Specialist Study Area: Auteur

Auteur is a Specialist Study Area for Section A: Hollywood 1930-1990 on the first exam paper Component 1: Varieties of Film and Filmmaking (Some Like it Hot directed by Billy Wilder and One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest directed by Milos Forman) and for Section D: Film Movements - Experimental Film (1960-2000) on the second exam paper Component 2: Global Filmmaking Perpectives, where you may be asked to discuss auteur in relation to Quentin Tarantino's Pulp Fiction.

The auteur theory is the theory that the director is the 'author' of a film. The reasoning that leads to this conclusion is that a film is a work of art, and since a work of art is stamped with the personality of its creator, it is the director, more than anyone else, who gives the film its distinctive quality. In your essays you should certainly state that is possible to describe Billy Wilder, Milos Forman (Section A: Hollywood 1930-1990 on the first exam paper Component 1: Varieties of Film and Filmmaking) and Quentin Tarantino (Section D: Film Movements - Experimental Film (1960-2000) on the second exam paper Component 2: Global Filmmaking Perpectives) as auteurs - just remember, what you say about them will differ because of the time/era they were working in; Wilder during the Classical Hollywood period, Forman during the New Hollywood period and Tarantino as an up-and-coming director post-1990.

Overview of the Auteur Theory - with Pros and Cons

The term 'auteur theory' was first used in the early 1960s by Andrew Sarris (a critic/theorist for the American audience) in the magazine The Village Voice and in his book The American Cinema: Directors and Directions 1929-1968 as a loose translation of the 'politique des auteurs' notion, first suggested in 1954 by Francois Truffaut (a famous French filmmaker), while he was still a critic with Caheirs du Cinema (a highly influential French film magazine).

The debate of the artistic 'authorship' of a film – a medium depending on the creative collaboration of many artists and craftsmen (such as producers, cinematographers, editors, actors, set designers, scriptwriters and composers) – goes back to the beginnings of cinema theory. Serious debate regarding authorship narrowed the field to the director and the screenwriter (interestingly, both Billy Wilder and Quentin Tarantino both began their careers in the film industry as scriptwriters and both continued to write the scripts for the films they directed, including Some Like it Hot and Pulp Fiction respectively). Some argued that the screenplay could exist independently, while there would be no film without a scenario; others claimed that the same scenario directed by two directors would result in two entirely different films. The debate was more appropriate to Hollywood where Studio control has often hampered individual expression, than to Europe, where directors have traditionally had more control over production.

When the issue exploded onto the pages of Cahiers du Cinema in 1954, it was used to undermine traditional philosophies of French cinema (an arrogant belief that French cinema was somehow superior to that of Hollywood, for example, that was derided as being little more than pure entertainment and of little artistic or intellectual value). Unpretentious American films were resurrected as films from the Studio Era were re-assessed, and a pantheon (like a league table) of auteurs was created of directors whose personalities dominated their films through a more or less consistent theme or style. Two main schools of auteur critics developed: those who stressed consistency of theme, and those who were more concerned with a director’s formal style, or his mise-en-scene. For the purposes of the exam, it is important that you consider both theme and style when discussing the auteur signatures of Billy Wilder, Milos Forman and Quentin Tarantino.

Many critics have addressed the weaknesses of the auteur theory, most notably its inattention to the collaborative nature of film, and whilst the focus of your essays will not be on these weaknesses (instead focusing on the aspects of style and theme that make up the auteur signatures of each director), it may be worth pointing them out in a conclusion. At its most extreme, the auteur theory neglects the contribution of actors, screenwriters, cinematographers, production designers and others who clearly make a meaningful contribution to a film's aesthetic. At its most extreme, it also fails to address directors such as Michael Curtiz (Mildred Pierce, Casablanca, Captain Blood, The Charge of the Light Brigade, The Adventures of Robin Hood, Angels with Dirty Faces, The Jazz Singer, White Christmas), the prolific Warner Bros contract employee, who create excellent films without evidence of a strong 'personal vision' or consistencies in terms of style and theme across the body of his work.

