The Auteur Theory of Film -- Is it Right or Wrong?

[@overtherenowaitthere]

To be fair, writers, music artists, and anything from graphic design to animation goes through the same sort of committee influence over their work as an artist. Writers have publishers and editors, music artists that do it professionally have producers, publishers, and a ton of other voices in a studio at a time, animation artists have editors, producers. This is everywhere, but we still consider them to have a consistent "style" or "voice". Which is where I think the point of auteur theory comes from. It was just a very early time using earlier film and art language. Back when there was very little interests in between the artist and the entire work. Which with the age of technology making it easier to make art that's becoming even more relevant today.

[@kylebrown4293]

You really do have a good eye and understanding of the many different parts that make a movie what it is.

[@LearningaboutMovies]

thanks. good to hear from you again.

[@budding269]

Great video! Very interesting, been studying this at Uni. I like your points. Although just to say Ray Harryhausen didn't do King Kong, that was Willis O'Brien, but Harryhausen was greatly influenced by it. Animation goes back decades before king kong.

[@LearningaboutMovies]

thank you. yes, the Harryhausen comment was a mistake.

[@budding269]

@@LearningaboutMovies Yeah just thought I'd let you know haha. Great channel, have liked and subscribed! :)

[@LearningaboutMovies]

thanks!

[@JHarder1000]

Interestingly enough, when John Ford was asked about the auteur theory, he said that a director was more akin to an architect.

[@LearningaboutMovies]

good quote. and yet he acted like John Milius suggests: a general commanding an army of privates.

[@JHarder1000]

@@LearningaboutMovies Cahiers once compared him to an admiral. I can see him as he admiral of a fleet ,commanding his captains like Nelson did at Trafalgar or Don John Of Austria did at Lepanto.

[@josb9836]

I've never liked auter theory; its so reductionist, and its really unfair to the vast amount of people and each of their decisions which can dramatically change a film. I think auter theory really extends from the Western romanticization of individualism over collectivism. Even though there are so many people involved in a film, we like the idea of one "great man" rising above and shaping the film in their own idea, when in reality films are a product of so many factors, as well as its environment -- just like everything else, outside of film. With that said... it is probably the easiest way to think about films and find more to watch, so I do find myself drawn to it a lot. Also, I fucking love Billy Wilder, and honestly I can't help but view him as an auter, especially since he really did have such an inordinate control over the many aspects of his films. I would be so happy if you made a video on him in your directors series :)

[@LearningaboutMovies]

yes, Billy Wilder is a top consideration for a video for me, no doubt. Thank you.

[@trorisk]

It's not a matter of loving or not. No one says that all auteurs' films are good and not auteur's films are all bad. I think we have to compare it to music. An author's film is like a song written, composed and performed by the same artist. On the one hand we have artists who have a vision of what they want to do from start to finish on the other hand we have "artists" how order songs. Madona isn't the same as Nirvana. It's just saying that there are artists-directors and directors who are not artists but who make consumer products (which may be good but that's not the point). It's necessary to differentiate art from cultural product. And it's ok to appreciate a simple cultural product and to not like a work of art. Works of art have not to be loved but precisely to question, to show the real, to disturb.

[@josb9836]

@@trorisk I see what you’re saying, but that’s not really what we’re talking about. Auter theory has nothing to do with separating directors according to their artistic integrity or goals. It’s just the idea that a films greatness can be attributed to the director, that directors are the painters and everyone else is a brush, when on reality everyone involved in the filmmaking process is a painter. Or at least, auter theory praises some directors who are viewed as having more control over their craft than other directors. So I’m not really talking about whether auters always make movies, I only think it’s unfair to reduce a films value to its director

[@trorisk]

