Wong Kar-wai - Auteuristic Themes/Style

Wong Kar-wai is a Hong Kong Second Wave filmmaker, internationally renowned as an auteur for his visually unique, highly stylised, emotionally resonant work, including Days of Being Wild (1990), Ashes of Time (1994), Chungking Express (1994), Fallen Angels (1995), Happy Together (1997) and 2046 (2004). His film In the Mood for Love (2000), starring Maggie Cheung and Tony Leung, garnered widespread critical acclaim. Wong's films frequently feature protagonists who yearn for romance in the midst of a knowingly brief life and scenes that can often be described as sketchy, digressive, exhilarating, and containing vivid imagery.

Wong was listed at number three on the British Film Institute's Sight & Sound Top Ten Directors list of modern times.

FM3 - Auteur Theory

Auteur Theory

You can't really be an auteur until you've got your type!

Tim Burton's Dark Shadows may have received a kicking from critics, but one person has emerged from the dust-up unscathed: Eva Green, the French actress who plays the evil witch Angelique Bouchard. With her red-lacquered lips, her crazy-beautiful eyes and possessed-marionette limbs, Green's lolling vamp represents the perfection of a type Burton has long been trying to get right – from Michelle Pfeiffer's Catwoman in Batman Returns, to Lisa Marie Smith's bosomy Martian in Mars Attacks!, to Anne Hathaway's White Queen in Alice in Wonderland.

Critics may be tired of the rest of Burton's directorial signatures – the ornate production designs, the seventies kitsch, the collaboration with Johnny Depp – but he's finally perfected his vamps: peroxide-blonde, big-chested, cinch-waisted, eyes like Bambi's.

All film directors have their types. Everyone knows Steven Spielberg for his suburban settings, alien visitations, and Godlike shafts of light, but equally consistent is his taste for hot moms in long T-shirts, cut-off jeans and morning-sexy hair: Teri Garr and Mellinda Dillon in Close Encounters of the Third Kind, JoBeth Williams in Poltergeist, and Dee Wallace in ET (dressed as Catwoman for Halloween, she even sends ET into a swoon).

Scorsese scholars find rich pickings in the director's Catholism, his taste for violence, his bruisers, misfits and loners, but less so the women in orbit around them, whether sexily-damaged like Rosanna Arquette in After Hours and Illeana Douglas in Cape Fear, or spitfires like Lorraine Bracco in Goodfellas and Sharon Stone in Casino, giving as good as they get.

To which we could add Tarantino's foot fetish ("He gave her a foot massage!"), Fellini's breast-love, the lifelong connoisseurship Michaelangelo Antonioni brought to women's legs, David Lynch's thing for misapplied lipstick, Darren Aronofsky's taste for brainy brunettes and David Fincher's love of skinny Goth girls viewed from the rear. As New York film critic David Edelstein concluded recently: "Fincher is an undies-and-butt man." You could be forgiven for concluding that the most enduring definition of an auteur is a film-maker who populates his movies with women he wants to boff.

The big guns of auteur theory are strangely silent on the matter. In his seminal essay Notes on Auteur Theory in 1962, the influential American critic Andrew Sarris determined that auteur status was conferred by meeting the following benchmarks: technical competence, personal style and something called "interior meaning", which he variously defined as a director's "vision of the world", his "attitude to life", and "élan of the soul." He said nothing about sexual pecadilloes.

Even though the two film directors hoisted highest by the French and touted as auteurist poster boys – Howards Hawks and Alfred Hitchcock – are famous for their taste in women, bequeathing us, respectively, the Hawksian woman and the Hitchcock blonde.

In his groundbreaking 1953 Cahiers du cinema essay, The Genius of Howard Hawks, Jacques Rivette identified Hawks as "a bundle of dark forces and strange fascinations" – his "obsession with continuity", his "obsession with primitivism" and "bouts of ordered madness which give birth to an infinite chain of consequences" – but passed over his equally fervid obsession with insolent, self-possessed foxes, lounging against doorways in tailored suits like Lauren Bacall in To Have and Have Not ("You know how to whistle, don't you, Steve? You just put your lips together and … blow.")

