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FILM FOR THOUGHT:
(Wednesdays Year-Round & FREE to Members!)
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 Each week, Charley Walters shares some interesting information surrounding either one of the films coming up at The Dreamland or Dreamland Drive-In, or provides some top notch recommendations on how to beef up your movie pedigree at home. (These films will be available via cable providers, streaming services, and often times, your local library).
AUTEUR THEORY
It’s a term I don’t see as often as I once did, but as with mise-en-scene (which I discussed here a month ago), it’s not as lofty as it sounds. During the 1940s the French film critics Andre Bazin and Alexandre Astruc emphasized the importance of the director, the person who combined the work of the screenwriter, the cast, and the crew, and thus put his or her distinguishable marks on a film.
For example, Alfred Hitchcock would employ icy blondes (Grace Kelly, Kim Novak, Eva Marie Saint, et al), colossal and recognizable landmarks (the Statue of Liberty, Mount Rushmore), and most of all, suspense. Other directors would present their own styles, settings, character types, and whatever else.
In 1955, the French critic and future director Francois Truffaut went further and wrote about les politique des auteurs (“the policy of the authors”). Then in 1962 the American critic Andrew Sarris modified Truffaut’s thinking into “auteur theory.” But the American critic Pauline Kael rejected this, pointing out that too many people created a film for any one person to be declared the author.
So, who’s right? Well, a director can certainly create a unique style, but that style would be different without particular colleagues. But yes, the director can choose those colleagues in fulfillment of a personal vision. So, to me, both sides are correct. It takes an auteur to create a film -- but it also takes many others as well.
Charley Walters
Film for Thought Co-Programmer
Dreamland Board of Directors
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THE DREAMLAND, 17 South Water Street
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