Auteur Theory

Auteur Theory

Auteur theory is simply "author." Behind every film is a man or woman at work with a vision. Depending on the auteur of a movie, a different movie could result. Not all people responsible for a movie are auteurs-no one would consider Ed Wood an auteur-most B movies and some listed as A movies only get cranked out halfheartedly for the money (think Speed 2). A person who puts his indelible mark on a movie that the audience knows is that person. Some movies are labeled as Hitchcockian for their suspense and the plight of the normal man thrust into extraordinary situations. This brings us to identifying the auteur. How does one know it is a Hitchcock movie without reading the credits? The auteur is established by analyzing the themes and structure of a film. That is how some movies have been called "Hitchcockian in suspense." Since Hitchcock did the majority of defining good suspense, he has been nicknamed the "master of suspense." So too with Hawks and his themes of manly danger being fun. It is how the film comes together, like the novel of an author, or a painting by an artist, the director leaves his mark. In totality, then, most auteurs can only be realized while examining more of the auteur's work. One film is hardly enough to undertake trying to figure out who the director is. After watching several movies by the same director, patterns start to emerge. The auteur has the final controlling power or personality of a film. These powers even overshadow other hands on the project. I love Joseph Cotten and his talent, yet he has been overshadowed by two auteurs, Welles in Citizen Kane and Hitchcock in Shadow of a Doubt. Those will always be Welles and Hitchcock movies which just happened to star Joseph Cotten. The actor, great or not, becomes another cog in the director's perfect little machine. Conversely, actors such as Denzel Washington in Training Day or Jamie Foxx in Ray overshadow any other aspect of the production, even the director. There are new directors which personify the complete controlling power, like Peter Jackson of The Lord of the Rings trilogy. He handled screenplay, directing, casting, storyboarding, post-production, and every single shot. Everyone involved went to him for final approval. Even Jackson would agree that the text was only a catalyst that he played with to make the movie, with him cutting some scenes and even giving dialogue attributed to one character in the text to another in the movie.
Gregg Toland had been nominated several times for a cinematography Oscar and won with Wuthering Heights. He pioneered the use of deep focus, which Welles was able to utilize to great effect in Citizen Kane, drowning out the main characters by the size of the mansion around them, belittling the characters. Also, this allowed to show Kane and his wife in a room with him close up and big and her small and little, still being in focus and allowing us to see how Kane thought of himself in the presence of others, larger than life. Toland actually shared the same page of the credits with Welles, showing that they worked together for mutual effect.