Read more @ The Guardian Film Blog

FM3 - Small-scale Research Project Guidance

Here is an extract from a well structured Presentation Script with good referencing and relatively sound argument. Use it as a guide to the way your own script should be submitted.

Dysfunctional families are a predominant factor in Haneke’s films. Does this make Haneke an auteur?

Projector: Image of Michael Haneke (Item 16)

Speaker:

Michael Haneke is an Austrian filmmaker, and has made many films in the languages of English, German and French. Anyone watching Haneke films will recognize a similarity in his dark, disturbing style and his strong use of dysfunctional families as well as his tendency to shock and confuse the audience with ambiguous narrative.

I believe that these things, which I will explain in more detail later, make Haneke an auteur. Auteurship cannot be given to all directors and in one premise of auteur theory is the “distinguishable personality of the director” and “Over a group of films, a director must exhibit certain recurrent characteristics of style, which serve as his signature” (Item 7).

Projector: Clip of Funny Games (2007) – (2m 17s) (Item 19)

Speaker:

In this scene for the US version of Funny Games you can see the characteristics of the film displayed in a clear narrative, which is contrasting to his style and the true ambiguous narrative, however it appeals to the audience Haneke wants to attack it was as in an interview he says Funny Games was “intended to be for a public of violence consumers” (Item 14). It also highlights the ‘perfect’ family and outsiders that pray on this perfection, a lot like the viewers of Hollywood films do.

Haneke remade Funny Games to make it identical to the original with the same recurring themes and interior meaning. When asked about the remake in a 2008 on-set interview (item 15), Haneke stated “when I did the first Funny Games it was intended to be for a public of violence consumers in the English-speaking world … the German language the film stayed always in the art houses and so didn't reach the public that it would need to have.” Thus showing that the intention of the film was not to entertain but for the purposes of highlighting our apparent acceptance of violence and death in films. Haneke says that he finds it irritating that “in this kind of post-modern view of life it became chic to make violence as an entertainment, even for the filmmakers and the critics, and this I find is a little bit disgusting.” (Item 15) It is this type of attitude that suggests that Haneke is an auteur, as “The way a film looks and moves should have some relationship to the way a director thinks and feels.” (Item 7).

Projector: Clip of scene where Georgie dies and Paul is looking in the fridge at 1h 1m 10s – (1m) (Item 2)

Speaker:

As you can see, Peter and Paul casually discuss who to kill first, and Paul says he’s going to get something to eat, and asking who else wants food; highlighting their casual view of killing people, paralleling how the audience’s opinion on violence/death in movies. In keeping with Haneke’s hate of violence on screen, when Georgie is shot, there is no violence shown, just a gunshot and blood on the TV at the end of the sequence. This is symbolic of Haneke’s view of Hollywood/media in general – filled with glorified violence. Also, the fact that a child is shot is shocking, yet another aspect of Haneke’s signature style, which once again supports the argument for being an auteur as (Item 7) “a director is forced to express his personality through the visual treatment of material”.

A2 Film Studies Student Enrolment Task - To Be Completed Before First Lesson

Sample: Small Scale Research Project

Here is an opening section from a well structured Annotated Catalogue with good notes and good detail. Use it as a guide to the way your own catalogue should be submitted and structured.

Subject/Topic of Study = Chris Nolan
Focus of study = Flawed Characters/Auteur
Resources = 3 x Chosen Films
Books/websites = 3 x Other sources

Annotated Catalogue: Guidance

Title/Question: 

Male flawed characters with a goal are a predominant theme in Christopher Nolan’s films, does this make him an auteur?

Films
Item 1
Inception- (2010) dr C. Nolan
I chose this as my focus film as it shows Christopher Nolans’ clear auteur presence as he deals with the theme that I am focusing on – a flawed male character, in this film the characters flaw is his emotional life and family that drive the narrative of the film. It also looks at his other auteur themes such as moral ambiguity, the characters and composers he uses and psychology. This film also explores the relationship between Chris Nolan and the genre of Crime films that has established his idiosyncratic style.

