SO YOU WANNA BE A FILM NERD EPISODE 4: auteur theory

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• published: 18 Sep 2015
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“I liked almost anybody that made you realize who the devil was making the picture." - Howard Hawks "Goethe? Shakespeare? Everything they put their name to is supposed to be good, and people rack their brains to find beauty in the silliest little thing they bungled. All great talents, like Goethe, Shakespeare, Beethoven, Michelangelo, created not only beautiful works, but things that were less than mediocre, quite simply awful." - Leo Tolstoy “The evolution of Western art towards greater personalization should definitely be considered as a step forward, as a refinement of culture, but only as long as this individualization remains only a final perfection and does not claim to define culture. Were one to attribute to creative man, in the face of all psychological probability, an unflagging richness of inspiration, one would have to admit that this inspiration always comes up against a whole complex of particular circumstances which make the result, in the cinema, a thousand times more chancy than in painting or in literature." - “The politique des auteurs consists, in short, of choosing the personal factor in artistic creation as a standard of reference, and then assuming that it continues and even progresses from one film to the next. It is recognized that there do exist certain important films of quality that escape this test, but these will systematically be considered inferior to those in which the personal stamp of the auteur, however run-of-the-mill the scenario, can be perceived even minutely." - Andre Bazin "Maurice Nadeau wrote in an article in the newspaper Combat: 'If Descartes lived today, he would write novels.' With all due respect to Nadeau, a Descartes of today would already have shut himself up in his bedroom with a 16mm camera and some film, and would be writing his philosophy on film: for his Discours de la Methods would today be of such a kind that only the cinema could express it satisfactorily.” - Astruc http://www.patreon.com/StrucciMovies http://www.twitter.com/struccimovies http://www.facebook.com/struccimovies http://www.letterboxd.com/strucci struccimovies@gmail.com This episode is definitely both more political and more academic than any of the previous ones (and it has me struggling with more French words- apologies for my pronunciation, haha). I tried to do as much service as I could to both sides of the argument. Honestly, in making this I came out way less supportive of the theory than I was going in. I feel like in my previous readings and classes I took that auteur theory is just sort of taken for granted and isn't really challenged, which is a problem. With regard to the political stuff towards the end of the video, I debated for ages on whether to keep it in. I figured it was better to risk controversy than to not give my full, honest opinion. This is a very personal webseries and I have more fun giving a sincere and open view rather than straining to be objective. I can't really be objective being both a woman an an editor, someone not nearly as valued as a male director would be by Sarris if you go by Kael's assessment. I also know (before anyone points it out, haha) that the majority of directors (or at least Euro and Hollywood ones) are white and male, but that's a problem the industry has as well (the percentage of female film school graduates versus the percentage of women employed in the industry, now, in 2015, is alarming). And I know Cahiers and whoever praised other PoC directors like Satyajit Ray, but I was trying to express fundamentally that A) gatekeepers deciding who auteurs are are going to make decisions on their own preferences and experiences, which are going to be limited and B) you should look outside of what auteur critics have written and try to experience as much of the world's cinema as you can. Also in retrospect I could have covered more about the British magazine Movie, but I know almost nothing about it and this episode is already super dense and long. Anyway!! Links of interest- From the pieces i mentioned, here are the ones I found for free online- Astruc http://www.newwavefilm.com/about/camera-stylo-astruc.shtml Truffaut http://www.newwavefilm.com/about/a-certain-tendency-of-french-cinema-truffaut.shtml Sarris http://alexwinter.com/media/pdfs/andrew_sarris_notes_on_the-auteur_theory_in_1962.pdf Kael http://film110.pbworks.com/f/Kael+Circles.pdf Quotes on the Auteur Theory: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uABMio1QR2U https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MJf0cLrumY4 Sarris obituary http://www.independent.co.uk/news/obituaries/professor-andrew-sarris-film-critic-who-played-a-leading-role-in-promoting-the-auteur-theory-7899871.html What happened when Wes Anderson screened Rushmore for Kael http://www.nytimes.com/1999/01/31/movies/film-my-private-screening-with-pauline-kael.html?pagewanted=1 The ridiculous/incredible video I stole part of for the end of the episode https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ghDXhSy8dmU