Auteur

File:Truffaut-BeauSerge.jpg in 1965]]

Even before auteur theory, the director was considered the most important influence on a film. In Germany, an early film theorist, Walter Julius Bloem, explained that since filmmaking is an art geared toward popular culture, a film's immediate influence, the director, is viewed as the artist, whereas an earlier contributor, like the screenwriter, is viewed as an apprentice.{{Sfn|Bloem|1924}}{{Cite thesis|last=Battaglia|first=James|date=May 2010|title=Everyone's a Critic: Film Criticism Through History and Into the Digital Age|type=Senior honors thesis|publisher=The College at Brockport|url=https://soar.suny.edu/handle/20.500.12648/6777|hdl=20.500.12648/6777|page=32|via=SUNY Open Access Repository}}{{better source needed|date=March 2023}} James Agee, a leading film critic of the 1940s, said that "the best films are personal ones, made by forceful directors". Meanwhile, the French film critics André Bazin and Roger Leenhardt described that directors, vitalizing films, depict the directors' own worldviews and impressions of the subject matter, as by varying lighting, camerawork, staging, editing, and so on.{{Sfn|Thompson|Bordwell|2010|pp=381–383}}

As the French New Wave in cinema began, French magazine {{lang|fr|Cahiers du cinéma}}, founded in 1951, became a hub of discourse about directors' roles in cinema. In a 1954 essay,{{cite journal |last1=Truffaut |first1=François |title=Une certaine tendance du cinéma français ("A certain tendency in French cinema") |journal=Cahiers du Cinéma |date=1954 |url=https://www.newwavefilm.com/about/a-certain-tendency-of-french-cinema-truffaut.shtml |access-date=22 March 2023}} François Truffaut criticized the prevailing "Cinema of Quality" whereby directors, faithful to the script, merely adapt a literary novel. Truffaut described such a director as a metteur en scene, a mere "stager" who adds the performers and pictures.{{Sfn|Thompson|Bordwell|2010|p=382}} To represent the view that directors who express their personality in their work make better films, Truffaut coined the phrase "la politique des auteurs", or "the policy of the authors".{{Cite web |date=2020-02-11 |title=Evolution of the Auteur Theory |url=https://tvcrit.org/Classes/Jbutler/T440/AuteurTheory.php |access-date=2022-05-31 |website=The University of Alabama}} He named eight writer-directors, Jean Renoir, Robert Bresson, Jean Cocteau, Jacques Becker, Abel Gance, Max Ophüls, Jacques Tati, and Roger Leenhardt, as examples of these "authors".

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 {{lang|fr|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".{{cite book|editor=Jim Hillier|url=https://archive.org/details/cahiersducinema10000unse/page/295/mode/2up|title=Cahiers du Cinema 1960–1968 New Wave, New Cinema, Re-evalutating Hollywood (Godard in interview with Jacques Bontemps, Jean-Louis Comolli, Michel Delahaye, and Jean Narboni)|year=1987|page=295|publisher=Harvard University Press|isbn=9780674090620}}

As early as his 1962 essay "Notes on the auteur theory", published in the journal Film Culture,{{cite journal|last=Sarris|first=Andrew|date=Winter 1962–1963|title=Notes on the auteur theory in 1962|journal=Film Culture|volume=27|pages=1–8}} American film critic Andrew Sarris translated the French term la politique des auteurs, by François Truffaut in 1955, into Sarris's term auteur theory. Sarris applied it to Hollywood films, and elaborated in his 1968 book, The American Cinema: Directors and Directions 1929–1968, which helped popularize the English term.

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, [https://web.archive.org/web/20110421081549/http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,844256-7,00.html "The Shock of Freedom in Films"], Time, December 8, 1967, Accessed 25 April 2009. when studios granted directors more leeway to take risks.[https://books.google.com/books?id=4F1qPwAACAAJ 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.{{cite book |url=https://archive.org/details/finalcutartmoney00bach |url-access=registration |page=[https://archive.org/details/finalcutartmoney00bach/page/6 6] |quote=heaven's gate april 16 1979. |isbn=9781557043740 |title=Final Cut: Art, Money, and Ego in the Making of Heaven's Gate, the Film that Sank United Artists |year=1999 |publisher=Newmarket Press |last=Bach |first=Steven |author-link=Steven Bach}}