Item 2
Batman Begins (2005)- I chose this as my second film to look at as the theme I am looking at is explored in this film. The male character is also flawed with his emotional life as well as his fears. Other themes are also shown in this film such as revenge, power, psychology and moral ambiguity. This film is also in the crime genre and so many of the same conventions are used as in Inception.

Item 3
Insomnia (2002)- This film explores the flaw of a male character, in this film the character suffers from insomnia. Guilt is another theme in this film and is important in defining the role of morality and we see the protagonists desire for justice which is another theme found in the other two films I am looking at. Al Pacino plays a sympathetic protagonist with a degree of warmth. The genre of the film is also crime.

Item: 4
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Item: 5

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Item: 6

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FM3 - Small-scale Research Project

Here is a a very basic version of a presentation script: 'C grade'

It should only be regarded as a guideline; (references are incomplete: argument is relatively sound: structure is sound)

Presentation Script

How far can the gothic elements used in Tim Burton films classify him as an auteur?

Projector: Display a picture of Tim Burton (item 6)

Speaker:

For any audience that watches a Tim Burton film, it is easy to spot that his personal life is integrated into his films, especially if you know a bit about his biographical past. This can easily describe Burton as an auteur; an auteur is used to distinguish and evaluate good directors from bad ones, and also reflects the director’s personal vision which is easily shown in many of Burtons films. For example, when he was younger he’d draw monsters; “It’s weird, but the only experiences I remember from my childhood are the one which had a major impact,’ Burton claimed. ‘Fearful things, like from a scary movie.” [7] If you know what Burton looks like/dresses like, you can easily see that this is integrated into his films. In ‘Edward Scissorhands’ [1] the similarities in how both Burton and Edward look is quite obvious, for example they both have dark, messy hair; “spiky hands aside, Edward even looks a bit like him,” [7] he also adapts his own personal environment that he grew up in into the film – the suburban town. Even Alice in Wonderland [2] manages to relate to Burton’s personal childhood, and we could even possibly relate him to the Mad Hatter – again based more on the appearance and maybe even some psychological aspects.

Projector: Display clip from Edward Scissorhands - Flashback to being created [1] – 2:06mins.

Speaker:

Edward Scissorhands is a well-known film made by Burton in 1990. Burton easily managed to show some of his own personal life through this film such as the fact he himself was quite socially isolated. Edward was made by his ‘father’ and given scissors for hands, however eventually his father died and so Edward was left in the mansion on his own, isolated from the world around him. To cope with his isolation, he would cut bushes into shapes that showed how he was feeling. “Scissorhands is arguably Burton’s most personal film, a moving portrait of an artistic outsider who cannot touch what he desires without destroying it.” [8] Edward would end up cutting his face and hurting other people and eventually he learnt that he couldn’t get close to anybody; this didn’t help the fact that he was socially unacceptable and maybe even unexplainable.

Projector: Display clip for Edward Scissorhands - entering the mansion [1] – 1:42mins.

Speaker:

This clip shows the mansion for what it used to be and what it is in the present part of the film, even though it hadn’t actually changed that much. The fact that he lives in a dark mansion can immediately show something gothic about the film; it’s dark, empty, isolated and has the simple mise-en-scene such as cobwebs and old, wooden, dusty furniture, along with the lighting which is obviously low key. The slow pan around the room with the light wind blowing the curtains creates an eerie feeling, which is showed well by the cinematography. In the roof of the mansion, there is a slow zoom as Edward comes out of a dark corner, the only lighting shown is that through a hole in the roof which again is a typical convention used by many ‘horror’ films. The use of the shadow on his face as he’s coming out of the corner is usually used to portray a character as ‘bad’ however, as Edward comes into the light the expression on his face tells a completely different story and we soon grasp that Edward is not that of a ‘bad’ character, yet a character that just wants some warmth and comfort. “Johnny Depp brings a feeling of tortured emotion to his almost silent character that lingers long in the memory.” [8] Tortured emotion is a well-known and well-used convention amongst many gothic films; the fact that the definition of a ‘goth’ would be strange, emotionally and socially inapt and even artistic.

