Frame by Frame: Auteur Theory (Research)

Frame by Frame: Auteur Theory video written and presented by Wheeler Winston Dixon, Professor of Film Studies at University of Nebraska, Lincoln.

A quick video explaining auteur theory and its history

• Introduced by Andre Bazin in his magazine "Cahiers du cinema" in the 1940s
• Young directors began writing films from the point of view that the director is the "primary creator of the film and that each director's individual signature is distinct but also that each director has thematic preoccupations that go throughout all of their work."
• John Ford - professionalism
• Howard Hawks - the 'Hawksian woman' - "a woman who can hold her own with the men in the picture."
• Alfred Hitchcock - an incredibly bleak world-view
• Frank Capra - theme of small-town populism and optimism
• Andrew Sarris brought this theory to America with his book "The American Cinema" (1963)
• Auteur theory is taken for granted in modern times, often films are looked at as, for example, a Quentin Tarantino film or an Alfred Hitchcock film

Key Quotes

"Without one vision to guide them, films basically collapse. The director's input into a film is absolutely essential and auterism has become the dominant way now of looking at films and theory of film criticism."

"...the director is the primary creator of the film and that each director's individual signature is distinct, but also that each director has thematic preoccupations that go throughout all of their work."

"In most cases, the director is the primary force behind the making of a film; movies are a team effort."