Is auteur film theory rockist?

Maybe it makes more sense to say that the auteur theory is ROCK and that you can be auteurist just like you can be rockist.

otherwise I don't know your Mets from your Cubs from your Sox from your Earthquakes.

I think the jist of this argument, at least those who use both of the terms "rockist" and "auteurist" condescendingly, is that auteurists hold certain directors (auteurs like Howard Hawks) above others (hacks like William Wyler) the same way rockists supposedly hold certain musicians (Jeff Buckley?) above others (Beyoncé?). And the latter-mentioned in each pair are, I guess, supposed to be considered "less than" directors/musicians, right? Because they allow the outside elements of screenwriters/songwriters and actors/producers to take precedence over their own imprint?

All I've ever gotten out of this line of debate is echoes of that Muppet Babies episode where Piggy and Skeeter are fighting over what dance is supposed to be, with Piggy stunting for ballet with demands of "beautiful! beautiful!" and Skeeter breakdancing while chanting "fun! fun!" Then Scooter or Kermit shows up in the middle of their dance-off rumble and begins a soft shoe... which is apparently supposed to be both but is, to any halfway sane person, the worst, lamest dance of all.

Most neo-auteurist pet faves (Tashlin, De Palma, Sirk) are, like, tremendously fun, to say the least.

xpost:
"A must-see in this or any year!"

He had more to say about it but it's better to pick up a copy of the book (have there been threads about it yet? There so should be).

I don't think it's a matter of auteurist critics and theorists so much as certain assumptions that grew out of a distorted understanding of the auteur theory and have been absorbed into mainstream thinking. So for example someone like Wes Anderson is admirable and is worthy of the Criterion Collection because he's developed a very recognizable voice and look to his films while someone like David O. Russell doesn't get the same level of recognition. Taken individually, films like Huckabees and Tennenbaums might be seen as part of a stylistic movement but looked at in the context of the two directors' careers it appears that Anderson is an auteur and Russell is an imitator.

Is that really all that we have left of auteur theory? It doesn't surprise me that that is all there is at some kind of middlebrow level, those who have read a piece in a magazine about it or something, but there must be more interesting things going on elsewhere, mustn't there? I mean, this thread was asking about auteur film theory, not just the broad public take on same.

I wasn't saying I agree with those judgements but do you deny that a bias exists?

but there must be more interesting things going on elsewhere, mustn't there? I mean, this thread was asking about auteur film theory, not just the broad public take on same.

I don't know, are there any interesting recent developments in Freudian analysis or Marxism? The question seems kind of irrelevant to me.

i was thinking about this earlier: when did hitchcock's movies start getting promoted with the physical hitch 'logo'? probably in the 50s! and at some point, maybe in the '80s, every film became 'a film by...', even if the visual style and thematic weave of the film was very familiar. the director-as-brand.

What are auteurist critics and theorists arguing now? Is it as simple-minded and obviously wrong as that each film is the work of a single author, that author being the director?

i think film theory gave up on auteurism when it started mainlining structuralism/post-structuralism circa 1967, but it is just common journalistic shorthand to say, in a pronoun kind of way, 'x's film', x being the director. it's always been obviously wrong that the director is sole author; at the same time, you *can* differentiate *some* hollywood films *if you think it profitable* according to who directed them. but you can carve them up in other (more profitable?) ways too.

within film theory these carvings somehow got construed as 'codes' (eg, the actor code, the studio code, the genre code) which sounds more scientific than the concept really is. but yes in a sense the genre or studio or actor (or whatever) is a kind of author inasmuch as they structure our reception of the film.

Yes, I think it was the '50s for Hitch - there was the TV series hosted by him around then, so he was a name brand at that point. One other point about its dominance: look at the film polls we've had here - it seems standard practice to list a film with its director. And I believe some voters made a point of only choosing one film by any director. We've gone too far with this. I'm not arguing for any other role to be given primacy above the director, I simply don't believe there is necessarily a single author of a film, and I don't think we benefit from acting as if there is.

the US context is that in the 40s and 50s, ie the cold war, the predominant leftish parisian intelligentsia had begun to hate hollywood (it hadn't actually had all that much of a problem before the war) for you know, duping the masses. and boosting the director-as-author was a means of getting hollywood taken seriously in a climate which, however left-wing, also held the romantic individual author in high regard.

xpost: omg lol, that article is fkn insane.

http://www.fredcamper.com/afilmby/0001901.html

somebody, it seems, took time to scan the piece in or maybe type it out! but anyway it's by my man ray durgn4t, it's from 1965, and it pwns everything. find it by ctrl-f ing for 'auteurs and dream factories'. it's long but well worth it.

Is it ever!!!!

A friend posted this on Facebook--can't tell if it's his or something making the rounds.

http://i1059.photobucket.com/albums/t427/sayhey1/auteur_zps0e9add32.jpg

RIP Paul Nelson and Evergreen Video

Is that really where it comes from? My friend just confirmed it's not his photo.

