Auteurship on TV?

Message Bookmarked

Bookmark Removed

Are the definitions of auteurship translatable to a TV series? The seeming problem with this cross-generic migration of artistic vision is that the Author's role in a series (be s/he a writer, producer, creator, director, etc.) is often comparatively diluted, because there are more pressures exerted from beyond the core creative groups. Of course, there are similar issues in film, so perhaps TV is a more transparent medium when it comes to ideas of the auteur because the stink of reputability hasn't clouded over the processes.

And what aesthetically distinctive series might fall under the category of belonging to an auteur? Twin Peaks seems obvious, and Aaron Sorkin is a maybe.

― The Dreaded Rear Admiral (Leee), Friday, 16 July 2004 17:42 (twenty-one years ago)

i'd say tv is a way more appropriate area for auteur theory than movies

― s1ocki (slutsky), Friday, 16 July 2004 17:46 (twenty-one years ago)

Rick Mercer's 'Made In Canada' would be a good example. Even more so then 'The Office'.

― Mr Noodles (Mr Noodles), Friday, 16 July 2004 17:50 (twenty-one years ago)

Twin Peaks, maybe?

― Kingfish von Bandersnatch (Kingfish), Friday, 16 July 2004 17:50 (twenty-one years ago)

john frankenheimer

― s1ocki (slutsky), Friday, 16 July 2004 17:51 (twenty-one years ago)

or are we taking auteurship to mean "directors with full creative control & idiosyncratic styles"?

― s1ocki (slutsky), Friday, 16 July 2004 17:52 (twenty-one years ago)

the thing about tv is that just because most shows have many hours per season, there are a lot of hands in the pie; numerous writers, producers, directors. often the only person who sticks around for each episode is the cinematographer, which i think is significant (esp. for something like twin peaks, where the quality of the storytelling varied widely even as each episode had more or less a uniform "look").

one can of course find meaningful commonalities between episodes of the same show--otherwise shows wouldn't be successful. it's very interesting to see how a tv show changes and doesn't change over the course of a season or several seasons. but i think the "auteur theory" can be applied, if you like that kind of thing, only with extreme carefulness and qualification.

― amateur!st (amateurist), Friday, 16 July 2004 17:57 (twenty-one years ago)

i don't think a show's feel is necessarily "diluted" because it doesn't have the guiding hand of the same director episode after episode. obviously the producer plays and often larger creative role in a tv series than for most movies (bruckheimer possibly excepted), and as well there is the notion of the "creator" of a tv series which doesn't quite exist for the movies. but even without one or two particular guiding hands a show can have a specific style devised in collaboration. it doesn't have the romantic appeal of the auteur ideas, and frankly the results haven't been too spectacular (although that could be for other reasons), but it happens.

― amateur!st (amateurist), Friday, 16 July 2004 17:59 (twenty-one years ago)

"carefulness"

― hehehe, Friday, 16 July 2004 18:00 (twenty-one years ago)

A bastardized definition, I suppose: a show or a number of series that share traits common to a single creative force (thought of another one: David E Kelly) -- but even if some series have a distinctive aesthetic, the style can be approximated when the driving force of the show is unavailable.

hella xpost

― The Dreaded Rear Admiral (Leee), Friday, 16 July 2004 18:00 (twenty-one years ago)

"the simpsons," for example, is the brainchild of matt groenig, but it didn't really take off until he left the writing and directing to other people, and then the quality fell off again when a different series of writers came in.

michael mann is another interesting case here; whatever you think of miami vice, it does exhibit some surprisingly bold traits which have a lot in common with mann's film work.

― amateur!st (amateurist), Friday, 16 July 2004 18:01 (twenty-one years ago)

producers are way more important than directors true, but so are head writers (in the case of buffy, sopranos et al)

― s1ocki (slutsky), Friday, 16 July 2004 18:02 (twenty-one years ago)

Sorkin bloooows.

Michael Mann has done good TV work on the other hand.

― Gear! (Gear!), Friday, 16 July 2004 18:02 (twenty-one years ago)

the idea of a "corporate brand" is not exclusive to tv of course, it's true to a great extent of comic books as well (at least until the auteur theory took over there, in a development that neatly parallels--albeit a few decades later--the artistic changes in hollywood after the decline of the old studio system).

often producers and head writers are the same people!!! in tv at least, sometimes in the movies too.

― amateur!st (amateurist), Friday, 16 July 2004 18:03 (twenty-one years ago)

well i think head writes/creators usually stick themselves with producer credits for the $$$

― s1ocki (slutsky), Friday, 16 July 2004 18:04 (twenty-one years ago)

Dennis Potter, anyone?