Pauline Kael, an early critic of auteur theory,{{cite web|url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V7pUs-9C-gY| archive-url=https://ghostarchive.org/varchive/youtube/20211102/V7pUs-9C-gY| archive-date=2021-11-02 | url-status=live|title=Tommy Wiseau: The Last Auteur - Brows Held High|via=www.youtube.com}}{{cbignore}}{{cite web|url=https://archive.org/details/Sarris_Andrew_The_Auteur_Theory|title=Sarris, Andrew The Auteur Theory|via=Internet Archive}}[https://www.wbur.org/news/2020/02/21/documentary-what-she-said-the-art-of-pauline-kael-review Documentary 'What She Said: The Art Of Pauline Kael' Is 'Just Not Very Good' - WBUR] debated Andrew Sarris in magazines.{{cite news|url = https://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/12/movies/12powe.html|title = A Survivor of Film Criticism's Heroic Age|work = The New York Times|first = Michael|last = Powell|date = 9 July 2009|url-access = registration|archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20180709064952/https://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/12/movies/12powe.html|archive-date = 9 July 2018|access-date = 24 February 2017|url-status = live}}{{cite web|url=http://www.observer.com/node/44957|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20081011002555/http://www.observer.com/node/44957|url-status=dead|archive-date=2008-10-11|title=Pauline and Me: Farewell, My Lovely {{pipe}} The New York Observer|website=The New York Observer|date=October 11, 2008}} Defending a film as a collaboration, her 1971 essay "Raising Kane", examined Orson Welles's 1941 film Citizen Kane, asserting extensive reliance on co-writer Herman J. Mankiewicz and on cinematographer Gregg Toland.Kael, Pauline, "Raising Kane", The New Yorker, February 20, 1971.

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 {{ISBN|0-9766583-3-X}}.Diane Garrett. "[https://www.variety.com/review/VE1117930243.html?categoryid=1010&cs=1 Book Review: The Schreiber Theory]". Variety. April 15, 2006.{{Cite news|url = https://www.nytimes.com/2015/04/25/business/media/richard-corliss-71-longtime-film-critic-for-time-dies.html|title = Richard Corliss, 71, Longtime Film Critic for Time, Dies|last = Weber|first = Bruce|date = April 24, 2015|work = The New York Times|access-date = May 17, 2015}} 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.{{Sfn|Sadoul|Morris|1972}} 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.

In 2013, Maria Giese critiqued the lack of American women who are considered to be within the pantheon of auteur directors.{{Cite news|last=Giese|first=Maria|date=2013-12-09|title=Auteur Directors: Any American Women?|work=IndieWire|url=https://www.indiewire.com/2013/12/auteur-directors-any-american-women-169108/|access-date=2018-04-25}} She argues that there is no shortage of non-American women directors that could be considered auteurs, and lists Andrea Arnold, Jane Campion, Liliana Cavani, Claire Denis, Marleen Gorris, Agnieszka Holland, Lynne Ramsay, Agnes Varda, and Lina Wertmuller as being among them, but goes on to say that women are rarely afforded financing for films in the United States. Giese argues women in the US are rarely allowed to direct unless they are already celebrities, and that they are rarely afforded proper budgets. She cites women as making up less than 5% of American feature film directors, while the Hollywood Reporter stated that only about 7% of directors were women among the 250 highest-grossing films in 2016.{{Cite web |title=Auteur Directors: Any American Women? |url=https://www.imdb.com/news/ni56522091/ |access-date=2024-10-11 |website=IMDb |language=en-US}}{{Cite news|url=https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/women-filmmakers-2016-statistics-show-female-directors-declined-number-963729|title=Study: Female Filmmakers Lost Ground in 2016|work=The Hollywood Reporter|access-date=2018-04-25}}

In some law references, a film is treated as artwork while the auteur, as its creator, is the original copyright holder. Under European Union law, largely by influence of auteur theory, a film director is considered the film's author or one of its authors.{{Sfn|Kamina|2002|p=153}}

{{See also|Art pop|Recording studio as an instrument}}

File:Phil Spector.jpg in 1964]]

The references of auteur theory are occasionally applied to musicians, musical performers, and music producers. From the 1960s, record producer Phil Spector is considered the first auteur among producers of popular music.{{Sfn|Eisenberg|2005|p=103}}{{Sfn|Bannister|2007|p=38}} Author Matthew Bannister named him the first "star" producer.{{Sfn|Bannister|2007|p=38}} Journalist Richard Williams wrote:

{{blockquote|Spector created a new concept: the producer as overall director of the creative process, from beginning to end. He took control of everything, he picked the artists, wrote or chose the material, supervised the arrangements, told the singers how to phrase, masterminded all phases of the recording process with the most painful attention to detail, and released the result on his own label.{{Sfn|Williams|2003|pp=15–16}}}}

