'au-thor-ship n. the origin or originator of a written work, plan etc.: a book of unknown authorship' (Collins English Dictionary, Collins, 1979)
Much has been written on the subject of authorship. Some claim that once a work has been written, the author is no longer required or involved and that the work belongs to the reader. Other theorists claim that the 'author' is an integral part of the work and that the originator of the work should be maintained. Then there are other schools of thought that claim that the author is both important and unimportant.
Whereas other areas of art are attempting to down-play the role of the author, film theorists have gone the other way and many are embracing the creative genius of the Author. As a consequence, the subject of authorship with regard to film is very diverse and it is possible to discuss authorship from a variety of concepts and viewpoints.
My focus here is on what are considered the three major concepts regarding film authorship:
- Author as personality
- Author as production worker
- Author as a group of films
Author As Personality
Throughout the 1950s and 1960s film theorists began writing about Auteur Theory and tracing the personal style of a Director through their films.
The term Auteur was first coined in January 1954 when Francois Truffaut wrote an article entitled 'Une certaine tendance du cinema francais' ('A certain tendency of the French Cinema') which was published in the French film journal Cahiers du Cinema. This article focused on what he describes as the 'politique des Auteurs' (Auteur policy) which proposes that the films of directors should be studied, and their personal view of the world discovered through their individual mise-en-scene, themes, values and overall style. Andre Bazin summarised Truffaut's policy thus 'the politique de Auteurs consists, in short, of choosing the personal factor in artistic creation as a standard of reference, and then of assuming that it continues and even progresses from one film to the next.'
It was the American film theorist Andrew Sarris who later developed this initial policy and formed what is now termed the Auteur Theory. Claiming that the director has the overall creative and artistic responsibility for the film, he believes the director is the true author of the film, whose distinctive artistic vision is the primary creative force of a motion picture.
Film theorists and critics have long argued over which directors are 'Auteurs' and which are 'nonAuteurs.' Sarris has said for example that 'Fred Zinneman has only a superficial "personal commitment" to direction, David Lean's Doctor Zhivago is a work of the most impeccable impersonality.' (Andrew Sarris, The American Cinema, Dutton 1968 as re-printed in Film Art by David Bordwell & Kristin Thompson, McGraw Hill, 1993) However, directors singled out for 'Auteur' treatment are usually directors who worked independently in their own countries, and then moved to Hollywood and worked within the studio system. By looking at their films we can try to uncover whether or not their unique style and vision was changed by the studio system. Take, for example, directors from France (Jean Renoir), Germany (Fritz Lang), and Britain (Alfred Hitchcock, Alexander Mackendrick). The answer in all these cases is that the director's personality was present in all their work, regardless of where they worked and thereby conform to Andrew Sarris's notion of what an 'Auteur' is: 'the strong director imposes his own personality on a film.... The Auteur Theory values the personality of a director precisely because of the barriers to its expression.' (Andrew Sarris, The American Cinema)
Both Andrew Sarris (in 'Towards a Theory of Film History') and Peter Woollen (in 'The Auteur Theory') claim that Auteur criticism is based on an awareness of the past, hence the re-emergence of the work of older Hollywood directors to be brought out and studied critically for the first time. Directors such as Howard Hawks, George Cukor, Samuel Fuller, Nicholas Ray, Raoul Walsh and Anthony Mann to name but a few, are all directors who had never been taken seriously by the critical establishment until the advent of the Auteur theory. It is suggested that the way forward in Auteur criticism is to look at the body of work belonging to a director, and through constantly comparing a director's films 'it is possible to decipher, not a coherent message or world-view, but a structure which underlies the film and shapes it' (Peter Wollen, 'The Auteur Theory', Signs And Meanings In The Cinema, Secker and Warburg, 1972) Therefore, it is argued that it is through the director and his beliefs that unconscious and unintended meanings are found in films.
Some directors, for example Alfred Hitchcock, relished the notion of the Auteur Theory and in Donald Spoto's book The Life Of Alfred Hitchcock he writes that Hitchcock's acceptance of the Auteur Theory 'hurt and disappointed just about everybody who had ever worked with Alfred Hitchcock, for the interviews [Truffaut's interviews with Alfred Hitchcock published in the book by Francois Truffaut Hitchcock Truffaut: The Definitive Study Of Alfred Hitchcock, Simon & Schuster, 1967] 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.'
William Goldman believes that it was this high opinion of himself which caused Hitchcock's downfall. However, other 'great' directors, for example Billy Wilder, completely disown the theory, acknowledging the input of everyone involved in the film-making process, and claiming that critics and theorists can over-read films, and find hidden messages and meanings that were never intended. The theorists answer to that? '...it is possible to speak of a film Auteur as an unconscious catalyst.' (Peter Wollen in 'The Auteur Theory')
Author As Production Worker
Is it possible for a director to personally carry out every aspect of production? Surely, if the director is the true Auteur this is what is required. If the director does not fulfil all the production functions, how is the 'author' of a film identified and established?
This is a question frequently asked, and the answer varies depending on how the film was made. For example, if the film was made independently and was written, directed, starred, produced by the same person - Woody Allen say - it is quite acceptable to claim that he is an Auteur, whose unique style can be found from one film to the next. Hence it has generally been agreed that those directors who work(ed) outside the mainstream are more prone to encompass a variety of production tasks within the role of director, and therefore it can be considered that the film's artistic vision is more likely to be their own. These directors take on the multi-task role for a number of reasons, such as to save money or maintain control. Directors within this category include: Art Cinema (Ingmar Bergman, Federico Fellini), American Independent (Quentin Tarrantino, Woody Allen), French New Wave (Jean-Luc Godard, Francois Truffaut), Silent Cinema (G W Griffiths, Charlie Chaplin and Buster Keaton).