This clip also shows the contrast between the mansion that sat on top of a pastel-coloured suburban town. At first Edward is isolated and withdrawn from society, which is greatly shown by the cinematography. For example, the fact he has scissors for hands suggests the fact that he is ‘strange’ compared to societies norms. “Taken from his gothic castle to a colourful and romanticised suburban neighbourhood he changes the lives of the townsfolk forever.” [8]

Throughout many ‘gothic’ films, at least one of the characters is usually socially impaired and find it difficult to ‘fit in’ which is exactly what Edward found when making the transition from the mansion to the suburban town.

Even the town can be seen to be ‘strange’ from a social view; “through visual and narrative cues, the neighbourhood is portrayed as exceptionally absurd. The odd pastel coloured houses are one such cue; as is their constant gossiping behaviour, which is taken to excess.” [9]

Although item 8 argues that it is the townsfolk that are strange and that Edward is actually the most ‘normal;’ “Edward is the most normal person in the movie and it is the twisted townsfolk who are the true monsters, resulting in his loss of innocence,” [8] item 9 argues that it is actually Edward that is strange and not the townsfolk, but only because compared to their normality, Edward is quite absurd and socially inapt.

Projector: Display clip of Alice in Wonderland - Opening scene [2]

Speaker:

Alice in Wonderland (2010) was Burton’s first 3D film and was actually a follow on from the Disney classic. The Underland “an alternate land populated by bizarre characters” [6] is again similar to Burton’s own personal life of his passion with monsters and strange goings on, some of the aspects of the film fit well into conventions of gothic films.

“Alice meets a bizarre-looking white rabbit, and consequently follows him into a hole and into Wonderland. What she finds is, says Burton, ‘a place in decline, overgrown, with a slightly haunted quality to it.” [6] When Alice first goes into the Underworld and meets teedledum and teedledee you can immediately see the simple gothic elements used such as the midst, the freaky trees and even the freaky characters. Although this is a PG rated film and a fairytale I don’t think it would take much to freak children out. Scary looking talking animals in a creepy looking forest that wouldn’t be surprising if the plants started talking gives a great sense of fear and shock to any audience watching this film.

Projector: Display clip of Alice meeting the Mad Hatter [2] -1.00min

Speaker:

This clip really does show the simple gothic elements of any horror movie. “But this 3D Underland, tricked out with curlicues, crooked branches and sad faced freaks” [5] is well showed by the tea party; the misty background with the leafless trees that are practically shadowed into the background with the leaves on the dirty ground, as where the Mad Hatter lives is practically in the middle of a forest. We also see his little house he lives in, but only in the background – the simple elements of this equal to those in Edward Scissorhands [1] as his mansion is on top of a hill, misty and gothic looking. However, the Mad Hatters house is a little wooden shack that is practically falling down, we see a bit of light out of the window – similar to when we see any gothic looking house. The simple mise-en-scene of the film like the long table is a very well used convention in many films that tend to use a big gothic mansion. The broken cups, cutlery and the horrible looking food are also well-used conventions used in films where such mansions have been abandoned or tampered with. We then see another shot of the shack that actually makes it look like an old, abandoned windmill and that actually quite a few lights are on, however it does not change the eerie feeling it gives us, added by the midst, and how gothic it does actually look.

Projector: Display clip of Corpse Bride [3]

Speaker:

Corpse Bride which is “using stop-motion animation to gorgeously ghoulish effect,” [10] Burton makes another PG film that could be out to freak the children out, who obviously would be it’s main audience seeing as it’s about the Underworld populated by the dead.

Projector: Display clip of Corpse Bride [3] – 1.18mins.

Speaker:

The simple storyline of the film about a corpse immediately can be seen as a gothic element. Then, throughout the film and because it is based on the dead, we see other simple things such as the forest with bare branches, leaves on the ground and the midst; elements similar to those in Edward Scissorhands [1] around his mansion and Alice in Wonderland [2] at the Mad Hatters party. The fact that Corpse Bride also has an ‘Underworld’ is similar to Alice in Wonderlands ‘Underland,’ however, the only difference being is that Corpse Brides Underworld is more for the dead instead of freaky beings. The fact that it is for the dead is a major convention for gothic movies.