No. Of course not. It is a bizarro Boratized version of a place like Evergreen.

The auteur theory is an attempt by adult males to justify staying inside the small range of experience of their boyhood and adolescence. (1963)

— pauline kael bot (@paulinekaelbot) July 10, 2025

I haven't scrolled back and read all this, but in terms of the films the first auteurists celebrated--the Cahiers critics, Sarris--I wouldn't say they were the equivalent of rockism. Phil Karlson, Samuel Fuller, Nicholas Ray, Val Lewton, Edgar G. Ulmer--a lot of the time (not always) they were elevating B-films, drive-in fare, and double-bill filler, which to me would be more like weird, marginal pop hits that weren't a concern of rockists. I see them (in the cliched form, anyway) as more interested in Springsteen/George Stevens. (Not that I've ever cared about this long-tiresome debate.)

But auteurists loved Ozu, and supposed rockists like Dave Marsh loved bubblegum, etc., etc.

the boyhood/adolescence thing above seems directly aimed at Bergman

it's good that the debate has long moved on to "why do some people still insist on following this idea that was discredited twenty years before it was even coined?"

But Springsteen himself is deeply steeped in 50's and 60's rock, an era during which the entirety of that genre had a b movie/drive in level of respect. Rockists believed they were defending unjustly neglected art, too.

Anyway for the original q I'd just ask "does auteur theory believe there is only one way to go about making a great film" and I think the answer there is, kinda? "Reflecting a director's vision" admitidely gives a lot of scope but it's still a pretty strict limitation.

Would definitely agree that they very much missed (or, more likely, deliberately downplayed) how much great films virtually always owed to acting, the score, the cinematography, and--of course--the writing. When I'm watching Sweet Smell of Success, it's Curtis and Lanacaster and a dozen bit players I'm caught up in, that and the incredible dialogue. And James Wong Howe's cinematography, and Elmer Bernstein's score. I know Alexander Mackendrick oversaw it all, but should he step to the front of the because of that?

Sarris in his weekly columns tended to be less doctrinaire and praised plenty of actors, screenwriters, cinematographers. Cahiers had to a certain extent moved on from their most fervent auteurism by 1963 or whenever Rivette pushed Rohmer out. The diehards at the old Fred Camper and Dave Kehr message boards who were still carrying the auteurist torch as is it were 1968 and The American Cinema just came out really seemed like relics.

When I think of bad direction ruining a movie where everything else is good or at least promising, I think of Huston when he is in half-assed mode.

Richard Corliss actually wrote a book that was an attempt at screenwriter auteurism. Talking Pictures, explicitly modeled on The American Cinema. Interesting book, but it suffers from the fact that it is even harder to untangle who actually is responsible for what ends up on the screen using the writer than the director. There are so many examples where iconic lines, scenes, narrative decisions actually came from an actor, the director, or an uncredited rewriter.

When The Shooting Stops The Cutting Begins by film editor Ralph Rosenblum is the most effective argument against auteurism I can think of.

That quote by Kael is so good. Because its so trolly.

The role of actors, screenwriters and cinematographers has always been secondary to that of the director. Their job is to realise the director's creative vision, not to be creative in their own right. Auteurism still makes sense to me.

rick beato poipes up

Judging by the Last (X) Movies You Saw thread, ilx user sic is the only non-auteurist.

The role of actors, screenwriters and cinematographers has always been secondary to that of the director.

Simply not true for classical Hollywood cinema. Read The Genius of the System by Thomas Schatz.

I appreciate angram's post because it is the only example I've ever encountered of someone actively defending auteur theory in the wild. Every time it gets brought up it seems like everyone agrees that it's wrong to focus on directors to this extent, film is a collaborative medium, you can find signatures in editing, costume design, fight choreography whatever, etc.

But then after that is agreed upon everyone still carries on as if this hadn't been discussed, i.e. we all refer to films as being "a (director x) film", compare it to others directed by same, etc. Not just critics either, even for mainstream audiences saying "a Tarantino film" or "a Spielberg film" is common.

So auteur theory lost the battle of ideas but won the battle of marketing, which ultimately might matter more.

The thing is, why in the abstract it's absolutely true that 'film is a collaborative medium, you can find signatures in editing, costume design, fight choreography whatever, etc.', in practice it's completely uninteresting. Yeah, costume design might look alike across films, but so what? What a director can bring to a movie is just so much more interesting.

We often don't know that, it has never been the focus.

I don't think fight choreography for instance works w/ what you're saying - for martial arts films it's pretty essential, often more worth talking about than the direction.

And thinking about it more I'd say if talking about costume design is "uninteresting" this is due to the critic's lack of knowledge in the area rather than direction being inherently more interesting.

I really don't think you're right. Or at least, I think we're talking about two different things. All of that is just 'behind-the-scenes' film nerd stuff. You can absolutely say interesting things about costume design (like this: https://acoup.blog/2024/11/29/collections-the-problem-with-sci-fi-body-armor/) but not in the same way. Looking at how one costume designer has a signature that shows up in different films will just not lead you to anywhere interesting. It will be nerdy stuff for film nerds.