However, 'Auteurs' have also emerged from the heyday of Hollywood (John Ford, William Wyler) when films were made in almost factory-like conditions, with directors being assigned projects, complete with script, cast and production crew, the completed film being a product of the combined efforts of many rather than by an individual. However, in general, the role of director comes closest to co-ordinating all stages of production which have most impact on the way a film looks and sounds. The director must have control over and responsibility for the myriad of tasks required to make a film, and combine them to fulfil one voice and one vision. The role of a director can be seen to be similar to that of a conductor of an orchestra. The conductor may not be able to play all the instruments, but he must be able to combine them to create a harmonious arrangement of music.
One of the primary reasons the Auteur Theory persists and the acceptance of the 'Director as Star' continues is for marketing and promotional reasons. It is far easier to sell an established director's film to an already educated audience than to sell a film from a first time director. Marketing campaigns are planned around the logical premise that 'if you liked X's last film, you'll love their new one', thereby reaffirming that it is the Director's input alone that creates a film's individual style.
Prior to the emergence of the Auteur Theory, films had previously been studied and marketed by their genre or their stars. However the Auteur theory allowed film to be discussed seriously and created a new way for films to be viewed and studied, especially in Hollywood where commercial film-makers, whose work had generally been treated as a craft rather than art, suddenly found their movies studied in universities all over the world. This helped to promote the role of the director in the public's eye, creating the phenomenon of 'The Director as Star.' Current 'stars' include Martin Scorsese, Stephen Spielberg, Woody Allen and Quentin Tarrantino. Both the desire for the Director to become the star, and the Director's need for the Auteur Theory can be found in the following quote from Roman Polanski: "To me, the director is a superstar. The best films are best because of nobody but the director. You speak of Citizen Kane or 8½ or Seven Samurai it's thanks to the director who was the star of it. He makes the film, he creates it." (Roman Polanski in The Film Director As Superstar by Joseph Gelmis, Pelican Books, 1970)
'It [Auteur Theory] sure as shit isn't true in Hollywood' (William Goldman, Adventures In The Screentrade, Futura, 1983) As with all theories, there is always another point of view. Thinking about the film-making process logically, the Auteur Theory does not stand a chance. Compare the process of writing a novel - one person sitting in a room writing - to that of film. Film is a collaborative effort, which needs the input of a multitude of trained professionals to create the finished product. One only needs to sit through the end credits of any feature film to see how many people are involved in making it. Each person brings their own creative input. Some get a chance to use it, others do not. Therefore, how can it be believed that the director (any director) is the film's true author and creative genius when millions of dollars are being spent on specialist creative contributors. William Goldman states that he has never met anyone working in the Hollywood film industry who believes in the Auteur Theory, including the directors themselves. He states that it is the combined effort of trained professionals that bring the film's coherent vision to the fore and claims that the seven most important contributors are, in alphabetical order: the actor, the cameraman. the director, the editor, the producer, the production designer and the writer
This confirms that film-making is a group endeavour and to elevate one person's contribution above that of another is unacceptable. However, as Peter Woollen readily admits in 'The Auteur Theory', 'the director's primary task is often one of co-ordination and rationalisation' and can be dangerous for any one person to believe that they are indispensable and can do no wrong.
Author As A Group Of Films
In conjunction with the concept of the 'Author as Personality' it has been said that the 'author' of the film can be a number of key contributors (the director, the writer, the photographer), and therefore one film can form the basis of a group of films to be studied and examined under a number of 'authors' groups of films.
For example, Citizen Kane can be examined under the heading 'an Orson Welles film' as an established director, 'a Gregg Toland film' as an exemplar film photographer and 'a Herman Mankiewicz film' as an example of his writing genius. Therefore, the film would be dissected and examined against particular aspects of their other work. For example Citizen Kane, photographed in what is now considered a distinctive style can be compared to other films photographed by Gregg Toland (Wuthering Heights and The Little Foxes) and new patterns emerge.
This view of an author can also be linked to the output of a studio: for example when a film is described as an 'Ealing comedy' one conjures up a set of expectations and a similar vision as if they were a body of work of one director. The same can be said for a 'Hammer House of Horror' or the films of 'MGM' and 'Warner Brothers'.
As I mentioned at the beginning, the issues surrounding authorship in film have been discussed since the mid 1950s, over 45 years, and critics and theorists are still debating the subject. However, where does the Theory stand, when one of the first devotees and loyal follower of the Auteur Theory, Jean-Luc Godard, has renounced the theory? William Goldman wrote in Adventures In The Screentrade (1983) that Godard had given an interview recently, where he said that the whole thing [Auteur theory] was patent bullshit from the beginning, an idea devised by the then young scufflers [French Theorists and critics: Andre Bazin, Francois Truffaut and Jean-Luc Godard and American theorists: Andrew Sarris and Peter Woollen] to draw some attention to themselves. Where does this leave us? It leaves us right back the beginning with critics and theorists still discussing the subject, arguing with each other and often with themselves.
Further Reading
William Goldman, Adventures In The Screentrade, Futura, 1983
Joseph Gelmis, The Film Director As Superstar, Pelican Books, 1970
Donald Spoto, The Life Of Alfred Hitchcock, Collins, 1983
Peter Wollen, 'The Auteur Theory' from Signs And Meanings In The Cinema, Secker and Warburg, 1972
Francois Truffaut, 'A certain tendency of the French Cinema' from Movies And Methods Volume 1, Nichols, 1976
Andrew Sarris, 'Towards a Theory of Film History' from Movies And Methods Volume 1, Nichols, 1976
Copyright © 2000 Ellen Cheshire