The most obvious problems with the auteur theory are outlined below.

• Directors whose work did not reveal the marks of some essential underlying personal force were relegated to the status of metteurs-en-scene – and their work was relegated with them
• The evaluation of a film was carried out in terms of whether or not it possessed an auteur identity – leading to some absurd conclusions (for example, a bad film by an auteur was ‘better’ than a great film by a non-auteur)
• The ‘Genius of the System’ – the industrial production of quality entertainment through the formal means of narrative and genre was deeply underestimated to the point of being ignored – the ‘system’ was regarded as that which the great creative individual struggled against
• The attempts to raise the status of a popular cultural form by reference to one of the characteristics of high culture – the individual genius – ignored the specific ways in which Hollywood cinema is a collaborative process
•  Instead of broadening the study of film into wider political and cultural debates, auteur theory led inwards to picky and trivial debates about who was and was not an auteur, and what precisely were the features that constituted the auteur signature

Perhaps the most telling indictment on early auteur theory was its failure to be endorsed by many of the very directors who were assigned auteur status by film criticism. Directors like Howard Hawks (Scarface, His Girl Friday, The Big Sleep, Gentlemen Prefer Blondes), John Ford (The Searchers, The Grapes of Wrath, The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance, My Darling Clementine) and Billy Wilder (Some Like it Hot, The Seven Year Itch, Sunset Boulevard, Double Indemnity) were eager to place their work within a description of film production which emphasised collaboration by a significant number of creative individuals within a profit-driven industrial system. This doesn't mean that a director, like Billy Wilder, isn't an auteur - that there aren't consistencies in style and/or theme across the body of his work - just that Wilder saw himself as a director who made films for studios, rather than the kind of creative genius that critics labelled him.

Despite this criticism, the auteur theory has had a lasting influence – the director is now considered the closest thing to a film’s creator, especially when discussing a film of high artistic worth. High profile directors, such as Tarantino, are often labelled as auteurs by the media and their names feature prominently on the marketing material promoting their films, clearly signalling to the audience that it as a film by THAT director and that audiences should expect similarities with that director's previous work. It is also possible to argue that contemporary directors actively seek auteur status (unlike Wilder, for example), developing their own unique style, or auteur signature, so that they get noticed.

The director in modern Hollywood can function much like a star in offering an 'insurance value' to the industry and a 'trademark value' to an audience. Increasingly films are bought and sold on the basis of a director’s name (you only have to look at the ease in which a director such as Tarantino, Spielberg, Burton or Scorsese can get a film greenlit, compared to the difficulty a first-time director will have getting funding for a project). The director’s name will carry much information of significance concerning the popular and critical 'credit' of the director based on his/her previous work and the kind of promise offered by a new film bearing his/her name, creating very specific expectations for the audience. What is crucial is that you are able to discuss what elements make up a director's auteur signature and show how these elements manifest themselves in the films you are studying.

This auteur signature is very precise and specific. It will signify a set of stylistic and thematic features which, it is anticipated, will be identifiable in the text of a film bearing the auteur name. In other words, an auteur possesses a signature marking out his own individuality which is legible in a film over which he has enjoyed sufficient creative control for that signature to permeate the film. 

We have to consider the problem of reconciling the concept of the auteur with that of film production as a cooperative enterprise involving the contributions of an assortment of creative personnel. In specific scenes the work of one or more of these may be particularly foregrounded: the actor, the set designer, the scriptwriter (think Tarantino with both True Romance and, to a lesser degree, Natural Born Killers - scripts that he wrote but didn't direct, yet the finished films still bear many of the hallmarks of a Tarantino film), the editor (Tarantino has worked almost exclusively with editor Sally Menke on the films he has directed), the music composer (one of the elements we recognise about a Tim Burton film, for example, is the musical score, many of which are created by Danny Elfman).