“The contrast between the grey, drab world of the living and the colorful land of the dead works superbly.” [8] Although the land is a lot more colourful than the Underworld, as it would be in any movie, the land still has its downfalls; of course the forest is going to be dark, scary and have conventions similar to those in many other gothic movies.

Projector: Display pictures of all three films and Burton himself.(item 6,9,11)

Speaker:

In conclusion, Burton worked well as an auteur and managed to integrate a lot of his personal life into his films. Although there are many theories that the auteur theory doesn’t exist, this manages to prove that it does. He easily manages to put across the simple conventions of gothic elements and portrays a distinctive effort of this.

*This is by no means a perfect example and should be considered a 'draft' script

*Images may be included.

*More analysis would improve.

*Argument could be stronger.

FM3 - Small-scale Research Project

For a brief overview of what an auteur is, check out this description here on the BBC site which uses Tim Burton as an example. It is useful to see how to apply the theory across a Directors work, whilst establishing similarities in visual style and thematic links between their films.

Sample Presentation Scripts (Partial) Danny Boyle & David Lynch

Can Danny Boyle’s reliance upon moral narratives qualify him as an auteur?

(Item 4) Play Sunshine DVD extra – “Web Production Diaries – Danny Boyle Introduction” (50 secs)

Speaker:
By definition, an auteur is said to have ‘an intended consistency throughout their work in either style or theme’ (item 14). With this in mind, can we consider Danny Boyle as an auteur by referring to the continued use of moral narratives that we see throughout his work?  This clip gives us an idea of what Danny Boyle wants to create through his films. This particular clip, I felt really introduces some of the themes that need to be recognised when looking at Boyle’s filmography e.g. religion and spirituality. This is suggested when he says ‘getting close to the source of all creation, which for us is that star.’

“I wanted the films to be life-affirming so that you leave the film more alive than when you went in” - Danny Boyle (Item 9)
- Quote displayed on slide

Speaker:
This quote from Danny Boyle, immediately gives some insight into the reasoning behind his narratives and characters. By suggesting that he wants his films to have a significant impact on its viewers, the use of moral narratives would make for a great starting point. If we begin by looking at Boyle’s most successful film, Trainspotting, we are able to see some ways in which Boyle tries to achieve this.

(Item 1) Play opening of Trainspotting – “choose life” sequence (1min20secs)

Speaker:
This ‘Ranted catalogue’ (item 13) that narrates this opening sequence, introduces the audience to main character Renton. It invites the idea that Renton is going to “choose Life” (item 1). Each part of the catalogue is a suggestion of what Renton believes a ‘normal’ life entails – “choose washing machines, cars, compact disc players and electric tin openers” (item 1). It is almost the humdrum aspects of life that reflects being ‘human’. This speech gives an almost Marxist view on what is seen to be ‘normal’. It is aspects of life that people must conform to in order to be considered a respectable part of society; it is what Marx might describe as ‘Capitalist Oppression.’ This gives the audience an array of ideas for the ‘meaning’ of the film.  As the films anti-hero, Renton’s rant is a major part in the moral theme of Trainspotting.   

Speaker:
The depth of Danny Boyle’s characters, however, has in fact been criticised. Ronan Bennett (novelist and screenwriter) describes the heart of Shallow Grave as’Cruel Emptiness’ and the ‘absence of any character to sympathise or engage with made it very hard to find an emotional response’ (item 11). Although this could be said to be a justified argument it could also be suggested that this ‘cold’ representation is exactly the point. Boyle may have been trying to show how such things (in this case, a large sum of money) can tear a friendship apart and completely change a person. This can also be said for the so called ‘largely unsympathetic’ (item 11) characters of Trainspotting. The representation may be exactly how the characters are supposed to be viewed by the audience in order to suggest the consequences of their life-style.  

This use of ‘cold’ characters helps to add verisimilitude to his works, which is another of Boyle’s techniques. Despite often using dreams sequences in his films, i.e. ‘The Worst Toilet in Scotland’ sequence from Trainspotting, Boyle still manages to create a feeling of truth in his films. If we look at A Life Less Ordinary, we can clearly see the fantasy element that is included right from the opening scene. (Takes place in the ‘heavens police department’) (Item 3).  However, Boyle is still able to create that feeling of truth that is so prominent throughout his films. It could also be suggested that Danny Boyle opts for a cinema verite style in some of his films, again helping to keep the films believable.

