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What is auteur?

What is auteur?. Questions of Auteurism A Case Study of Peter Weir . What is auteur?. 1 A director who make films which reflect his/her personal vision and preoccupations. 2 A director who has a distinctive style and consistent themes. SIGNATURE Vision SIGNATURE Style

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What is auteur?

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  1. What is auteur? Questions of Auteurism A Case Study of Peter Weir

  2. What is auteur? 1 A director who make films which reflect his/her personal vision and preoccupations. 2 A director who has a distinctive style and consistent themes. SIGNATURE Vision SIGNATURE Style François Truffaut, ‘UneCertaine tendence du cinémafrançaise’ (A Certain Tendency in the French Cinema) 1954

  3. What is auteur? • Though film making is collaborative work • Directors called auteursoversee all narrative, visual and audio elements of motion pictures. • “The filmmaker/author writes with his camera as a writer writes with his pen.” ‘CaméraStylo’(camera-pen) Alexander Astruc, ‘Naissance d’une nouvelle avant-garde’, L’EcranFrançais, 30th March, 1948

  4. What is auteur? • Auteur or metteur-en-scène • Auteur - a director who expresses his/her unique preoccupation and holds on to his/her signature style • Metteur-en-scène (one who puts it in the scene - theatre director) - a (highly) competent film maker but lacks ‘the consistency that betrayed the profound involvement of personality’

  5. Who Are Auteurs? • Directors who have a distinct visual style … • Directors who have a consistent theme … Jean Renoir (humanism), Douglas Sirk (melodrama) … Theo Angelopoulos (modern Greek history), Ken Loach (left-wing social consciousness)

  6. Alfred Hitchcock

  7. Orson Welles

  8. Stanley Kubrick

  9. Wong KarWai

  10. Jean Renoir

  11. Douglas Sirk

  12. Theo Angelopoulos

  13. Ken Loach

  14. Auteur Theory (Politique des auteurs) • Auteur theory - a critical attitude to consider a film as a product of a single person - director - auteur • Andrew Sarris, ‘Notes on the Auteur Theory’, 1964

  15. Auteur Theory (Politique des auteurs) Film criticism and film studies based on auteur theory: (1) to analysea film as a work of a single author (auteur) →auteurism (2) to identify the characteristics of a director’s work which makes him a auteur →auteurism

  16. Criticism against auteur theory • Filmmaking as collaborative and collective actions. • Making a film involves many other creative talents than director. • Scriptwriter, photographer, editor, art director, actor, etc.

  17. Criticism against auteur theory Figures other than directors, who played a prominent role include: CesareZavattini (1902-1989) Screenwriter for Vittorio De Sica and Luchino Visconti Shoeshines, Bicycle Thieves, Umberto D, Bellisima, etc.

  18. Criticism against auteur theory Ruth Prower Jhabvala (1927 - ) Screenwriter for James Ivory Room with a View, Howard’s End, Remains of the Day

  19. Criticism against auteur theory Gordon Wills Most important cinematographer in the 70s and 80s The Godfather, Annie Hall, Manhattan, All the President’s Men

  20. Gordon Willis, Manhattan

  21. Gordon Willis, The Godfather

  22. Gordon Willis, Annie Hall

  23. Gordon Willis, All the President’s Men

  24. Criticism against auteur theory • Vittorio Storaro • Italian cinematographer who have worked for first Bernardo Bertolucci, and then Carlos Saura and Francis Ford Coppola

  25. Vittorio Storaro, Last Tango in Paris

  26. Vittorio Storaro, Goya

  27. Criticism against auteur theory • Miyagawa Kazuo (1908-1999) Greatest Japanese photographer, operated the camera and shot for Mizoguchi Kenji, Kurosawa Akira, Ichikawa Kon and Shinoda Masahiro Rashomon, Ugetsu, Yojinbo, Tokyo Olympiad, McArthur’s Children