― Michael White (Hereward), Friday, 16 July 2004 18:37 (twenty-one years ago)

That's about how Vivica A. Fox gets to "co-produce" her Lifetime series, yes.

― nabiscothingy, Friday, 16 July 2004 18:37 (twenty-one years ago)

that really scotches my proposal for a vivica a. fox addition to the bfi book series.

― amateur!st (amateurist), Friday, 16 July 2004 18:47 (twenty-one years ago)

well in all fairness perhaps she developed the show!

― s1ocki (slutsky), Friday, 16 July 2004 19:21 (twenty-one years ago)

stop doing this to me! i guess the proposal's on again. but first i have to finish lessons from a master: garry marshall on filmmaking.

― amateur!st (amateurist), Friday, 16 July 2004 19:22 (twenty-one years ago)

master class: frank oz

― s1ocki (slutsky), Friday, 16 July 2004 19:25 (twenty-one years ago)

Actually this thread is a lie -- it's just the new TV on the Radio spinoff group.

― The Dreaded Rear Admiral (Leee), Friday, 16 July 2004 19:29 (twenty-one years ago)

David E. Kelley to thread. Or not.

― Rock Hardy (Rock Hardy), Saturday, 17 July 2004 00:52 (twenty-one years ago)

The first season of Six Feet Under springs to mind here - multiple writers and directors, but the vision guiding the show was singular in both senses of the word. Does the credit go to Alan Ball? I don't know.

― Tim Finney (Tim Finney), Saturday, 17 July 2004 01:14 (twenty-one years ago)

Buffy seems a particularly obvious example.

― Melissa W (Melissa W), Saturday, 17 July 2004 07:46 (twenty-one years ago)

i think this is silly, all tv shows of any reknown will have an obviously identifiable tone.

― amateur!st (amateurist), Saturday, 17 July 2004 20:51 (twenty-one years ago)

that is why i asked for the clarification, i think it would be more interesting to ask whether tv DIRECTORS (who are mostly anonymous) could be considered "auteurs" in the original sense of the word

― s1ocki (slutsky), Saturday, 17 July 2004 20:55 (twenty-one years ago)

"all tv shows of any reknown will have an obviously identifiable tone."

Yes but is this "identifiable tone" the product of collaboration between a number of people, or some writer/directors working as slaves to a master "creator" (Joss Whedon etc.)? And does it make a difference?

― Tim Finney (Tim Finney), Sunday, 18 July 2004 06:50 (twenty-one years ago)

Jim Henson.

― Girolamo Savonarola, Sunday, 18 July 2004 08:49 (twenty-one years ago)

frasier crane

― s1ocki (slutsky), Sunday, 18 July 2004 13:31 (twenty-one years ago)

Hi Dreaded Rear Admiral I like South Park!

― Fearsome Queen Electric Butt Prober BZZT!! BZZZZZT!! (Queen Electric Butt Probe, Sunday, 18 July 2004 15:48 (twenty-one years ago)

Alan Clarke.

but why do we need auteurs anyway?

― ENRQ (Enrique), Monday, 19 July 2004 13:32 (twenty-one years ago)

Auteur theory is just rockism for films, right?

― Sick Mouthy (Nick Southall), Monday, 19 July 2004 13:35 (twenty-one years ago)

sorta-kinda, yeah. in that it started as an oppositional tactic (ie low against high culture snobbery) but hardened into a nother kind of snobbery (Artists against entertainers).

for obv institutional reasons, it was a bit of a fiction (ie film is always a collaborative process), and is even more so in TV.

last night i saw julie delpy interviewed on stage, and it was quite obvious that she's more of an 'auteur' than richard linklater. cf Skidmore's post on Gabin.

― Enrique (Enrique), Monday, 19 July 2004 13:58 (twenty-one years ago)

For snobbery feel free to read nobbery.

― Pete (Pete), Monday, 19 July 2004 14:01 (twenty-one years ago)

the auteur theory was never a theory and other things i've written about too much to want to do so again

― amateur!st (amateurist), Monday, 19 July 2004 15:37 (twenty-one years ago)

In the UK, drama serials and especially sitcoms are often written by a single writer, or pair of writers. I've never really understood the reason for this transatlantic difference.

― Alba (Alba), Monday, 19 July 2004 15:40 (twenty-one years ago)

Snobbery again (UK and or nobbery. The common UK argument is all about the authored work. It is a poor argument for many of the reasons given above I think

― Pete (Pete), Monday, 19 July 2004 15:57 (twenty-one years ago)

i wouldn't jump to explain it that way. there are different production contexts, different rules for the unions, etc.

― amateur!st (amateurist), Monday, 19 July 2004 16:09 (twenty-one years ago)

You must be logged in to post. Please either login here, or if you are not registered, you may register here.