INTOTHEIBFILM
Origins of Auteur Theory
Auteur
Theory
[The] three premises to ‘Auteur’ Theory:
The technical competence of the director
The director’s distinguishable personality and
The interior meaning.
He says that three concentric circles can represent the three premises, of which the outer one represents technique, the middle one – individual style and the inner one – interior meaning. The director’s interrelated roles can be designated as the roles of the technician, stylist (metteur en scene) and the ‘auteur’ respectively.” (Sarris)
​
The development of auteur theory is very closely linked to the emergence of the French New Wave, and particularly to the thoughts of Francois Truffaut, best expressed in his essay "A Certain Tendency of French Cinema." Further details here.
Auteur
Doc
Circles
&
Squares
Andrew
Sarris
The Famous Tarantino Trunk Shot
What would happen if your Favorite Auteurs filmed Xmas Morning
Auteur theory poses the idea that the style and voice of a film is founded in the creative decisions of the film director; thus, according to it, the director is the ultimate “author” of the film
​
The auteur theory was grounded in Alexandre Astruc’s BIRTH OF A NEW AVANT-GARDE: LA CAMERA-STYLO–in which Astruc expressed that the pen or, in the case of filmmaking, the “camera-pen” is held by the director; it flourished with André Bazin’s Cahiers du Cinéma and its critical writers who would in turn form the movement we know as La Nouvelle Vague or The French New Wave, with François Truffaut, Jean-Luc Godard, and others; and it was further developed by Andrew Sarris and criticized by Pauline Kael. To dig deeper into the significance of the auteur theory
​
As witnessed through CINEMA! CINEMA! THE FRENCH NEW WAVE, The French New Wave was a monumental movement for the art of cinema. It emphasized mise-en-scène and personal filmmaking through the auteur theory founded in Alexandre Astruc’s BIRTH OF A NEW AVANT-GARDE: LA CAMERA-STYLO, as a reading would show. The essence of the French New Wave and as well as Astruc’s writings is the idea that a filmmaker is able to express emotions and truths through his or her use of cinema’s unique language–the filmmaker is a visual writer and the camera his or her pen (note: aural aspects of a film are still as vital as the visuals). The idea remains significant today as it leads to the notion that the filmmaker him or herself is the key tool in filmmaking.
​
If the auteur theory presents the concept of director as ultimate voice of a film, it too expands on the notion that the ultimate determinant of the making of a film is the filmmaker. Since debates surround the theory in terms of director as sole author vs filmmaking as a collaborative art form, then perhaps this is the most significant feature of what should truly be called a tendency: the filmmaker’s freedom to express his or her voice by taking on a demanding art form at all costs with the hands and minds behind the production as the essential tools in the filmmaking process.
​
​
​
​
​
​
​
Let’s face it: between the pure cinema of the 1920s and filmed theatre, there is plenty of room for a different and individual kind of filmmaking, wrote Alexandre Astruc. BRESSON, HITCHCOCK,
WELLES, RENOIR, DREYER, even TARKOVSKY represent this “different and individual kind of filmmaking” not because they were the sole creators of their films but because they approached each with a personal sensibility to the uniqueness of film as a mode of expression. Their collaborators are also auteurs in their own rights, though more often than not it takes a visionary to accomplish what Orson Welles declares: [F]ILMS ARE BEST WHEN THEY MANAGE POETRY BY REDUCING THE ELEMENT OF REALITY AND INTRODUCING SOMETHING WHICH IS THE INVENTION OF THE FILMMAKER
​
​
​
Origins of Auteurship
Do you agree that the Director is the sole being behind a film or is it a collaborative art form built up of many equations?
Cinema Cinema - Documentary on The Nouvelle Vague
-
Born out of an influential group of 1950's French film critics and filmmakers.
-
Auteur Theory explores the notions of individual creative vision and control in cinema.
-
The critical perspective dictates that the director is in a unique and irreplaceable position of personal artistic perspective, and that the film is, most importantly, a product of that perspective.
-
The theory of the director as author also evolved from Alexandre Astruc’s interpretation of caméra-stylo (“camera-pen”), which suggests that the director should use his camera like a writer uses his pen to create a story.
-
The employment of the French word for "author" (auteur) associates the director with the individual output of other mediums (painting, literature, etc.), and rebels against the seeming "collectiveness" of the film studio.
-
The origins of the Auteur Theory lie in the critical output of the Cahiers du Cinema, an influential French film magazine co-founded by Andre Bazin.
-
Francois Truffaut's seminal article "A Certain Tendency of the French Cinema" established a wary and denunciatory distance from the French film establishment (the "Tradition of Quality", as he addresses it).
-
Truffaut also criticized films where he considered the director to be only a “stager” who was given a script and merely added the pictures and performers. These included films that relied on literary classics and had no originality.
-
Alfred Hitchcock is an example of a director who wielded a distinct visual style, and Jean Renoir is an example of a director whose movies reflected the consistent theme of humanism. Truffaut also affirmed that “There are no good and bad movies, only good and bad directors.” Truffaut compared auteurs with metteurs en scene. The metteurs en scene director has technical expertise but does not include his or her personal style in the aesthetics of the motion picture.
-
The proponents of auteurism held up "directors like Jean Renoir...and Alfred Hitchcock" as examples of filmmakers who produced cinema marked with a unique directorial and artistic vision.
-
One intended effect of the Auteur Theory is, especially in the context of the French New Wave, to "safeguard the creative freedom of the auteur director" (Marie 70).
-
Sarris introduced the theory in his essay “Notes on the Auteur Theory” in 1962, which is where the term “auteur theory” arose. According to Sarris, an auteur is a director who achieves a combination of technical know-how, includes his or her personal style in how the film looks and feels, and has interior meaning. Sarris later publishedThe American Cinema: Directors and Directions (1929–1968), which quickly turned into the unofficial guide for auteurism.
-
The larger implications of the theory is to shift the perception of how films are made, and how they function as art.
-
Viewing films from the auteur perspective also creates a new paradigm to evaluate cinema, and ultimately creates a new means by which to place films in a historical and creative context.
-
Another very conscious function of the theory is the emphasis on a director's body of work as a whole, rather than individual films.
-
Placing a film within a chronological context becomes important in the auteurist sense.
​
In Short:
In order to study the auteur theory in depth, in addition to Yoshimoto’s book, two other written texts including Theories of Authorship (1981) edited by John Caughie and Auteur and Authorship (2008) edited by Barry Keith Grant have been studied. These books include many (if not all) of the key texts that have been written on auteur theory, since its conception in the early 1950s.