Auteur theory

The Auteur Theory (from French " auteur " = Author ) is a film theory and the theoretical basis for the author's film - especially the French - in the 1950s, the demarcated from the " producer " cinema. Even today, the definition of the auteur concept is constantly evolving. In the center of the film is the auteur theory of producer or filmmaker as a spiritual author and central designer of the artwork.

History of Auteur Theory

In the late 1940s a first auteur theory was formulated by the French film critic Alexandre Astruc by raised the question of the intellectual property of a movie. In the traditional process of creation, the proportions of screenwriter, cinematographer and film director in the overall work are difficult to assign. Due to the allocation of the sub-tasks as an honorary activity by the film companies suffer creativity, according to the thesis. Conversely, this theory calls for the merging of the activities to a creative unit. He formulated his design in the essay " La caméra - stylo ". The camera should be used as a pen. He was sure that significant writings in the future would be " written camera " no more than text, but with the.

But have enforced these and similar ideas of the auteur theory only in the 1950s. Their common term as a pioneer of today's auteur theory was first politique des auteurs ( authors - policy ), which was formed only in the course of time the theory. The word politique or policy thus stood here for more partisanship, which is more of a hindrance for film- scientific discussions ( see below).

The politique des auteurs was developed at this time by a group of young film critics to André Bazin, who wrote for Cahiers du cinéma film magazine. A key role was played by François Truffaut: In January 1954, he published his sensational essay A certain tendency in French cinema ( Une certaine tendance du cinéma français ) in which he turned with a sharp polemic against the established French " quality film". In this, the director often stepped over the screenwriter and the author of the literary text to the background. Truffaut argued, however, for a film to be completely determined by the director himself as the true " auteur " of the film in the form and content. He found that in traditionally considered as authors of their films European directors such as Luis Buñuel, Jean Renoir and Roberto Rossellini, but also and above all in directors such as Alfred Hitchcock, Howard Hawks, Fritz Lang and Vincente Minnelli, the ( largely as a contract directors ) worked in the studio system of Hollywood, whose films but still have a personal style.

The concept of the director as auteur of his films was decisive for the film critics of Cahiers du cinéma, and thus for the directors of the Nouvelle Vague that emerged from it, next to Truffaut about Jean -Luc Godard, Jacques Rivette and Claude Chabrol - filmmakers to be served implement their artistic aims of each own cinematic form.

Published in 1968, Roland Barthes, one of the Auteur theorists, the essay La mort de l' auteur ( The death of the author). Barthes replaced the " Auteur -Dieu " ( " Author's God ") by the " écrivain " ( the writer ) and thus resulted in a continued criticism that as early as 1967 by Julia Kristeva in her essay Bakhtine, le mot, le dialogue et le roman was applied.

But until the 1970s the auteur theory remained influential for European cinema. Then also set up a departure from the " fateful power of the directors " ( Günter Rohrbach ). Economic pressures forced to return to a division of labor in production, as is characteristic for the producers movie. This was accompanied necessarily again the agreement of all parties to a lowest common denominator and thus often, the less the producer is involved as project manager in the actual creative process of a certain trivialization of film content, the more comes to light more.

In film studies always new authorship of team members were discovered. In reality, the film is a team effort and it is not to be considered the film, if for example, the idea for a setting now the director or the cameraman comes. In Dogma film, the cameraman is not instruction. The "Polish School" binds the cameraman already in the process of screenwriting. Inexperienced directors are usually very dependent on the creativity of the cameraman or camerawoman and other team members.

Due to the advent of digital recording techniques such as digital video since the late 1990s see many filmmakers such as Wim Wenders, given favorable conditions for individual subjective productions.

Criticism and discussion

The proclaimed by François Truffaut and Jean -Luc Godard " politique des auteurs " (Author policy) of the fifties was originally an attempt to recognize certain directors such as Alfred Hitchcock as an artist, their entirely own imagery developed or, as Truffaut himself, all aspects of their films self-determined. An auteur is therefore a director, the movie - if possible without compromise - designed, as he wants it himself.