Another early pop music auteur was Brian Wilson,{{Sfn|Edmondson|2013|p=890}} mentored by Spector.{{Sfn|Cogan|Clark|2003|pp=32–33}} In 1962, Wilson's band, the Beach Boys, signed to Capitol Records and swiftly became a commercial success, whereby Wilson was an early recording artist who was also an entrepreneurial producer.{{Sfn|Butler|2012|p=225}} Before the "progressive pop" of the late 1960s, performers typically had little input on their own records.{{Sfn|Willis|2014|p=217}} Wilson, however, employed the studio like an instrument,{{Sfn|Cogan|Clark|2003|pp=32–33}} as well as a high level of studio control{{Sfn|Miller|1992|p=193}} that other artists soon sought.{{Sfn|Edmondson|2013|p=890}}

According to The Atlantic{{'}}s Jason Guriel, the Beach Boys' 1966 album Pet Sounds, produced by Wilson, anticipated later auteurs such as Kanye West, 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."{{cite magazine|last1=Guriel|first1=Jason|title=How Pet Sounds Invented the Modern Pop Album|url=https://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2016/05/how-pet-sounds-invented-the-modern-pop-album/482940/|magazine=The Atlantic|date=May 16, 2016}}

{{portal|Film}}

• Authenticity in art
• Film d'auteur
• La mort de l'auteur
• List of film auteurs
• Philosophy of film
• Vulgar auteurism

{{reflist}}

{{refbegin|30em}}

• {{Cite book |last=Bannister |first=Matthew |title=White Boys, White Noise: Masculinities and 1980s Indie Guitar Rock |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=4ckLKGTXRwQC&pg=PA38 |year=2007 |publisher=Ashgate Publishing, Ltd. |isbn=978-0-7546-8803-7}}
• {{Cite book |last=Bloem |first=Walter Julius |title=The Soul of the Moving Picture |url=https://archive.org/details/soulofmovingpict00bloe |year=1924 |publisher=E.P. Dutton}}
• {{cite book |last=Butler |first=Jan |chapter=The Beach Boys' Pet Sounds and the Musicology of Record Production |editor-last1=Frith |editor-first1=Simon |editor-last2=Zagorski-Thomas |editor-first2=Simon |title=The Art of Record Production: An Introductory Reader for a New Academic Field |chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=KZjVCQAAQBAJ&pg=PA225 |year=2012 |publisher=Ashgate Publishing, Ltd |isbn=978-1-4094-0678-5}}
• {{Cite book |last=Caughie |first=John |title=Theories of Authorship |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=jTZGAQAAQBAJ&pg=PA62 |year=2013 |publisher=Routledge |isbn=978-1-136-10268-4}}
• {{Cite book |last1=Cogan |first1=Jim |last2=Clark |first2=William |title=Temples of Sound: Inside the Great Recording Studios |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=hO-KQ4o_B2MC |year=2003 |publisher=Chronicle Books |isbn=978-0-8118-3394-3}}
• {{Cite book |editor-last=Edmondson |editor-first=Jacqueline |title=Music in American Life: An Encyclopedia of the Songs, Styles, Stars, and Stories that Shaped our Culture [4 volumes]: An Encyclopedia of the Songs, Styles, Stars, and Stories That Shaped Our Culture |chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=TQPXAQAAQBAJ&pg=PA890 |year=2013 |publisher=ABC-CLIO |isbn=978-0-313-39348-8 |chapter=Producers}}
• {{Cite book |last=Eisenberg |first=Evan |title=The Recording Angel: Music, Records and Culture from Aristotle to Zappa |url=https://archive.org/details/recordingangel00evan |url-access=registration |page=[https://archive.org/details/recordingangel00evan/page/103 103] |year=2005 |publisher=Yale University Press |isbn=978-0-300-09904-1}}
• {{Cite book |last=Kamina |first=Pascal |title=Film Copyright in the European Union |url=https://archive.org/details/filmcopyrightine0000kami |url-access=registration |page=[https://archive.org/details/filmcopyrightine0000kami/page/153 153] |year=2002 |publisher=Cambridge University Press |isbn=978-1-139-43338-9}}
• {{Cite book |last=Kipen |first=David |title=The Schreiber Theory: A Radical Rewrite of American Film History |url=https://archive.org/details/schreibertheory00kipe |url-access=registration |year=2006 |publisher=Melville House Pub. |isbn=978-0-9766583-3-7}}
• {{Cite book |last1=Miller |first1=Jim |author-link=Jim Miller (musician) |editor1-last=DeCurtis |editor1-first=Anthony |editor2-last=Henke |editor2-first=James |editor3-last=George-Warren |editor3-first=Holly |title=The Rolling Stone Illustrated History of Rock & Roll: The Definitive History of the Most Important Artists and Their Music |date=1992 |publisher=Random House |location=New York |isbn=9780679737285 |url={{google books |plainurl=y |id=ubWAht7N7zsC |page=192}} |chapter=The Beach Boys}}
• {{Cite book |last1=Min |first1=Eungjun |last2=Joo |first2=Jinsook |last3=Kwak |first3=Han Ju |title=Korean Film: History, Resistance, and Democratic Imagination |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=rX8JtHlQpO8C&pg=PA85 |year=2003 |publisher=Greenwood Publishing Group |isbn=978-0-275-95811-4}}
• {{Cite book |last1=Sadoul |first1=Georges |last2=Morris |first2=Peter |title=Dictionary of Film Makers |year=1972 |publisher=University of California Press |isbn=978-0-520-02151-8 |url=https://archive.org/details/dictionaryoffilm00sado_1}}
• {{Cite book |last=Santas |first=Constantine |title=Responding to Film: A Text Guide for Students of Cinema Art |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Mcbj95l1zmUC&pg=PA18 |year=2002 |publisher=Rowman & Littlefield |isbn=978-0-8304-1580-9}}
• {{cite book |last=Schatz |first=Thomas |year=1993 |chapter=The New Hollywood |title=Film Theory goes to the Movies |url=https://archive.org/details/filmtheorygoesto00coll |url-access=limited |editor=Jim Collins, Hilary Radner and Ava Preacher Collins |publisher=Routledge |location=New York |pages=[https://archive.org/details/filmtheorygoesto00coll/page/8 8]–37 }}
• {{Cite book |last1=Thompson |first1=Kristin |last2=Bordwell |first2=David |title=Film History: An Introduction |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=4F1qPwAACAAJ |year=2010 |publisher=McGraw-Hill Higher Education |isbn=978-0-07-126794-6}}
• {{Cite book |last=Williams |first=Richard |title=Phil Spector: Out of His Head |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=a-F4AmTkYgwC |year=2003 |publisher=Music Sales Group |isbn=978-0-7119-9864-3}}
• {{Cite book |last=Willis |first=Paul E. |author-link=Paul Willis |title=Profane Culture |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Y7oWBAAAQBAJ&pg=PA219 |year=2014 |publisher=Princeton University Press |isbn=978-1-4008-6514-7}}

