Auteurism in American Cinema

Auteurism in American Cinema

In 1952, Francois Truffaut introduced to the world of cinema the auteur theory in his Cashiers du cinema essay. The word auteur simply means ‘author’ in French. Generally, the word author is associated with a written literary work, e.g., a novel. For the most part, we do not use this term to describe a director of a film. However, in Truffaut’s essay, he speaks of the policy of authors (politique des auteurs) which argued that like a writer or an artist, a director is the main creative force propelling forward the creation of the film text.^[1] Instead of the film resulting from deliberations of a corporate collective, a film must bear the signature of a director’s personal or unique style. Truffaut was very vocal about how filmmakers would not include their own experiences or ‘psychological realism’ in their respective films.^[2] He emphasizes that directors should have more creative control within their films so as to display themselves within their films similar to how artists display their personalities or unique styles in their canvasses such as Picasso and Van Gogh. Expanding Truffaut’s auteur theory, Andrew Sarris provided a more precise definition of how directors are considered as ‘auteur.’ Sarris proposed that not only the distinguishing personality of the director serves as a criterion of value for a film but also the supposed meaning he imposes on the material.^[3] In his essay entitled “Notes on Auteur Theory,” Sarris detailed three levels of criteria that a director must meet for him to qualify as an auteur: (1) technical competence, (2) personal style and (3) interior meaning and themes.^[4] Hence, a director can only be considered as an auteur when he has a specific body of work that distinguishes him from the rest of his peers. This means that not all directors can be considered as auteurs despite some of them possesseing auteurist characteristics, e.g., Ed Wood and Michael Bay whose films are recognizably theirs.^[5]  In fact, there may be only a handful of directors that are regarded as auteurs in their own right. For this paper, I have decided to look at the works of Quentin Tarantino and illustrate how he is considered as an auteur of American cinema.

In modern American cinema, Quentin Tarantino has certainly cemented himself as one of the most notable directors today. His works have been the subject of scrutiny by countless film critics. Admittedly, most of his films if not all have a distinctive style or characteristic, which makes it recognizably his or “Tarantinian” in a way.^[6] One of the more prominent qualities of a Tarantino film is its depiction of violence and suggestive themes. Films such as Pulp Fiction (1994), Kill Bill (2003,2004) and Django Unchained (2012) have implemented Tarantino’s peculiar visual presentation of violence. In my case, I have watched a number of films directed by Tarantino, Django Unchained being the most recent, which presented violence where it was offsetting to the audiences yet somehow had a humorous fervor to it as well. Graphic violence is certainly a trademark in most of his films. Regardless of the shock value it delivers to the audiences, Tarantino succeeds in presenting this violence in such a way that it was also amusing and sometimes humorous. From what I can remember in the movie Django Unchained, there was this very graphic scene where Django was murdering everyone in a mansion to which I found to be unsettling yet satisfying at the same time. The movie was very disturbing due the extended use of blood and violence during the film. However, it was also very pleasant to the eyes given the sophisticated camera work, which were particularly evident in the film’s most violent moments.