And I'm a giant film nerd, and I read stuff like that, and when I write about films I make sure to note if for instance an editor has a signature that shows up in different films. But it's just not the same as what a director can get away with.

"It will be nerdy stuff for film nerds."

So is auteur theory.

In my experience, not at all in the same way. You can get regular people interested in hearing about how Sean Baker films creates a vision of modern America through camera lenses and editing and stuff. Try as I might, nobody wants to hear me talk about what a great editor does the same way.

This thread has entered film nerd turf.

A far cry from its joe six pack opening question.

Lol

So is auteur theory.

As I said, not really! It is pretty comprehensively integrated into the way non-nerds watch movies - "a Nolan film" or "a Scorsese film" means something to a mainstream cinema goer (not the only lens tbf - so does "a Tom Cruise movie" or "a Star Wars movie").

Disagree really. Most film goers only mention the film and the actors. Directors have never ever come up in my conversations.

One of the few times my students mention a director as a brand is with Nolan or Tarantino.

Yeah, obv it's not every director,but Spielberg, Tarantino, Nolan, it's just silly to try to argue mainstream cinema goers do not know who these ppl are or that they do not take that into account when they go to see their films.

How much of that is the result of the auteur theory? Kael was happy to talk about "a Scorsese film" or "a Coppola film" too. She rejected the idea that we needed auterism to prop that up.

Reg film goers will never say "I am going to see Nolan's Batman take." They are gonna see the new Batman movie! xp

That's totally irrelevant though - they also go to see Interstellar and Oppenheimer and many others because they are going to see A Nolan Film.

Guys, the troll is trolling. No need to engage.

Speak for yourself, Fred.

xp not sure about that. Oppenheimer and Interstellar have also a popular cast and a lot of marketing behind it?

I know it's an extreme example, but I just find it difficult to endorse the idea that Sweet Smell of Success is the creative vision of a British director who specialized in small Ealing comedies rather than a bunch of people, beginning with Clifford Odets, who I'm guessing were far more familiar with the seamier side of American culture. I think Mackendrick did an amazing job of synthesizing all their contributions.

Yes, the marketing being "come see new film by visionary director Christopher Nolan". I'm not saying yr average filmgoer looks out for visual signatures or anything, but they associate certain names with certain types of films, or with Quality.

Which is again to say auteur theory basically IS marketing - which is how Hitchcock used it, and you could argue the Cahiers guys as well.

clemenza, I don't entirely disagree but wouldn't put it as quite that marquee an example - McKendrick was a troubled alcoholic whose British works are amongst Ealing's darkest, he wasn't exactly ill suites to the material.

How much of that is the result of the auteur theory? Kael was happy to talk about "a Scorsese film" or "a Coppola film" too. She rejected the idea that we needed auterism to prop that up.

It's an interesting question. I guess prior to auteur theory there were more examples of using the producer as brand - "a Korda film".

The thing is, why in the abstract it's absolutely true that 'film is a collaborative medium, you can find signatures in editing, costume design, fight choreography whatever, etc.', in practice it's completely uninteresting. Yeah, costume design might look alike across films, but so what? What a director can bring to a movie is just so much more interesting.

What a director brings to a movie is hiring all the other people. Yes, it's a collaboration, but one person gets to pick their collaborators and the others don't.

...unless the producer hired the other people, including the director.

"Yes, the marketing being "come see new film by visionary director Christopher Nolan". I'm not saying yr average filmgoer looks out for visual signatures or anything, but they associate certain names with certain types of films, or with Quality."

Is this auteur theory in practice? If so, its a pretty diluted form of it. A "Christopher Nolan film" is just a name, like idk "m night shyamalan" that some US film exec is just throwing around to see if it sticks. The actors would be part of the marketing as well, and that the film was about the atom bomb, and so on.

It might be diluted, but I don't think you could use it as a marketing hook if auteur theory had never existed.

Good point about Mackendrick's British films (at which point I meekly admit I haven't seen any of them)...Another film that I think puts auteurism to the test because of its chaotic backstory: Tootsie.

Actually I'm talking shite sorry, I mixed him up with Robert Hamer.

I mean, the problem with auteur theory at its most didactic is just its absolutism. (Though it's also unclear to me how many people ever really embraced that absolutist position.) Of course the director is often the driving force and vision behind a film, and plenty of directors have such consistent style and tone that it only makes sense to talk about their films as their work. But also there are actors, cinematographers, others whom we can also think of having coherent bodies of work. Often overlapping! Like, you can talk about Jim Jarmusch movies and David Lynch movies, but you can also talk about Frederick Elmes movies, which overlap with both.

TFW you dabbled in auteur theory.

What am I missing pic.twitter.com/GVLQar9Lux

— bailey (@baileylikemovie) July 8, 2025