The Elusive Auteur: The Question of Film Authorship Throughout the Age of Cinema

by Barrett Hodsdon

Overview

The director's authorial role in filmmaking--the extent to which a film reflects his or her individual style and creative vision--has been much debated among film critics and scholars for decades. Drawing on generations of criticism, this study describes how the designation "auteur" has gone from stylistic criterion to product label--in what has always been an essentially collaborative industry. Examining the controversy in regard to Hollywood directors, the author compares directors and would-be auteurs of the classic studio system with those of contemporary Hollywood and its new climate of cultural entrepreneurship.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781476627885
Publisher:	McFarland & Company, Inc., Publishers
Publication date:	05/21/2017
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	340
File size:	9 MB
Age Range:	18 Years

About the Author

Barrett Hodsdon has spent many years teaching, writing about and researching the film industry. In the 1970s he pioneered a film studies collection for the National Library of Australia. He has written a number of film journal articles covering aesthetics, genres, and documentary and domestic film culture issues. He lives in North Sydney, Australia.
Barrett Hodsdon has spent many years teaching, writing about and researching the film industry. In the 1970s he pioneered a film studies collection for the National Library of Australia. He has written a number of film journal articles covering aesthetics, genres, and documentary and domestic film culture issues. He lives in North Sydney, Australia.

Table of Contents

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments
Introduction
Notes on Terminology
Part I: Critical Origins
 1. Authorial Function and Historical Precedents
 2. Cahiers du Cinéma and Founding the Discourse of Auteur Criticism: Snapshots in Time
 3. Andrew Sarris and the Auteur ­Re-Evaluation of Hollywood
Part II: Auteur Concepts and Problematics
 4. Reconsidering the Underpinnings of Traditional Auteur Criticism
 5. Agency and Authorship: Forms of Mediation
 6. Extending the Lineages of Authorship: Art Cinema and the ­Avant-Garde
Part III: The Director in the Classic Hollywood System
 7. The Hierarchy of Directors and Work Relations
 8. Reconciling the Director with Creative Contributors
 9. Reformulating Authorial Presence: The Value of a Neoformalist Designation
10. Triumphs, Accommodations, Victims and Mavericks: 15 Examples
Part IV: Cinephilia Revisited
11. Cinephilia and Its Historical Trajectory
12. Recapturing the Sublime Moment: A Spectrum of Films
Part V: The Changing Face of Hollywood
and the Shifting Sands of Authorship Since the 1970s
13. From Vision to Branding
14. Contemporary Hollywood Directors and Auteur Slippage: Illustrating the New Breed of Auteurs
Part VI: Auteur Displacement in the Digital
15. The Inheritance from the Past
16. The Enclave of Art Cinema
17. Old Notions of Authorship Unhinged
18. Revamping Cinephilia in a Postmodern Climate
19. Implications of the Media Revolution
The Last Word
Chapter Notes
Bibliography
Index

Editorial Reviews

one of the most rewarding books I’ve read this year...a labor of love...work of astute and careful scholarship”—Film International.

From the Publisher