However, the controlling creative authority and deployment of these contributions is that of the auteur director. The contributions of others are expressions of specific aspects of the auteur’s overall imaginative vision and to that extent they become inscribed with the auteur’s identity. These elements are only ‘potential’ until mobilised and made coherent by the director; he is both the ‘catalyst’ and the final determining force. Certainly the identification of a single ‘author’ has been embraced by all those who must catalogue and classify films (and increasingly so in recent times, by those who market films). The listings produced by both other media and by academia embrace the single name – perhaps as much as anything for convenience. However, this simple justification sidesteps the contested reading of this name: as originating genius, as catalyst, as structure. Even if it is for convenience, it is difficult to accept uncritically a theory which so powerfully diverts attention away from the collaborative and complex creative relationships between a large number of people which are at the heart of Hollywood cinema.

It is useful to consider what the optimum conditions for individual expression are – whether the auteur flourishes best in the security of the Studio System (as Wilder did) or in the more free, more ‘independent’ New Hollywood (as both Forman and Tarantino did); in the formal conventions of narrative and genre (Wilder and, to some extent, Forman) OR in the post-modern world of eclectic borrowing (Tarantino). It is essential that when you discuss auteur, you make sure that you place the discussion in the relevant context.

Much of the critical writing on authorship is preoccupied with, for example, the extent to which directors from the Golden Era of Hollywood (1930-1949) such as Billy Wilder were able to work through the conventions of genre in order to produce films marked with their distinctive thematic preoccupations and characteristic signifiers (as if they were fighting against a restrictive system), or the extent to which these directors benefited from working within the rigid Studio System. Perhaps the most satisfactory response to the ‘problem’ of the auteur working within Hollywood conventions is to regard these conventions as facilitating expression; a point you would certainly want to make in relation to Billy Wilder and Some Like it Hot. A system of rules provides both security and the opportunity for inventing variations – indeed it is possible to argue that Hollywood narrative and generic norms provide the ideal framework for creative expression. The auteur (working under these conditions) enjoys both safe anchorage within an artistically self-enclosed world and the incentive to constantly push against the edges of this world to discover new possibilities.

Your discussion of auteur is, however, likely to be quite different in relation to Milos Forman and One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest and Quentin Tarantino and Pulp Fiction, as both directors worked very much outside of the Studio System mentioned above. It is certainly possible to argue that in the post-postmodern era that there is an increasing expectation in audiences of textual ‘excess’ in production values and stylistic flourishes. A new, young director (as Tarantino was when making Pulp Fiction in the early 1990s) wishing to be noticed must leave his calling card on screen. Here, then, you should talk about directors such as Tarantino actively seeking auteur status.

Under whatever production system (ranging from Studio-controlled big-budget Hollywood filmmaking to more independent low-budget filmmaking) and regardless of the film form in vogue (specific genres, for example), the auteur needs to enjoy a significant level of control and independence in the various stages of production if the auteur signature is to assert itself on screen. It is difficult, however, to precisely define the amount of control a director needs to enjoy before he can be considered sufficiently enabled to impose his signature on a film. Using right to the final cut as a benchmark may seem appropriate, but is clearly to go to far – Clearly films by Orson Welles (such as The Magnificent Ambersons or Touch of Evil) would have been better for Welles retaining control through to final cut (he was ‘locked out’ of the editing room on both productions) as he did with Citizen Kane, BUT the films in the form in which they survive are still visibly marked by the Welles’ auteur signature. It is certainly possible to tell that a work is by a particular director even if their involvement on a project has been relatively limited HOWEVER it is often more clearly possible to recognise the work as being by an auteur the more involvement they have had in all stages of the process – for example taking producing, writing (as Billy Wilder did) and even acting roles, as well as that of director. Quentin Tarantino has taken all of these roles in almost every film he has made (including Pulp Fiction).

The term auteur, and certainly the concept of it, has changed considerably in contemporary times. The film industry is now, more than ever, keen to promote directors to the auteur ranks for marketing reasons. 'A film by……', or 'A……film' is a typical feature of film promotion today, even when the director clearly has not enjoyed the producer power that would seem to be necessary to take the name 'auteur'. Thus, for marketing purposes all directors seem to have assumed or had thrust upon them auteur status. Many critics would argue that this fatally undermines the auteur concept.

