Word: auteurs
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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Despite its persuasive power, the auteur theory suffered from one serious flaw. Though the Cahiers critics had an encyclopedic knowledge of cinema, they understood little of the Hollywood System. From the '30s onward, American directors have often been mere foremen, called in for the job after the laborers -including the actors-were hired by the studio. Some, like John Huston, are capable of severe impressive films (The Maltese Falcon, The Treasure of Sierra Madre). Others are erratic job-by-job film makers whose unifying philosophy seems to be a healthy respect for the box-office receipts...
...prime movers of the west ern. Alfred Hitchcock has been called an eminent psychologist for his shrewd manipulation of audiences as well as actors. Some of the praise seems fulsome: Jerry Lewis has been compared favorably with Ingmar Bergman and Orson Welles. Still, general acceptance of the auteur theory has given American directors new power with major studios and fresh rapport with audiences. Though no American film maker has yet achieved the stature of Italy's Visconti or Britain's David Lean, a handful seem to be well on their way: ∙ ARTHUR PENN. A product of television...
...Reisz. But for The Midnight Cowboy, John Schlesinger achieved total freedom. "United Artists didn't come near me," he boasts. And Paramount Pictures has granted Mike Nichols final authority over Catch-22. It is happily in the French tradition that the facts are finally catching up with the auteur theory...
Jean-Luc Godard has said that he would have been a writer had the medium of film not been available to him, but that film is simply the best way of expressing himself. Like Orson Welles, he is a prime exponent of the auteur theory of filmmaking, i.e., that the director is responsible for all aspects of his film...
Were he a better film-maker, someone with a decent sense of camera and editing, we could call him an auteur and grant him his own strange bag, but as it stands now, all we can do is wonder where on earth the man's mind...