@@josb9836 No there is nothing to do with the success or not of a film. If it's good or not. The Autheur Theory is to say that when you go to see a Tarantino movie you go to see "a Tarantino". Because Tarantino is an "auteur" and the films do cannot be classified as action movies, adventure films, dramas etc. It's "a Tarantino". Whereas when you go to see a film of the MCU you don't care who is the script and/or who is the director. They are franchise movies. An autheur's film is a film in which the screenwriter and director is the same person. Tarantino, David Lynch, Woody Allen, Céline Sciamma, Larry Clark, Abdellatif Kechiche, Bong Joon-ho, Kurosawa, Tarkovski, Edgar Wright are auteurs. Whether the film is good or crap it has nothing to do with the fact that it is an auteur's film. Loving a movie is a personal taste, success at the box office is luck. (many very good movies like fightclub didn't walk at the box office at the cinema)

[@Brandon75689]

Essentially if you are into film making and understand all the bells and whistles that go into it, you're not a normal consumer who usually succumb to idolatry. Where the name of the director is the name behind the camera that takes all the flak. Or maybe it evolved from the fact that directors might of had more of their own money come out of their pocket for a movie so the blame is put on the person with the most money put into it. Which leads to the production company that gave the budget for bigger films. From my experience most movies lose their artistic merit and edge when they are edited or chosen to be different by investors to appeal to the lowest common denominator. This is a big problem with music too. Most indie music projects are people that did more of the work on their own if you exclude the software and stuff people made. But when it comes to large names and big artists. So many people come in to write the lyrics and the music and the recording that it essentially baffles me why we even give the named artist any credit in the first place.

[@LearningaboutMovies]

yet, we like to give one person the credit or blame, whether deserved or not. Presidents, CEOs, etc. Totally agree with you about many big music names.

[@pheemer]

Great video, but why did you say that Ray Harryhausen did the effects on the original King Kong? That's like saying that Rick Baker did the makeup on The Exorcist. Harryhausen was a boy when he first watched King Kong at Grauman's Chinese Theater and was inspired to become an animator. Willis O'Brien did the effects for King Kong and thank God for that! Harryhausen's cutesy style would've ruined that great classic!

[@LearningaboutMovies]

yes, that's an error. thank you for correcting it.

[@ericwenburg6802]

Dangerous for anyone, even a French person, to play with French toys. I think the idea of an auteur in the department of direction or mise en scène is more about meeting the personality of the director at this or that point in a movie - for example, "the Lubitsch touch". Jean Renoir has had something to say about meeting the author. This paradigm can lose its way and become overdeveloped. It's a detour from the focused, touchpoint approach to start thinking about responsibility or credit for the film as a whole although that does generate a lot of articles and journals if that isn't too cynical an observation. Auteur theory slips down the slope into the critic's own private Academy Awards ceremony which can be even more tedious than the real ceremony.

[@LearningaboutMovies]

could be except an Orson Welles movie looks like no other ... or does it? That claim is the basis of AUTEUR. And it's really hard to separate out the Romanticism of visionary geniuses creating things from modern collaborative efforts. E.g., Steve Jobs is Apple, Zuckerberg is Facebook, Lucas is Star Wars. I am buying auteur theory less and less as I age, or you could say I'm selling my shares in it.

[@ericwenburg6802]

@@LearningaboutMovies Welles painted the sets in the fun house in The Lady From Shanghai. Toland at first hung back and let Welles light the set when they started on Citizen Kane. Welles worked in a lot of departments (as did Michael Powell in his apprenticeship and so learned to gather a top team), and he came from theater, radio, and magic shows. Welles is probably too much fun to fit into the trainspotting, plodding wannabe Glasperlenspiel of Hollywood auteurism. The phrase "cult of personality" also comes to mind. Yes, divest by all means.

[@JakeTilton]

I really enjoyed this video. Great work.

[@LearningaboutMovies]

Thank you

[@sanidhyasingh227]

I think Auteur theory is applicable on Buster Keaton and Charlie Chaplin films.

[@LearningaboutMovies]

certainly for Chaplin. He was the writer, director, producer, lead actor, and composer!

[@CorporateCritters]

interesting video. What are your top movie recommendations to watch?

