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How to Recognize an Auteur

What They Don’t Say in Film School

The notion of an “auteur” filmmaker began as a way of grouping and academically appreciating films based on the oeuvre of prominent creatives who, though working within the restrictions of assigned genres and scripts under the old studio system, nevertheless succeeded in imposing a distinctive sensibility.  The intent was to validate film as an autonomous art form capable of maestro-driven, original film stories in contrast with the stale adaptations of the French “Tradition of Quality.”  So besides directors, the original Auteur Theory also could include luminary producers (e.g. Walt Disney, George Lucas), an occasional screenwriter of prominence (e.g. Neil Simon, David Mamet), and even movie star-directors (e.g. Orson Welles, Clint Eastwood).

An auteur was any outstanding filmmaker who could blow away the stuffy boredom of convention with a breath of fresh cinematic imagination.

Yet for promotional reasons, the auteur concept was quickly co-opted to refer principally to storyteller directors with their own distinctive personal vision.  That’s a far more romantic and compelling, but simplistic idea: the film director as Horatio Hornblower, almighty captain of his ship and master of the cinematic seas.  It’s also much easier to sell a single “auteur” as part of a film’s ad campaign.

In truth, however, from concept until completion of a motion picture, a good production team often will resemble a professional sports team - with the field plays called sometimes by the team captain (the director), sometimes by the head coach (the producer), and sometimes by the front office (the studio/financier).  The producer and the director will function by design as an adversarial check-and-balance on the other’s subjective impulses (i.e. megalomania).  Consequently most films actually require a relay race of storytellers who pass the baton through their individual creative imprints at various stages of the filmmaking process.

For example, as pointed out by the late Pauline Kael, Orson Welles’ auteur classic Citizen Kane would have been substantially less remarkable without the unique contributions of co-screenwriter Herman J. Mankiewicz and cinematographer Gregg Toland.  Certainly renowned auteur Alfred Hitchcock declined as a filmmaker after the dispersal of his elite production team in 1963 following The Birds.

Legendary screenwriter and novelist William Goldman once notably revealed (Adventures in the Screentrade, Futura, 1983) that he never met anyone in Hollywood who sincerely believed in the Auteur Theory, including the directors themselves.  In his rebuttal, Goldman identified the seven most important authorial collaborators, in alphabetical order: the actor, the cameraman, the director, the editor, the producer, the production designer and the screenwriter.  Also, to this list could be added - on a select film by film basis - the creative efforts of any standout special unit supervisors who periodically must carry the story: sometimes an animator, sometimes a choreographer, sometimes a composer, sometimes a songwriter, sometimes a 2^nd unit director, sometimes a songwriter, sometimes a special effects coordinator, sometimes a stunt coordinator, sometimes a supervising sound editor, sometimes a visual effects supervisor, etc.

So, from the rank-and-file filmmaker’s POV, who really deserves the auteur credit?

A Litmus Test for Auteurs

Here’s a first clue:  If the producer hired the director - rather than the reverse - that director is likely not an auteur.  At least not yet.  It means that the producer acquired or supervised development of the script, selected or approved the director … the marquee cast … the key crew … the songs and underscore … the deployment of the budget, signed the collective bargaining and distribution agreements, had final cut and was responsible to the financing entity for fixing the picture if the director’s cut came in as an unwatchable mess.  So much creative responsibility … and yet the top producer’s credit is harder to find in most movie reviews (and even on the Internet Movie Database) than that of the assistant costume designer.

Following the popular belief among many critics that creative control is vested in the hands of one master, then cult and camp directors - such as Roger Corman, Russ Meyer, Ed Wood and Andy Milligan - must be regarded as auteurs while prominent producers - such as Joel Silver, Jerry Bruckheimer, Brian Grazer, Scott Rudin, Dino de Laurentiis and even Walt Disney - would be dismissed as mere administrators.

Obviously, something is mistaken about that notion.

But, you say, there are so many producers and so many types of producers.  Who knows what they do?

Here’s a second clue:  Always credit the lead producer - the showrunner.  Most often he or she will occupy the 1^st position “produced by” credit and perhaps also the 2^nd position credit in the case of an established producing team.  Other producer credits are largely wheeler-dealer baggage.  This confusion within the producing ranks has resulted from a country club Producers Guild of America that’s been rendered impotent by big studio politics for decades.

Okay, what about screenwriter-directors?

Here’s a final clue:  Look for directors with full producer authority.  Screenwriter-director credits may be misleading.   Certain directors will always expropriate the screenwriter credit by running a perfectly ready-to-go script draft through a word processor and tinkering with the dialogue, description and locations.  They will say they are making the script “their own.”  Sometimes the original screenwriter(s) will have had their credit contractually removed or, more likely, relegated to a “based on” credit.  It’s a nasty, unmentionable practice.  The powerful stepping on the powerless.  But it allows the director to pocket extra fees as a screenwriter and to court extra prestige with critics, stars, and fans, as well as to raise the asking price with his/her talent agent.

A director’s signature “touch” does not by itself give significance to style nor elevate craft to art.  Form also must follow function.  Explains virtuoso director Sidney Lumet (Making Movies, Alfred A. Knoff, Inc., 1995), “One of the reasons Hitchcock was so deservedly adored was that his personal style was strongly felt in every picture.  But it’s important to realize why:  He always made the same picture.  The stories weren’t the same, but the genre was: a melodrama, layered with light comedy, played by the most glamorous actors he could find (also the most commercially popular at the time), photographed often by the same cameraman, with music composed by the same composer.  The Hitchcock team was available for every picture.”

Furthermore, Hitchcock functioned as the defacto lead producer on the preponderance of his films.  Unless a director is also a lead producer, or part of an established producer-director team, that director is likely not an auteur.  The check-and-balance mechanism remains in place.  So, yes, Sir Alfred Hitchcock was an auteur (except on the classy Rebecca when Hitchcock tried to work collaboratively with producer David O. Selznick and on the dreadful The Paradine Case when Hitchcock sought out of his contract with Selznick).  Woody Allen, Francis Coppola, Ron Howard, Martin Scorsese, Steven Spielberg, Quentin Tarantino, even Baz Luhrmann and the other directors of their stature are certainly auteurs.

Most of the rest are still on a winding road headed in that direction.