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What makes a movie? Is it the screenplay? The script? The actors? This is a hanging question often discussed in film classes, film critique sessions, and even in awarding ceremonies. One concept that can answer this question is the film theory called Auteur. In 1954, a film critic named Francois Roland Truffaut wrote an essay (“A Certain Tendency in the French Cinema”) in defense of the French directors that time. Majority of French critics argued that directors were mere metteur en scene—stage managers. The film is already complete with the screenplay and the director’s main role in the production is to oversee it and shoot what is in the script. Truffaut reacted against this belief and argued that the group deprives the director of the “authorial expression” as well as artistic expression. He believed otherwise when the group said that execution translates to the illustration of directing, shooting, and editing. La Politique des Auteurs was not intended to demean the value of screenwriters in film development but was actually a defense of the cinematic language as a kind of writing through images, body movements, and lighting. The director, as author (auteur), constructs meaning through a set of syntax that is distinct and subliminal from the meaning initially created by the screenwriter. Further, the subtext created by the director is his own cinematic expression, seen by people who watch TV shows for free, that distinguishes him as an artist in his own right. This position is not at all a danger to writers and is also not the same auteur theory that people now know. Auteur Theory, as it is now known by critiques and people who watch TV shows for free, saw light on 1962 when an American critic named Andrew Sarris endorsed the point of Ian Cameron that “the director is the author of a film, the person who gives it distinctive quality.” He further noted the three premises of the Auteur Theory that most critiques and film students who watch TV shows for free use today. First of these is Technician. The technical expertise of the director is substantial as a criterion for value. Second is Stylist. The distinct personality and attitude of the director should be seen in his film as the guiding principle. Third is Auteur. The director is the source of interior meaning. Sarris further notes that these points should be seen as three coinciding circles. The corresponding role of the director involves being a technician, stylist, and auteur. In summary, not all directors can be auteur but all authors should be solely responsible for the distinct quality of their films.
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