comment #1

Noah says ...

I think Heaven's Gate is terrible, but I think at least "auteurs" aspire to a level of filmmaking that is beyond the capability of films like Wild Hogs of filmmakers like Shawn Levy. I'd take a bad Coppola over a good Levy any day.

comment #2

christian says ...

lessee, fuck those pesky writer-directors...it's the producers who make the magic!

my what a lot o' bitches them english critics be, eh guv'nr?

comment #3

JD says ...

The mistake people make about the auteur theory is that they think it applies to every director in the world. But it doesn't! Some filmmakers are auteurs, some aren't. Is Patterson gonna argue that Quentin Tarantino or Wes Anderson or Wong Kar Wai aren't clearly the authors of their films? Many, many people help with the physical task of making a film, but some directors provide an organizing intelligence that dictates what shape a film will take.. or whether that film will even exist in the first place.

comment #4

Craig Kennedy says ...

I have the same problem with the misapplication of the auteur theory JD. There are only a few filmmakers who could be seen as true auteurs (Lynch!) yet so many are credited with (or found guilty of) authorship.

Also, in theory at least I think sometimes great work can come from the process of collaboration. There may be a guiding creative or organizing force, but the film springs from a bunch of people doing what they do best. Of course this theory would be great if I had a specific example...

comment #5

Bilge says ...

The auteur theory has plenty of problems, but Patterson's reading of it is absurd, if not downright stupid. First of all, the auteur theory does not state that directors should have total control over their films, nor does it suggest that every director who makes a good film is hereby deemed a good director and hence incapable of ever doing anything wrong. The auteur theory was simply a way of organizing certain directors whose work clearly bore a personal stamp, even when those directors were working within very rigid systems, from other people's scripts, etc.

In fact, the true auteur would still be able to fluorish in a system where he didn't have total and complete control over a film: how else could Edgar Ulmer, Nicholas Ray, and Don Siegel -- who rarely had much control over their films -- be classified as auteurs? The auteurists actually kind of hated very successful and powerful directors like William Wyler, John Huston, Billy Wilder, and Stanley Kubrick. (This is where my own personal problems with the auteur theory come in, but that's neither here nor there.)

There is no exhortation within the auteur theory to cede all power, budget, control, etc. to a director. Michael Cimino getting carte blanche to make HEAVEN'S GATE had nothing to do with the auteur theory, and everything to do with the fact that he had a huge hit and won a boatload of Oscars with THE DEER HUNTER. What's the budget of Zack Snyder's WATCHMEN again?

comment #6

Sean says ...

Well, from what I remember of the making of book, one of the reasons the studio kept giving Cimino carte blanche was that they wanted to seem more "artist friendly"; they were trying to woo a lot of other auteurs (including Woody Allen) and wanted to get a good rep, but they picked the wrong guy (from a financial standpoint). They also backed Scorsese and released 'Raging Bull'; I don't think that did as well for them either, though it obviously got a lot of acclaim, and probably would've helped their rep if they were still in business.

So some of it was the same sort of misapplication of the auteur theory as the article above.

comment #7

Ortega says ...

I didn't know Jon Lovitz was on the set of Heaven's Ga... oh, wait, that's Cimino, my bad.

comment #8

christian says ...

i enjoy reading the auteur theorists and do crazily believe they're accurate about jerry lewis, but many of the auteurists always downplayed screenwriter/directors. fewer subtitles.

comment #9

Rich S. says ...

For an interesting read, check out Ebert's Great Movie essay on Hawks' The Big Sleep. He acknowledges that in that case, studio interference actually improved the movie considerably. I don't know that I'd call Hawks an auteur, but he was definitely one of the best.

comment #10

thatmovieguy says ...

