Laura at girlsaresmarter
Related: auteur theory
What is an author?
What is an author? With reference to at least two films by two different filmmakers, and to salient writings on the subject, analyze the question of film authorship in its theoretical and historiographic dimensions.
... While the original auteur directors did not set out to take credit for their personal stylistic and thematic elements, being dubbed an 'auteur' soon became the career goal for any respectable director. In modern Hollywood filmmaking, the director's reputation can sell a film almost as successfully as its stars. Effectively, this repurposement of the auteur understanding, which was originally a theoretical and artistically motivated concept, now serves to support the financial gains of the film industry itself. Ironically, the Cahiers du Cinema’s aim in identifying the first auteurs was to rescue them from this same world of profit-focused filmmaking.
Beyond retracing the author debate historically, it is perhaps best to simply examine two known film authors and contemplate how they achieved their auteur status. For purposes of historical and theoretical diversity, Ed Wood Jr. and Tim Burton seem optimal choices for consideration. Ed Wood Jr., officially voted the worst director of all time, has been elevated to auteur status through his reputation for making terribly bad films. Tim Burton, on the other hand, is a modern marvel who has managed to turn the Hollywood system to his advantage, producing both large-scale blockbusters as well as smaller, more artistic films with clearly personal motivations. As Michel Foucault explains in his essay "What is an author?," the identity of the author "is functional in that it serves as a means of classification." Curiously, the point at which these two auteurs and classifications intersect is in Tim Burton's 1994 film "Ed Wood," a homage by Burton to the notorious "Worst Director of All Time," Ed Wood, where the themes, styles and personalities of both directors collide in one production.
--http://www.girlsaresmarter.com/laura/papers/Auteur.html [Dec 2004]