Product Code Database
An auteur (; , ) is an artist with a distinctive approach, usually a film director whose filmmaking control is so unbounded and personal that the director is likened to the "author" of the film, thus manifesting the director's unique style or thematic focus. As an unnamed value, auteurism originated in French film criticism of the late 1940s, and derives from the critical approach of André Bazin and Alexandre Astruc, whereas American critic Andrew Sarris in 1962 called it auteur theory.
American actor Jerry Lewis directed his own 1960 film The Bellboy via sweeping control, and was praised for "personal genius". By 1970, the New Hollywood era had emerged with studios granting directors broad leeway. Pauline Kael argued, however, that "auteurs" rely on creativity of others, like cinematographers.
target="_blank" rel="nofollow"> The Beginning of the Auteur Theory * Filmmaker IQ Archived 2020-07-26 at the Wayback Machine Georges Sadoul deemed a film's putative "author" could potentially even be an actor, but a film is indeed collaborative. Aljean Harmetz cited major control even by film executives. David Kipen's view of the screenwriter as indeed the main author is termed Schreiber theory. In the 1980s, large failures prompted studios to reassert control. The auteur concept has also been applied to non-film directors, such as and video game designers, such as Hideo Kojima. The Architects: Video Gaming's Auteurs - IGN
Notable examples of filmmakers throughout history frequently cited as auteurs include Wes Anderson, Christopher Nolan, Lars Von Trier, Baz Luhrmann, Hayao Miyazaki, Guillermo Del Toro, Francis Ford Coppola, Robert Eggers, Tim Burton, Ari Aster, Martin Scorsese, Paul Thomas Anderson, Bong Joon Ho, the Coen brothers, Quentin Tarantino, Jacques Tati, Ingmar Bergman, Stanley Kubrick, David Lynch, Akira Kurosawa and Edgar Wright .
Jerry Lewis, an actor from the Hollywood studio system, directed his own 1960 film The Bellboy. Lewis's influence on it spanned business and creative roles, including writing, directing, lighting, editing, and art direction. French film critics, publishing in Cahiers du Cinéma and in Positif, praised Lewis's results. For his mise-en-scene and camerawork, Lewis was likened to Howard Hawks, Alfred Hitchcock, and Satyajit Ray. In particular, Jean-Luc Godard credited Lewis's "personal genius" for making him "the only one in Hollywood doing something different, the only one who isn't falling in with the established categories, the norms, the principles", "the only one today who's making courageous films".
Via auteur theory, critical and public scrutiny of films shifted from their stars to the overall creation. In the 1960s and the 1970s, a new generation of directors, revitalizing filmmaking by wielding greater control, manifested the New Hollywood era,David A Cook, "Auteur Cinema and the film generation in 70s Hollywood", in The New American Cinema by Jon Lewis (ed), Duke University Press, New York, 1998, pp. 1–4Stefan Kanfer, "The Shock of Freedom in Films", Time, December 8, 1967, Accessed 25 April 2009. when studios granted directors more leeway to take risks. Film Theory Goes to the Movies - Google Books (pgs. 14-16) Yet in the 1980s, upon high-profile failures like Heaven's Gate, studios reasserted control, muting the auteur theory.
Richard Corliss and David Kipen argued that a film's success relies more on screenwriting.Kipen, David (2006). The Schreiber Theory: A Radical Rewrite of American Film History, p.38. Melville House .Diane Garrett. " Book Review: The Schreiber Theory". Variety. April 15, 2006. In 2006, to depict the screenwriter as the film's principal author, Kipen coined the term Schreiber theory.
To film historian Georges Sadoul, a film's main "author" can also be an actor, screenwriter, producer, or novel's author, although a film is a collective's work. Film historian Aljean Harmetz, citing classical Hollywood's input by producers and executives, held that auteur theory "collapses against the reality of the studio system".Aljean Harmetz, Round up the Usual Suspects, p. 29.
Another early pop music auteur was Brian Wilson, influenced by Spector. In 1962, Wilson's band, the Beach Boys, signed to Capitol Records and swiftly became a commercial success, whereby Wilson became the first pop musician credited for writing, arranging, producing, and performing his own material. Before the "progressive pop" of the late 1960s, performers typically had little input on their own records. Wilson, however, employed the studio like an instrument, as well as a high level of studio control that other artists soon sought.
According to The Atlantics Jason Guriel, the Beach Boys' 1966 album Pet Sounds, produced by Wilson, anticipated later auteurs, as well as "the rise of the producer" and "the modern pop-centric era, which privileges producer over artist and blurs the line between entertainment and art. ... Anytime a band or musician disappears into a studio to contrive an album-length mystery, the ghost of Wilson is hovering near."
|
|
