Auteurism and Artificiality in Film Studies
Craig Saper profile
R 9-12
Studies of authorship and auteurism have recently returned to film studies. Scholars interested in introducing specific feminist directors, for example, or using a director's name as an umbrella term or brand name to describe a recurring aesthetic patten, have turned to new versions of auteurist theories. The scholars include Katja Silverman and James Naremore. During the 1950's the editors of Cahiers du Cinema introduced the notion of a film's director as the author of a movie; they called this idea auteurism. The subtleties of their argument tend to have less impact on both attacks on authorship and lists of "greatest directors" in popular magazines. The writers who introduced the idea of auteurism tended to focus on popular film makers like Alfred Hitchcock, Douglas Sirk, or Sam Fuller rather than on either so-called "quality" films and film makers or big productions like Ben Hur. Because their work has indirectly had a profound influence on popular opinion in the United States, film buffs might forget that many of the directors now considered auteurist geniuses received little, if any, scholarly attention before the Cahiers editorials appeared. Those editorials examined the aesthetic achievement of often quirky and unusual film makers working within the Hollywood industry. These editorials' taste for artificiality also played a major role in forming the dominant aesthetic in film studies. This course traces the theories of authorship in film and literary studies and examines the significant parts of those theories usually overlooked in attacks on the concept of the author. Course requirements include reaction papers to the readings as well as a longer scholarly essay. Screenings will illustrate particular points in the readings.
updated 2006-03-28