{{refend}}

• {{Cite book |editor-last=Ashby |editor-first=Arved |title=Popular Music and the New Auteur: Visionary Filmmakers After MTV |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=quzQCwAAQBAJ |year=2013 |publisher=Oxford University Press |isbn=978-0-19-982734-3}}
• {{Cite magazine |last1=Diver |first1=Mike |date=October 8, 2014 |title=The Return of the Video Game Auteur |url=https://www.vice.com/read/d4-heralds-the-return-of-video-gamings-auteurs-mike-diver-013 |magazine=Vice}}
• {{Cite book |last=Maule |first=Rosanna |year=2008 |title=Beyond Auteurism: New Directions in Authorial Film Practices in France, Italy and Spain Since the 1980s |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=VbC8vKJgbRYC |publisher=Intellect Books |isbn=978-1-84150-204-5}}
• {{Cite book |last=Shuker |first=Roy |year=2013 |chapter=Auteurs, Stars, and Music History |chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=hIEJyToJYl0C&pg=PA116 |title=Understanding Popular Music |publisher=Routledge |isbn=978-1-134-56479-8}}

{{Wiktionary|auteur}}

• [https://web.archive.org/web/20120216125912/http://www.bfi.org.uk/filmtvinfo/publications/16%2B/auteur.html 16+ source guides: Auteur Theory/Auteurs] at the British Film Institute
• [https://archive.org/details/Sarris_Andrew_Auteurism_Is_Alive_and_Well/page/n1 Auteurism Is Alive and Well by Andrew Sarris on Internet Archive]
• [https://archive.org/details/americancinemadi00sarr The American Cinema: Directors and Direction 1929–1968]

{{French New Wave}}

{{Progressive music}}

{{Film genres}}

{{Filmstudies}}

Category:1940s neologisms

Category:Artists

Category:Concepts in aesthetics

Category:Concepts in film theory

Category:Film theory