CONTEXTUAL STUDIES: Authorship & Auteurs

Production Hierarchy:

Executive Producer - Financial control but may have creative input particularly in editing and post production stages.

Producer  - Supervises logistics, budget with the director, may originate the project. Usually hires writers and directors.

Director -  Primarily responsible for creative vision and collaboration with the creative team.

Writer - Responsible for authoring the original script or adapting a existing piece.


Changing face of creative control:

CINEMA

Silent era: 1900-1927 The director

Studio era: 1930-1960's The producer

New wave 1960-1980's Directors and director writers

TELEVISION

Golden age 1950-1960's Producers and writers

New wave 1960-1970's Producers and directors

Writers era 1980's-Present Producer writers and showrunners


Origins of the Auteur Theory

Reaction against bland commercial cinema where the director largely regarded as chief technician who just shot the script. Truffaut and fellow critics wanted instead a cinema d'auteurs: directors who expressed an individualistic world view and use of mise en scene. The auteur cinema expressed in ground breaking French New wave films of the late 50's and early 60's.

Three criteria that define an auteur:
1) Technical competence of the director
2) The distinguishable personality of the director
3) Interior meaning

Issues with Auteur Theory:

Does not recognise collaborative nature of film and television and contributions of writers and technicians

What directors were attempting to portray was secondary to the actual visualisation on screen

Only a few rare directors have a final cut

Genre theory as alternative to auteur theory

Stephen Poliakoff:
Since 1988 he has written and directed over a dozen features, TV movies and mini series mostly at the BBC.

Considered pre-eminent BBC writer-director and allowed final cut a lot of times.

Not a formally trained visual director , he is widely considered to have evolved a degree of technical competence. That is seen as Framing, Camera movement and editing in order to convey narrative.

His personal style is:
Long tracking shots
Deep focus
Clash between modernity and traditional
Slow pace.

Interior meaning:
History, memory, ghosts of the past.
Secrets
Social Class
Themes of power and control.