>
>Date:    Wed, 23 Apr 1997 15:50:24 -0600
>From:    Donna Joy <[log in to unmask]>
>Subject: auteurism
>
>Ok...We have looked in every dictionary and cannot define the work
>auteurism.  I know all of you know the meaning...Some kind person
>please help me and my friends expand our vocabulary and define
>auteurism.
>
>Thanks...DCJ
>
>------------------------------
>
Donna,
 
Essentially "auteurism" denotes a kind of film criticism which concentrates
on the role played by film directors (auteurs).   According to "auteur
theory", commercial cinema can be utilized by individual artists to express
a personal vision, style or unique set of ideas.  The idea originated in
France in the 1950's in reaction to an indigenous film tradition which
critics (later "auteurs" themselves) Jean Luc Godard, Francois Truffaut etc.
etc. saw as worn-out, script-driven and/or unrealistic.   They argued that a
number of Hollywood directors such as John Ford, Hitchcock, Samuel Fuller
and Nick Ray were able to make films the way writers wrote books,
irrespective of the collective efforts involved in film production.   In
other words, auteurism brings to cinema the figure of the romantic artist or
genius.  There are problems with this and it gets more complicated.  Check
out _Theories of Authorship_, ed. John Caughie. Routledge, 1981.
Or for an excellect glossary of filmspeak try _Key Concepts in Cinema
Studies_ by Susan Hayward, Routledge, 1996.
 
Brett Enemark
 
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