  28. Kazuo Miyagawa, Rashomon

  29. Kazuo Miyagawa, Ugetsu

  30. Kazuo Miyazawa, Yojinbo

  31. Miyagawa Kazuo, Tokyo Olympiad

  32. Kazuo Miyagawa, Floating World

  33. Miyagawa Kazuo, McArthur’s Children

  34. Criticism against auteur theory • David Lean (1908-1991) British film director Established the classic editing techniques Edited for film directors such as Anthony Asquith and Michael Powell Pygmalion, Major Barbara, 49th Parallel

  35. Criticism against auteur theory • Lean edited all his films • His editing techniques and methods influenced may film makers: notably Steven Spielberg and George Lucas.

  36. Criticism against auteur theory • Alexandre Trauner (1906-1993) French art and production designer Le Jour se léve, Les Enfants du paradis, Le Portes de la nuit, Kiss Me Stupid, Don Giovanni, Round Midnight, Subway

  37. AlexandreTrauner, Les Enfants du Paradis

  38. Alexander Trauner, Round Midnight

  39. AlexandreTrauner, Don Giovanni

  40. AlexandreTrauner, Subway

  41. Auteur or Anti-auteur • Positif, founded one year after Cahiers du cinema in 1952 • Firm opposition to author theory • Film making is a collaborative and collective work. • A signed article naming the most overrated directors: Fritz Lang, Nicholas Ray, Howard Hawkes and Alfred Hitchcock • While Cahiers du cinema praised those auteurs to the skies.

  42. Criticism against Auteur Theory • Legitimacy of privileging a director - can a director be more important than his film? • ‘There are no good or bad films, but there are only good or bad directors.’ François Truffaut

  43. Mizoguchi Kenji (1898-1956) Irredeemable Suffering: Images of Japanese Women

  44. Mizoguchi’sMajor Works Mizoguchi Kenji (1898 Tokyo - 1956 Kyoto) In the SILENT era • Resurrection of Love (1923) • Bridge of Japan (Nihonbashi, 1929) • Cascading White Threads (TakinoShiraito, 1933)

  45. Mizoguchi’sMajor Works In the PREWAR period • Osaka Elegy (Naniwa Elegy, 1936) • Sisters of Gion (Gion no Shimai, 1936) • The Story of the Last Chrysanthemum (Zangiku Monogatari, 1939)

  46. Mizoguchi’sMajor Works POSTWAR masterpieces • The Life of Oharu (SaikakuIchidaiOnna, 1952) • Ugetsu(UgetsuMonogatari, 19553) • Sansho the Bailiff (SanshoDayu, 1954) • Crucified Lovers (ChikamatsuMonogatari, 1955) • The Tales of the Taira Clan (Shin Heike Monogatari, 1955) • Street of Shame (AkasenChitai, 1956)

  47. Osaka Elegy (1936) • Ayako becomes the mistress of her boss, so she can pay back her father’s debt and provides her brother with college fees. When she is abandoned by her benefactor, she turns to the street.

  48. Sisters of Gion (1936) • Umekichiand Omocha are geisha in Kyoto’s Gion district. The former feels obliged to help her bankrupt patron, but the latter believes her sister is wasting her time and money on a loser and coward. Omocha’s view is vindicated but her pragmatism does not bring her happiness either.

  49. The Story of The Last Chrysanthemum (1939) • Kikunosuke, son of a master Kabuki actor, falls in love with Otoku, the wet-nurse of his brother. This provokes his father’s anger and he is expelled from his troupe. He is allowed to rejoin it on the condition that he separates from Otoku.

  50. The Life of O-haru(1952) • Once a lady-in-waiting at the imperial court, Oharu falls in love with a man below her station. They are forced to be separated. Oharu is sent to the court as concubine for the lord who lacks a male heir. The lord’s infatuation and obsession with Oharu caused jealousy among his first wife and court ladies. After giving birth to a baby boy,

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