The people who defend HEAVEN'S GATE as some sort of misunderstood masterpiece are probably people who have not seen it. I saw the edited version that went into general release in early 1981 and I saw Cimino's full-length cut on video: I found both dull and pretentious, but over the years I kept reading comments about how the film was so much better than its reputation. Determined to give it one more chance, I got a ticket to the presentation at the Toronto Film Festival a couple of years ago. I was amazed to see the screening was completely filled when the movie started; after the intermission, there were plenty of vacant seats. The film is gorgeous to look at, but as a drama it's a disaster: ponderous, confusing, sometimes downright sloppy. Kristofferson's performance is dry and flat, and he has zero chemistry with Huppert, who was obviously struggling with English at that point and has a terrible time making her dialogue sound credible. The pacing is almost torturously slow at times and the movie sometimes stops dead in its tracks just to admire itself (particularly in the opening scenes at Harvard). No wonder so many people walked out. There are no intriguing characters and nothing to hold the interest, aside from a few large-scale action scenes and the beautiful cinematography. It's four grueling hours of self-indulgent "art," worth a look only for those who want to see first-hand what happens when a marginally talented director is allowed to do whatever he wants.

comment #11

christian says ...

i saw it at a lacma screening and was mesmerized -- it was clearly a mess in editing and sound, kristofferson bland, but christopher walken was great and there are some terrific and bizzare moments... it also feels like the end of the 70's film era. but cimino is not the best example of an auteur is he?

comment #12

Mgmax, le Corbeau says ...

Heaven's Gate is worth seeing for the cinematography of the Glacier National Park area, the historical detail (great ugly-but-authentic costumes), and the music alone. In fact, now that I think of it they ARE alone, pretty much undisturbed by characters, a plot or dialogue...

"You're beginnin' to talk like a man with a paper asshole." --Michael Cimino, screenwriter

comment #13

Mgmax, le Corbeau says ...

As Bilge and some others suggest, there's a lot of misunderstanding about what the auteur theory was. Some directors had been stars and "authors" from the earliest days. Griffith, DeMille, Rex Ingram in the silent days, Lubitsch, Capra, Hitchcock, Ford, Sturges-- all these were names known to the public (remember that Capra's autobiography is called "The Name Above the Title") and recognized by critics as men who selected their projects, developed the stories with writers if they didn't write themselves, and so on.

Sarris and others argued that you could find, on a more subliminal level, certain common traits in the work of directors for hire as well, so that in advance you knew that, say, a Joseph H. Lewis film was more likely to be interesting than an Alfred Werker one. Here's a fairly easily observable example. Douglas Sirk had this thing where he would tend to hold the camera on a woman who had just finished a line of dialogue for a moment, before the next line. The result builds empathy for the character because it stops the plot for a moment and forces you to look at her face and feel her sadness. You can see it in his German films, you can see it in his Hollywood films, you can see it in Fassbinder's films imitating Sirk. But the one place you can't see it is in the 1966 Madame X, when Ross Hunter and Lana Turner reteamed for a Sirk-style melodrama... with a different director. And as a result, Madame X sucks. Not only because of that, but because of a number of things like that, rooted in the absence of Sirk from the team.

Now, the question is, are there auteurs on that level today? Not people like Soderbergh, David O. Russell, Tim Burton, etc.-- they're clearly in the first category, they develop material or write it themselves and have an identifiable style. The question would be, in the ranks of the seemingly interchangeable studio directors, the Bays and Shawn Levys and whoever, are there certain people who bring more thematically and emotionally to the table, so that you know that their work will transcend the next guy's? Maybe you could say that people like Bryan Singer or Christopher Nolan work on that level when they find more in Batman or X-Men than the likes of Schumacher or Ratner did. Maybe someone like John Dahl, though he's kind of lost his way after first gaining a rep as a smart noir guy. But I suspect that sort of talent-- the capable guy who doesn't have big themes and the writing ability to become a name director like, say, Soderbergh or Scorsese-- has gone into TV, as so many of the lower-level auteurs like Joseph H. Lewis did in the 50s and 60s, and he/she's part of why shows like The Sopranos or The Wire are so good-- but good luck teasing any one director's specific contribution out of a season of quality TV.

comment #14

corey3rd says ...