The " politique des auteurs " quickly came under criticism. Critics such as Andrew Sarris and Peter Wollen pointed to an empirical problem: no one can prove how much influence the director really had to his films and the influence of the form and content really on what we perceive as authorship.

An example of this is true of the opening credits of Vertigo - From the Realm of the Dead (1958), the Alfred Hitchcock has not made ​​itself, or the fact that many of his films are based on a historical document of foreign authors, and even seldom came the screenplays of his own. Just Hitchcock but is a central figure in the " politique des auteurs ".

As the name " politique des auteurs " says it was a policy, a deliberate polemical intervention. The Village Voice critic Andrew Sarris translated " politique des auteurs " However, in 1962, in what sense it is indeed with " auteur theory", in which it remained unclear here is a theory. Sarris popularized this "theory " in the English language and used it mainly to demonstrate the absolute superiority of Hollywood cinema, he was convinced that it was "the only cinema in the world worth exploring in depth beneath the frosting of a few great directors at the top ". Now the question was: Where is the line? Who or rather what we perceive as an author?

Sociologically, the auteur theory was a Distinktionsstrategie young critics who wanted to draw attention to themselves. Godard has this openly admitted later: " We said from Preminger and the other directors who worked for studios, as we now works for television, 'They are wage earners, but at the same time more than that because they have talent, some even genius ...', but that was totally wrong. We have said that, because we believed it, but in reality behind it that we wanted to draw attention to ourselves, because no one listened to us. The doors were too. So we had to say. Hitchcock is a greater genius than Chateaubriand "

In the seventies then followed the strongest criticism of the " politique des auteurs ". Roland Barthes proclaimed as early as 1968 against a background poststructuralist "death of the author ". The author has now been recognized due to the empirical dilemmas of provability of authorship as an image - figure forming out of their environment and enrolls in the works. Also of feminist the " politique des auteurs " was sharply attacked, but they serve to obscure the collective nature of filmmaking and in the tradition of patriarchal hero worship to stylize men become superstars. Claire Johnston defended the approach inasmuch as this will work against a monolithic view of Hollywood cinema.

Finally, in the nineties, the tendency was to believe that authorship are designed for the most part (some commercial). Timothy Corrigan calls this the "commercial auteur ". It is expected that the audience the film a well-known as a writer than director, for example, "The new Woody Allen! " Perceives, without really knowing how much influence Woody Allen actually had on the film. Dana Polan pursued another interesting approach: He sees the " auteurist " as the main responsible for constructed author photos. These are critics who are looking for the author as the highest authority and thus - as François Truffaut - want to draw attention to a filmmaker as an artist and the way to celebrate their own cognitive powers. The term for this is " Auteur Desire". This approach shows once again the biggest complaint that the " politique des auteurs " on. An author extremely popular as Creator Spirit also reflective film critics and scientists continue - But still the nomination of a director is parallel to - for example. So is there more to it?

A more recent approach, the context-oriented network analysis by Jan Distelmeyer tried to clarify this question. As a basis the audience and critics reception serve on the one hand and the design of the author, biography, film industry and cultural environment on the other side. This two-sided approach recognizes the empirical dilemma of the definition of " auteur " and also claims for himself no determination as to what actually is now the work of author XYZ. Many other film theorists have similar concepts nowadays. But even such free handling can not fully solve because the most important elements are variable and thus close a clear statement of the problem.

The focus of critical tendencies thus lies largely in the empirical. Recognize a filmmaker as " auteur " requires complete confidence in his statements, how much influence he had on his own films. Since this part of the film industry and rental is an almost impossible task at times a very strong marketing of all kinds of more or less (un) dependent directors, a residual doubt and the constant questioning of the " auteur " definition is appropriate. ( Another source of information for this section critique and discussion in the bibliography )

Evidence

Important Auteur theorists

• André Bazin
• Andrew Sarris
• Claude Chabrol
• Dana Polan
• Éric Rohmer
• François Truffaut
• January Distelmeyer
• Jean -Luc Godard
• Peter Wollen
• Roland Barthes
• Timothy Corrigan