Notable filmmakers who resist the auteur theory

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Basically, directors who are unpredictable genre-wise, style-wise, etc. A friend and I came up with Stephen Frears, Michael Winterbottom, and Peter Weir. Any others? Disagree?

― jaymc (jaymc), Saturday, 3 April 2004 07:43 (twenty-one years ago)

Joe Dante. His movies are instantly recognizable, so I'm not sure I'd say he's unpredictable. But his neglected work is, in my mind, further proof that most critics and viewers cannot recognize style unless they're beaten over the head with it. Not to mention the fact that he's the most modest and unpretentious director out there.

― Anthony (Anthony F), Saturday, 3 April 2004 17:58 (twenty-one years ago)

Peter Weir generally deals with characters isolated in small groups in strange/exotic situations : Gallipolli (at war), Truman Show(in TV show), Mosquito Coast (in Amazon - the river not the website), Witness (with Amish), Master & Commander (at sea), Fearless (by unique experience) etc . His style is always classical, resisting any gimicks or flashiness.

I would tend to agree with Frears and Winterbottom. Maybe add Soderburgh to the list? they all seem to look for completely different films with every project.

How many posts before somebody comes on with the old Film Studies 101 position of "but autuerism is just one way of viewing film , and a flawed way at that blah blah blah"?

― David Nolan (David N.), Saturday, 3 April 2004 20:21 (twenty-one years ago)

Sam Fuller and Anthony Mann spring to mind. They both have a "house style" and a favoured genre, but their work is diverse enough to maybe juuuuust escape the iron cage of auterism, to use Amateurist's phrase. Though I guess they're both labelled as "auteurs", anyway.

― @d@ml (nordicskilla), Saturday, 3 April 2004 20:23 (twenty-one years ago)

Neil Jordan: The Crying Game, Mona Lisa, The Good Thief, The Butcher Boy, Interview with the Vampire, We're No Angels, In Dreams and so on.

― Gear! (Gear!), Sunday, 4 April 2004 00:48 (twenty-one years ago)

How does genre-jumping contradict auteurism, though? Someone whose works share common characteristics regardless of genre (Fuller, Winterbottom, poss. Soderbergh) would seem to be an example of auteurism, rather than an escape from its iron cage.

― miloauckerman (miloauckerman), Sunday, 4 April 2004 07:43 (twenty-one years ago)

good point, milo. it's kind of futile for a director to try to even attempt "resisting" the auteur theory because it's basically inherent to being a singular artist--common themes and styles are always going to exist in a director's work, regardless of what genre they're working in.

― jay blanchard (jay blanchard), Sunday, 4 April 2004 14:53 (twenty-one years ago)

there really is no 'auteur theory', there are just a lot of individual ideas about filmmakers, some of them conberging, some of them not. the last thing these groupings are is a coherent theory, although i suppose some individual critics have advanced something like one (none are convincing to me).

genre-hopping certainly has nothing to do with anything, since one of the cardinal points made by the wave of french critics most associated with the 'auteur theory' was that a director's personality is evident in films with disparate premises and generic conventions.

i mean jay's right that with rare exceptions there are features that exist across a director's body of work, but that's not surprising and the 'auterists' weren't the first to notice this (it dates back to the teens at least). the question is where to identify these commonalities, and it's here that the auterist critics, whatever the limitations of their view, made a great contribution, in focusing a lot of attention on stylistic and other features of filmmaking that had gone, not uncommented upon by any means, but still neglected overall.

― amateur!st (amateurist), Sunday, 4 April 2004 15:51 (twenty-one years ago)

I think "auteur theory" might've been a red herring in the subject header, which I wrote when I was drunk, haha. I think I am mostly just interested in the idea of genre-hopping, or at least a certain unpredictability about a director's filmography.

― jaymc (jaymc), Tuesday, 6 April 2004 02:28 (twenty-one years ago)

Sam Fuller. Anthony Mann.

― @d@ml (nordicskilla), Tuesday, 6 April 2004 03:11 (twenty-one years ago)

Curtis Hansen!

― @d@ml (nordicskilla), Tuesday, 6 April 2004 03:11 (twenty-one years ago)

Ang Lee. The Coen Brothers.

― Andrew Farrell (afarrell), Tuesday, 6 April 2004 07:05 (twenty-one years ago)

Ang Lee is a good choice; after his first three films he's constantly changed his style and genre.

― Tuomas (Tuomas), Tuesday, 6 April 2004 15:18 (twenty-one years ago)

But the Coen brothers usually show an ironic detachment, whatever genre conventions they're fucking with each film.

― Tuomas (Tuomas), Tuesday, 6 April 2004 15:20 (twenty-one years ago)

Mel Brooks.

― Chuck Tatum (Chuck Tatum), Tuesday, 6 April 2004 17:58 (twenty-one years ago)

now the coen brothers just make "coen brothers movies"

ang lee is a really self-conscious genre hopper, i think he may have an excess of genre-consciousness

― amateur!st (amateurist), Thursday, 8 April 2004 10:15 (twenty-one years ago)

Richard Lester -- he's all over the map -- for example A Hard Day's Night and Juggernaut.

― BabyBuddha (BabyBuddha), Thursday, 8 April 2004 13:46 (twenty-one years ago)

Woody Allen

― monkchild, Thursday, 22 April 2004 11:22 (twenty-one years ago)

two years pass...

Danny Boyle's work is fairly un-auteur-like

― davelus (davelus), Monday, 22 May 2006 21:19 (nineteen years ago)

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