I recently worked with a film critic who fully buys the auteur crap in his reviews. Well in his first attempt to make a movie, he quickly discovered that he didn't give a real crap about putting in the work and learning that it takes to truly be the author of his film. Instead he relied on us to keep the project from falling apart. We spent weeks filmming (it was a documentary) while he was off in New York and on vacation. He showed up now and then for interviews. The guy never even talked to us about the look of the film. He barely oversaw a cut of the film that had it getting rejected from several festivals. Finally he was tossed off the project and a real editor was brought in to slash an hour out of the film. And it was accepted.

When the film showed at the festival, the dofus acted like he was cameraman, editor and genius because he had somehow been given the title of director when he was pretty much on screen talent. How can a man profess the auteur nature of film when he proved that a film can be made despite the actions of the director?

Far as Wes Anderson goes, the guy gets a lot of script help from Owen Wilson on his better films. Film is a collaborative artform. it is about script and actors. Should Sophia Coppola be seen as the author of Lost in Translation when we know that Bill Murray created his character. If anything this, the film was like a reality show - do we consider any of the directors of Gene Simmons Family Jewels the authors of that show?

Heaven's Gate has elevated over the decades simply because of all the extremely boring three hour epics that have come after it.

comment #15

Hickenlooper says ...

People should do there homework. This is the problem with Blogs. People spout facts without fact checkers. People are authorities without having authority. The auteur theory did not take hold because of Andrew Sarris. Sarris was only parroting the views of Andre Bazin and the folks at Cahiers du Cinema ten years who had been celebrating the likes of Hitchcock, Welles and Ford ten years ealier. And of course the auteur theory is valid. You're going to tell me that folks like Kubrick, Welles, Ford, Polanski, Wes Anderson, and even Tarantino are not auteurs???

comment #16

Hickenlooper says ...

People should do there homework. This is the problem with Blogs. People spout facts without fact checkers. People are authorities without having authority. The auteur theory did not take hold because of Andrew Sarris. Sarris was only parroting the views of Andre Bazin and the folks at Cahiers du Cinema ten years who had been celebrating the likes of Hitchcock, Welles and Ford ten years ealier. And of course the auteur theory is valid. You're going to tell me that folks like Kubrick, Welles, Ford, Polanski, Wes Anderson, and even Tarantino are not auteurs???

comment #17

christian says ...

well i would hope people know the word auteur is french which pre-supposes its origin, but the critics also believed that directors trapped by the tensions of censorious studio control led to the films being even more interesting. that's why they prefer preminger to wilder. and jerry lewis to everybody else.

comment #18

Craig Kennedy says ...

Hickenlooper. "You're going to tell me that folks like Kubrick, Welles, Ford, Polanski, Wes Anderson, and even Tarantino are not auteurs???"

I don't think anyone is taking issue with that. Speaking for myself, my issue is that it's all too frequently assumed that the director is the main creative force behind a film. Anyone can tell you what a Kubrick film or a Tarantino film is (and no DZ, that's not an invitation), but what is a "Shawn Levy Film" exactly? As a creative definition, it's meaningless.

I don't doubt the theory (and yes I know it originated with the French and Bazin), I question its misapplication.

comment #19

Bilge says ...

It's also worth noting that "auteur theory" is in fact kind of an incorrect term. The Cahiers guys called it the "politique des auteurs," and for them it was a way of championing certain directors above others, and for championing a certain way of looking at cinema. It's not a "theory" to be applied. It's a polemical stance, meant for a particular time, conceived in response to another, to them more limiting, way of looking at films.

comment #20

christian says ...

for the perfect rebuttal to sarris, read pauline kael's famous bitch-slap, "circles and squares"...

comment #21

corey3rd says ...

George, If the auteur theory matters that much - who is the author of Gone With The Wind? Who really directed that film?