Play A Life Less Ordinary – Chapter 12, The Deal (Item 3)

Speaker:
It would seem that it is his themes, characters and locations that help to lend this verisimilitude. If we look at this scene from A Life Less Ordinary, we can see how the mise-en-scene helps to keep the narrative believable. The location is simply a road in America and none of the characters stand out particularly, this idea of being ‘ordinary’ is what makes the somewhat supernatural subplot remain believable.

Can David Lynch’s constant use of contrasting women define the director as an auteur?

PLAY:
>CLIP OF THE TWO FEMALE PROTAGONISTS IN MULHOLLAND DRIVE (ITEM3)

SPEAKER:
Again this trademark is present within this film, Mulholland Drive (item 3), where the two female protagonists are polar opposites at the start, and then switch around to be polar opposites differently within the ending. Betty and Rita are the polar opposites of each other within the fact that their ambitions and situations are completely different. Another example of polar opposites is back at ‘Wild at Heart’ within (item 10), as Sailor and Lula are at a metal concert, then Sailor asks them to play Elvis, and they do. This is extremely polar opposite, as you would not expect a rock band to blast out Elvis on demand. Therefore this is another example, which contributes towards the fact that this constant use of the polar opposite technique being linked to the auteurism of David Lynch. 

SHOW: 
>QUOTE FROM (ITEM 8) WWW.THECITYOFABSURDITY.COM
-"She [his sister Margaret] was afraid of green peas. I think it had to do with the consistency and strengths of the outer surface, then the softness of what was inside when you broke the outer membrane. It was a big thing in our family. She'd have to hide them."

SPEAKER:
Now we have seen examples of Lynch’s auteurism, we then go into question the influences for this technique, for example, we question whether Lynch has always been surrounded by the behaviour he envisions within his films. Here we see the depth he has gone into about his sister’s dislike for green peas, an obsession that she seems to have, and he has latched onto. Another example of this is in (item 11) where in an interview Lynch actually states that he ‘laches onto wonderful ideas’; it is as if Lynch bases his films around the obsessive ideas he gets within his head, which refuse to go away. ‘"I didn't have a script. I wrote the thing scene by scene, without much of a clue where it would end." (item 15) This makes us question into how much depth he goes into regarding the contrasting women within his films, and if the subtlety, or maybe it’s an obsession, of the difference of hair colour stands for so much more in Lynch’s auteuristic visions.

SHOW:
>CLIP FROM 'WILD AT HEART' (ITEM 2)
"Absurdity is what I like most in life, and there's humor in struggling in ignorance. If you saw a man repeatedly running into a wall until he was a bloody pulp, after a while it would make you laugh because it becomes absurd. But I don't just find humor in unhappiness - I find it extremely heroic the way people forge on despite the despair they often feel. Like the character in 'Eraserhead' -he's totally confused, yet he struggles to figure things out and do what's best. Isn't that fantastic?" 

SHOW:
>CLIP FROM ERASERHEAD (ITEM 19)

SPEAKER:
We see here that Lynch has gone into more detail about ‘Eddie’ in his film ‘Eraserhead’, it seems that Lynch has an obsession with other peoples obsessions, or idiosyncrasies, and this is what is reflected mostly within his auteurism making it a signature of Lynch’s work. This obsession is also represented within ‘Wild at heart’ (Item 1) where Sailor talks about the man who put cockroaches in his underwear, the world being shown as ‘wild at heart and weird on top’ (item 4) these strange obsessions are those that Lynch litters within his films, obsessions which have no meaning and are there to make the audience question them. 

SHOW:
>CLIP FROM LYNCH INTERVIEW. (ITEM 7)
‘This is a man who has kept his house in the Hollywood Hills largely unfurnished for years so that he "wouldn't have to think about it." He also didn't want people to visit him there. "I was doing things I didn't want them to see," he says. Pressed about what those might be, he will say only: "Things."’

