris
• The American Cinema:
Directors and Directions
1929-1968
• Popularized the Auteur Theory
in America
The Sarris Pantheon
1. Robert Flaherty
2. John Ford
3. D. W. Griffith
4. Howard Hawks
5. Buster Keaton
6. Orson Welles
7. Fritz Lang
8. Ernst Lubitsch
9. F. W. Murnau
10.Max Ophuls
11.Josef von Sternberg
12.Charles Chaplin
13.Alfred Hitchcock
14.Jean Renoir
Premises of Auteur Theory
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Technical competence of
director as a criterion of
value
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Distinguishable personality of
the director as a criterion of
value
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“The third and ultimate
premise of the auteur theory
is concerned with interior
meaning, the ultimate glory
of the cinema as an art.
Interior meaning is
extrapolated from the
tension between a director’s
personality and his material”.
Pauline Kael
“Circles and Squares”
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Many good films made by
technically inept directors.
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“The smell of a skunk is more
distinguishable than the perfume of
a rose; does that make it better?”
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Artist expresses himself in the
unity of form and content, not the
tension.
Pros of perpetuating of the auteur theory
• Easy to market films branding
• A way to organize
criticism of films
• Includes commercial
films
Cons of perpetuating the auteur theory
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Cult of personality - Too much
director power
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Misses opportunity to
appreciate the most
collaborative of the arts
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Excludes analysis of the
influences of the collaborators
on the final film
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Elevates bad films and ignores
good ones if they don’t fit that
director’s paradigm
Things to Think About...
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“Interior meaning is extrapolated
from the tension between a
director’s personality and his
material”.
Tension is actually between
director, circumstance, crew,
producer...
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New idea of authorship in general - recent availability of
technology means true auteurism
http://www.youtube.com/blog?entry=4KWKYZN7znU
A gathering in Los Angeles, 1972: (from left to right standing) Robert Mulligan, William Wyler,
George Cukor, Robert Wise, Jean-Claude Carrière, Serge Silberman;
(seated) Billy Wilder, George Stevens, Buñuel, Alfred Hitchcock, Rouben Mamoulian.
“Making of” videos have demystified filmmaking process
Judge the Art, not the Artist
“Tremors”
Ron Underwood
“Nightmare on Elm Street”
Wes Craven
Coppola’s Process
Who has more power the director or the producer?
Producer’s role is redefined each time
by the nature of the…
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Project - indie, studio
project, sequel…
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Director’s style and
personality
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Cast - big stars
Funding - Independent
financiers, bond
company
• Relationship with director and cast
• Thankless job
• “The buck stops here” for problems
Works Cited
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Balio, Tino. The American Film Industry. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1976.
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Gerstner, David A., and Janet Staiger. Authorship and Film : Trafficking with Hollywood.
New York: Routledge, 2003.
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Kael, Pauline. "Circles and Squares." Film Quarterly 16.3 (1963): 12-26. <http://
www.jstor.org/stable/1210726>.
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Macklin, F. Anthony, and Nick Pici.Voices from the Set : The Film Heritage Interviews.
Lanham, Md.: Scarecrow Press, 2000.
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Marie, Michel, and Richard John Neupert. The French New Wave : An Artistic School.
Malden, MA: Blackwell Pub., 2003.
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Monaco, James. The New Wave : Truffaut, Godard, Chabrol, Rohmer, Rivette. New York:
Oxford University Press, 1976.
Braddock, Jeremy, Stephen Hock, and Andrew Sarris. Directed by Allen Smithee.
Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2001.
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Prince, Stephen. Movies and Meaning : An Introduction to Film. Boston: Allyn and
Bacon, 1997.
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Sarris, Andrew. The American Cinema : Directors and Directions, 1929-1968. New
York: E. P. Dutton & Co, 1968.
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Schatz, Thomas. The Genius of the System : Hollywood Filmmaking in the Studio
Era. 1st ed. New York: Pantheon, 1988.
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Trumpbour, John. Selling Hollywood to the World : U.S. and European Struggles for
Mastery of the Global Film Industry, 1920-1950. Cambridge, U.K. ; New York:
Cambridge University Press, 2002.
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Vest, James M. "The Making of Downhill and its Impact on Hitchcock's
Reputation." , 2005. 50-94. <http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?
direct=true&db=fah&AN=23598608&site=ehost-live>.
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WILLIAM GRIMES. "The Auteur Theory of Film: Holy Or just Full of Holes?" New
York Times (1993): 9. <http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?
direct=true&db=aph&AN=30202345&site=ehost-live>.