[@LearningaboutMovies]

what movies would you say are your favorites? I ask because the best way to answer that is usually to deal with individual interests. You can try anything from my Great Movies List, which is in development. (50+ movies now, but will get to 500 easily.) joshmatthews.org/what-makes-this-movie-great-list-of-videos. Note that the ones at the bottom are yet to be released; they will be over the next month.

[@CorporateCritters]

@@LearningaboutMovies Thanks, Ill take a look at this list. Recently I've watched a lot of kubrick films which I thought were fantastic (2001, barry lyndon, clock work orange). I thought Harakiri was amazing, and I also watched the Godfather and the Usual Suspects which were both great films. I've also watched police story and wheels on meals (jackie chan movies) which I thought were great. Just wondering if any movies in particular stand out to you as "must see." Over quarantine I've been trying to catch up on the last century of cinema (haven't watched movies much until recently). I'm pretty open to the type of movie although I think I gravitate towards classics. Thanks.

[@LearningaboutMovies]

I've got a Barry Lyndon video coming out sometime. Definitely watch Kwaidan. Same director as Harakiri, and it is so Kubrickian, my suspicions are that Kubrick really studied it. I'll eventually make a video on it. I also suggest Samurai Rebellion. Also try Kurosawa if you haven't (Kagemusha and Ran for his later works). Kieslowski too. The Decalogue is one of his great works, which Kubrick appreciated. Also his Red/White/Blue trilogy..

[@CorporateCritters]

@@LearningaboutMovies Watched Kwaidan last night. Pretty interesting - It'd be cool to know if Kubrick really did study it or if its just a coincidence. So many parallel moments. I'll make my way through some of those other ones you mentioned as well. Thanks for the great recommendations!

[@LearningaboutMovies]

no problem. it is my pleasure.

[@NinaadDas]

Funnily enough, that's the question of the movie Tenet.

[@LearningaboutMovies]

people gave me grief about that, but I have said "Tenet" is about Nolan's career, with the pun on the palidrome: his previous ten movies.

[@NinaadDas]

@@LearningaboutMovies Holy **** I did not see that!

[@LearningaboutMovies]

yes, "tenet" is ten forwards and backwards. Tenet is his eleventh movie, so there's something about looking back at his previous ten movies, hinted by the palindrome. That movie contains nods and hints to at least half of his movies -- the half I could find. One obvious one is Memento, just with the pincer-movement thing.

[@NinaadDas]

Ah! Well from my student filmmaker knowledge so far, I thought Memento would have been his low budget retelling of a story dealing with time travel movie philosophy.

[@NinaadDas]

But yes, your answers obviously sounds more viable.

[@caldadextra2063]

You forgot Wes Anderson

[@LearningaboutMovies]

and 100 others.

[@caldadextra2063]

@@LearningaboutMovies fair. It's just that Wes Anderson has such a distinctive style that can be seen throughout all of his films.

[@Brandon75689]

@@caldadextra2063 That's what a Auteur is though and the other 100 others. Thus, the meaning of the video haha.

[@JHarder1000]

Odd list of auteurs. Why didnt yo include Malick, Scorsese, and the Andersons?

[@LearningaboutMovies]

I don't remember who was included. would have to list at least 75 for it to be a fair video, avoiding scrutiny. I have done videos on Malick's Tree of Life, and coming up next week, Scorsese's Goodfellas. Will do more on them. "The Thin Red Line" is my personal favorite. "New World," " Mean Streets," "King of Comedy," and oh yeah, I recall now I did a video on "Days of Heaven." They aren't included in this video, but they are just elsewhere on the channel or in my future plans

[@LearningaboutMovies]

a start would be Renoir, Carne, Godard, Truffaut, Bresson, Melville, Malle, Varga, Cocteau, Tati ... but we just get started and it gets exhausting listing French directors before 1990. Wait til we get to Hollywood. Then Italy, Japan, Russia, and it goes on. Truly the 20th century was a golden age for movies, perhaps the 21st will extend it. Looks like it.