Beyond this, it is worth asking whether or not other figures (outside of the director) can be regarded as auteurs (including scriptwriters, actors and producers). Some producers clearly display recurring characteristics across a range of films (Con Air, a plane hijack film starring Nicholas Cage, was directed by Simon West – nowhere on the promotional posters does his name appear – instead it was advertised as ‘From the producer of Crimson Tide and The Rock – A Jerry Bruckheimer Production’, which implies a big budget action film, with tense character conflict, chase sequences, explosions, slow-motion, high production values, set in a claustrophobic environment, starring A-list Hollywood stars). Bruckheimer has produced the following films, all of which have a similar feel to them in terms of theme and style, which at least suggests the possibility of the producer being the creative force rather than the director: Top Gun, Days of Thunder, Bad Boys, Armageddon, Enemy of the State, Gone in Sixty Seconds, Pearl Harbour, Black Hawk Down, National Treasure. In modern Hollywood, Steven Spielberg is, arguably, as much an auteur in his role as producer as he is as director (Poltergeist, Gremlins, Back to the Future, The Flintstones, Men in Black, Jurassic Park III, Transformers). 

Still further, we can even regard the Studio as auteur; the WB gangster film, the MGM musical and even the Disney/Pixar animation, for example, represent meaning structures with characteristic conventions (these Studios’ genre films feel different to other films within the same genre). We should also consider the notion of the star as auteur – the film can be so controlled by the star that it is this individual who appears to determine the stylistic/thematic content of the film (for example Arnold Schwarzenegger, Sylvester Stallone, Jim Carrey, Will Ferrell). This could clearly be argued in relation to Marilyn Monroe and Some Like it Hot or Jack Nicholson and One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest. Finally, it may also be worth considering the scriptwriter as auteur. A closer look at films such as True Romance and Natural Born Killers, implies similarities between these films and those directed by Quentin Tarantino (such as Reservoir Dogs and Pulp Fiction). Tarantino has clearly left his signature on the aforementioned films, even in his sole role as scriptwriter, and whilst the visual style of these films may deviate from Tarantino’s style, there is enough of his ‘signature’ apparent to make a connection. Because traditional auteur theory stands on insecure ground in relation to the whole issue of origination (Studio? Director? Actor? Producer? Screenwriter?) there appear to be more questions than answers here. The undoubted value of auteur theory is in putting in place another meaning structure, one that allows us to analyse a film text in another context. The auteur theory, whilst undoubtedly flawed, does provide the spectator with another tool with which to excavate, and gain pleasure from, a film text.

When discussing the concept of the auteur in relation to either Some Like it Hot or One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, it is important that you place the filmmakers (Billy Wilder and Milos Forman respectively) within the context of the Hollywood film institution that they worked in. For Wilder and Some Like it Hot, this means considering Wilder as an auteur within the Classical Hollywood period of 1930-1960. With Forman and One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, this means considering Forman as an auteur within New Hollywood (1961-1990). The conditions of these periods were markedly different, as were the opportunities afforded directors. It is inevitable that when you discuss either director as an auteur you will relate this to the structure of the industry at the time they were making films. Remember, that the Classical Hollywood period, or the Studio Era, was seen by many as incredibly restrictive, stifling a director's creativity and vision whilst New Hollywood was seen as a period where creativity and individual vision was allowed to flourish.

You may also wish to consider alternatives to the director as auteur, focusing on stars as auteurs (Marilyn Monroe, most obviously, in Some Like it Hot and Jack Nicholson in One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest) alongside the possibility of scriptwriters or even Studios themselves as auteurs.

When discussing the concept of the auteur in relation to Pulp Fiction and its director Quentin Tarantino it is important that you focus on aspects of Tarantino's auteur signature that can be classed as experimental - this may relate to the ways in which he structures the narratives of many of the films he makes (something that is very evident in Pulp Fiction) and the ways in which he subverts the traditional use of aspects of film form as part of his auteur signature.

In both sections, I would recommend that at some point in your essays you outline the stylistic and thematic elements that have become part of Wilder's, Forman's and Tarantino's auteur signatures.