SPEAKER:
Lynch’s behaviour is shown to have always been odd, and he relates the obsession within his films to the obsessions he has with himself.  However, although he uses contrasting women as a signature within his work he also uses ‘many small USA towns, French names, language and culture, red curtains, strobe lighting, references to dreams.’ (Item 9) His films have also been compared to the theories of Lacanism, which is the difference between the real, the symbolic and the imaginary (item 13). 


Therefore, Lynch’s use of contrasting women contributes towards his definition as an auteur, however it is not the only factor that defines him. The fact he was an artist before he started working within the film industry contributes to his auteuristic qualities within making films, and also his idiosyncrasies within his personality add together to make his individuality within his auteurism also.

* These are to be used as guidelines for the structure and content of a good Presentation Script - referencing & arguments are very strong  

FM3 - Small-scale Research Project

Here is an excellent resource for understanding the surrealist films of David Lynch plus links and discussion on auteur theory.

Extract

Andrew Sarris, in "Notes on the Auteur Theory in 1962", demanded a more detailed definition of the term, transforming "la politique des auteurs" into an auteur "theory". He proposes three premises to spot an auteur, the first is "the technical competence of a director as a criterion of value", he says "a great director has to be at least a good director". The second premise is "the distinguishable personality of the director as a criterion of value. Over a group of films, a director must exhibit certain recurring characteristics of style, which serve as his signature". The third premise is a more mystic interior meaning:

"Interior meaning is extrapolated from the tension between a director's personality and his material. This conception of interior meaning comes close to what Astruc defines as mise-en-scene, but not quite. It is not quite the vision of the world a director projects nor quite his attitude to life. It is ambiguous, in any literary sense, because part of it is imbedded in the stuff of cinema and cannot be rendered in non-cinematic terms."

Auteur Theory: Links

Popular Auteur Theory Video Playlist

FM4 - Small-scale Research Project

Guillermo del Toro is a Mexican director, producer, screenwriter, novelist and designer. He is mostly known for his acclaimed films, Blade II, Pan's Labyrinth and the Hellboy film franchise. He is a frequent collaborator with Ron Perlman, Federico Luppi and Doug Jones. His films draw heavily on sources as diverse as weird fiction, fantasy and war.

Del Toro can clearly be seen as an auteur due to his recurring themes and frequent collaborations. In this Culture Show interview from 2006 Mark Kermode discusses the directors work whilst questioning his personal experiences and influences. It can be seen as a good guide for what critical approaches should be applied to your own study and how examples of a directors work can be used to indicate a 'consistency of style'.

Chungking Express (1994): Urban Stories

The narrative of Chungking Express comprises two separate and distinct stories. Although they are thematically related, each has its own central characters and locations. (If you look sharply, however, you can catch glimpses of characters from the second part in a few shots in the first.) The first story harks back to the genre action elements of Wong’s first feature, As Tears Go By (1988), while the second section prefigures the romantic yearnings of his later films Happy Together (1997), In the Mood for Love (2000), and 2046 (2004). Ashes of Time, which Wong finally completed shortly after Chungking Express, is also a genre action picture but teeters on the brink of abstraction. (In the revised 2008 version, Ashes of Time Redux, Wong removes some of the stylistic links to genre, making the narrative even more abstract.) And Fallen Angels (1995), which Wong conceived as the third section of Chungking Express but spun off as a separate feature, is a hyperbolic amalgam of gangster violence and mad love, as ungeneric a noir as could be imagined, and not only because the frequent fish-eye-lensed close-ups turn its cast of beauties, male and female, into a bunch of banana noses. Wong’s reputation as an art-house director rests with the three later, increasingly operatic romances—Happy Together, In the Mood for Love, and 2046—in part because genre films have never been fully accepted within the art-film canon, and in part because Wong’s mastery of sensuous polyrhythms and lush visual and aural textures was not as fully developed in the earlier films.