Wasn't it Welles who said that if the cast and crew did an amazing job and the script (not written by the director) is great, then the director can be passed out in the trailer and a great work will be made? You have a crappy boom guy, and it shows. Have a crummy editor and it shows. Have a bad actress or script - it shows.

Under the auteur theory, do you say that Wes Anderson can exist without Owen Wilson as a co-writer? Because Rushmore is a better film than Life Aquatic (which wasn't written with Owen Wilson. You might be the guiding force as the director, but you rely on more than your talent and vision. Would you rule Sam Mendes an auteur? Listen to the commentary track on American Beauty and there's Conrad Hall finally explaining how he set up shots. Best is a shot of Kevin Spacey in a chair. Sam babbles about how he loves the shot since Conrad cut off his feet - thus rendering him unable to move. Conrad breaks it to Sam that he framed the shot to keep a light fixture in the shot. Can Sam really be considered as The Author of that film since he didn't have 100 percent control over the frame.

auteur theory is great since it limits the body of work when selling a DVD boxset. It also allows you to come up with amazing excuses for enjoying a film that stinks.

And what happens when a director cranks out an extra sucky film should they lose their auteur card? What should be done to Neil LaBute for the crime known as The Wicker Man? Besides a desire to yank two hours of his life that he wasted with that piece of crap? Is Ed Burns really an auteur anymore? Or merely a Straight to Video superstar like Andrew Stevens? Tarantino isn't so much of an auteur as a remixer. His recent films are kinda like one of those "spot the inside joke" picture puzzles of spot the influence. It's about as original as a Hanna-Barbera script.

Certain directors know how to surround themselves with talented people. They deserve the same tribute paid to a great player/manager in basketball. auteur theory is a lazy way of having to avoid figuring out who the hell really did the heavy work.

comment #22

Bilge says ...

"And what happens when a director cranks out an extra sucky film should they lose their auteur card? What should be done to Neil LaBute for the crime known as The Wicker Man?"

People still seem to be under the impression that an auteur is supposed to be someone who makes only great films. This is stupid, and wrong. If anything, THE WICKER MAN proves, in some weird way, that LaBute *is* an "auteur," if only because, despite being a project for hire and a remake, it still manages to be about all the things that LaBute has always made his films about. You're free to like or dislike the film, but there's little doubt that the dude brought his personal stamp to it.

comment #23

corey3rd says ...

You're free to like or dislike the film, but there's little doubt that the dude brought his personal stamp to it.
_________

Everything Neil brought to Wicker Man pretty much destroyed what makes the original work. There are certian things certain directors do that just totally suck and they keep repeating their crappy approach or technique whether the piece calls for it.

I hate the opening title cards used by Woody Allen. It's like he says, "Here's another movie that starts like all the rest." Spike Lee does that really stupid thing where he has the actors step up on the dolly and "walk" by being pulled across the location. It's stupid. John Woo and his slow motion doves. Sure they worked the first two times. Marty using Gimme Shelter in three films.

If anything, the auteur theory gives an excuse for self imposed cliches. A director's role isn't to push the material, but to magnify their personality.

Wicker Man could have been a much better film if LaBute had been replaced by a sock monkey.

comment #24

jeffmcm says ...

There's a lot of confusion here. "Auteurship" should be considered as a range, from directors who are totally obsessive and detail-oriented like Kubrick, to those who are aren't as stric with the material but still make films that consistently reflect their personality, like Hawks, to filmmakers who are inconsistent quality-wise but still make films that are 'theirs' like LaBute, to the guys who do whatever the studio tells them to do like Levy or Ratner.
You could easily say that the auteur of Gone With the Wind was David O. Selznick, since he was in tight control over so much of the movie's scripting, casting, and production.
Auteur theory is a tool; sure, it's been exploited by egotistical directors (M. Night Shyamalan) and lazy producers/studio people, but it's a valid approach to looking at plenty of films and TV shows.