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This is a theory with its roots in French film criticism beginning in the late 1940s when cinema was still in its infancy, where French film critics (such as the French New Wave film director François Truffaut) began to express the view that the artistic style of a cinematic film (that is, a feature film for commercial distribution) should be credited primarily to the director because s(he), it was argued by these critics, was the sole artistic visionary of the film. In other words, the director was the true author (auteur in French) of the film.
This is a theory with its roots in French film criticism beginning in the late 1940s when cinema was still in its infancy, where French film critics (such as the French New Wave film director François Truffaut) began to express the view that the artistic style of a cinematic film (that is, a feature film for commercial distribution) should be credited primarily to the director because s(he), it was argued by these critics, was the sole artistic visionary of the film. In other words, the director was the true author (auteur in French) of the film.
In my classes, I am very skeptical of this view because while in the past it may have had some validity, this most certainly is not the case today. Today, a cinematic film is a highly, highly collaborative endeavor in which the artistic vision of such other filmmaking personnel as the director of photography, the film composer, the lead actor(s), the film editor, the production designer, the script writer, and so on--usually listed in the opening credits of a film (or at the top of the end credits)--will all have a significant part to play, albeit to varying degrees depending upon the film, in shaping the overall artistic vision of the film. Among the earliest proponents of this counter view, it may be noted, was the U.S. film critic Pauline Kael, and such others as Georges Sadoul and David Kipen (the latter actually came out with a name for his theory that placed the screenwriter at the center of the film's artistic vision; he called it Schreiber Theory (Schreiber being the Yiddish word for "writer").[1]
In my classes, I am very skeptical of this view because while in the past it may have had some validity, this most certainly is not the case today. Today, a cinematic film is a highly, highly collaborative endeavor in which the artistic vision of such other filmmaking personnel as the director of photography, the film composer, the lead actor(s), the film editor, the production designer, the script writer, and so on--usually listed in the opening credits of a film (or at the top of the end credits)--will all have a significant part to play, albeit to varying degrees depending upon the film, in shaping the overall artistic vision of the film. Among the earliest proponents of this counter view, it may be noted, was the U.S. film critic Pauline Kael, and such others as Georges Sadoul and David Kipen (the latter actually came out with a name for his theory that placed the screenwriter at the center of the film's artistic vision; he called it Schreiber Theory (Schreiber being the Yiddish word for "writer").[1]
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NOTES
NOTES
[1] In the opening pages of his book, which he dubbed a "manifesto," Kipen wrote, somewhat irreverently:
[1] In the opening pages of his book, which he dubbed a "manifesto," Kipen wrote, somewhat irreverently:
"For too long, scholars, journalists and film buffs have uncritically parroted the auteurist party line....The aim here will not be to replace unthinking, doctrinaire auteurism with an equally unthinking, writer centered-centered theory of film.... Film is, oh, dear, yes, a collaborative art. We might wish matters otherwise, but there it is. No, the point is less to supplant auteurism than to debunk it...." (p. 18, Kipen, David. (2006). The Schreiber Theory: A radical rewrite of American film history. Hoboken, NJ.: Melville House Publishing.)
"For too long, scholars, journalists and film buffs have uncritically parroted the auteurist party line....The aim here will not be to replace unthinking, doctrinaire auteurism with an equally unthinking, writer centered-centered theory of film.... Film is, oh, dear, yes, a collaborative art. We might wish matters otherwise, but there it is. No, the point is less to supplant auteurism than to debunk it...." (p. 18, Kipen, David. (2006). The Schreiber Theory: A radical rewrite of American film history. Hoboken, NJ.: Melville House Publishing.)
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