Minimally plotted, each section of Chungking Express focuses on a lovesick cop who pines for his ex-girlfriend until another woman captures his attention. One might venture that the first section, which opens with one of Wong’s signature step-printed chase sequences, this one through the teeming corridors and blind alleys of Chungking Mansions—a warren of flophouses, cut-rate shops, and import-export “businesses” that is a haven to criminals and the poor of all nations—is something of a blind alley itself, one which Wong drops after less than forty minutes in favor of a more promising romantic situation. It’s as if the film itself is looking for love in the same way that its characters are—by trial and error. The protagonist of the first section is a plainclothes cop, officer no. 223 (Kaneshiro), who is seen running hard in that opening chase scene and in another, shorter chase where he makes a collar, pretty much the only exercise of his profession in the film. Mostly what no. 223 does is obsess about his girlfriend, May, who jilted him on April Fools’ Day. No. 223 has given May until May 1, his twenty-fifth birthday, to come back to him. He marks the days of this countdown by buying cans of pineapple (“May loves pineapple,” he tells us in voice-over), each dated to expire on May 1. If she doesn’t call him on his birthday, the relation­ship will expire as well. It is doubtful that May (whom we never see in the film) knows or, if she did, would care at all about this ultimatum.

But like objects in a dream, the pineapple cans, and their looming sell-by date, condense multiple meanings and associations. May was no. 223’s number-one girlfriend, but he must let go of his love for her (“When did everything start having an expiration date?” he muses) in order to move on to the next stage of his life, a transition marked by his birthday. Then there is the canned pineapple itself, whose mass-produced sweetness is as cloying as the puppy love no. 223 feels. In fact, with May 1 only hours away, he tries to feed some of the syrupy stuff to his dog, who, like May, manifests no interest in such an absurd ritual of devotion. But no. 223’s eating orgy—he downs all thirty cans—transfers his heartache to his tummy, so that in puking up the pineapple he is relieved of the past and immediately fancies himself in love with the next woman he meets.

Hovering over the web of associations that defines the psyche of no. 223 is another countdown: in 1994, the handover of Hong Kong to China was only three years away. Comic anxiety about sex and romance is a front for the deeper fear that political freedom­—an entire way of life—has an expiration date in the near future. The most striking difference between Masculin féminin andChungking Express is the constant political activity and chatter in the former and its total absence in the latter. While this difference reflects a change in youth culture from the 1960s to the 1990s, it doesn’t mean that Wong is an apolitical director. Rather, like Eastern European filmmakers of the Soviet era or, more to the point, like some of his Chinese mainland contemporaries, he smuggles politics into his films through metaphor. Thus the loaded meaning of the expiration date of canned goods.

The darker aspect of the collective anxiety about the handover is reflected in the situation of Brigitte Lin’s blonde-wigged gangster. When someone slips her a can of sardines dated May 1, she gets the message: time is running out for her. If she doesn’t deliver the drugs that her two-timing couriers have stolen, she will die. She and no. 223 run into each other—literally collide—in the opening chase sequence. A smart cop would spot that her wig, dark glasses, and trench coat are a disguise, but no. 223 doesn’t realise then, or when he picks her up in a bar exactly “fifty-seven hours later,” that she is potentially the collar of a lifetime. His vision clouded, like so many of Wong’s male protagonists, by déjà vu—by the nearly forgotten “impact” of their first encounter—he fancies himself in love with her. They wind up in a hotel room, where she instantly falls asleep and he consumes four chef salads (there is hardly a scene in the film that doesn’t involve eating), and then removes her shoes and polishes them before leaving. Their relationship is utterly chaste, and yet the small acts of tenderness they extend to each other free them both—her to take care of business and him to resume his search for love.

Read more: here

New Wave Cinematography

The cinematic stylings of French New Wave brought a fresh look to cinema with improvised dialogue, rapid changes of scene, and shots that go beyond the common 180° axis. The camera was used not to mesmerize the audience with elaborate narrative and illusory images, but to play with the expectations of cinema. The techniques used to shock and awe the audience out of submission and were so bold and direct that Jean-Luc Godard has been accused of having contempt for his audience. His stylistic approach can be seen as a desperate struggle against the mainstream cinema of the time, or a degrading attack on the viewer's supposed naivety. Either way, the challenging awareness represented by this movement remains in cinema today. Effects that now seem either trite or commonplace, such as a character stepping out of their role in order to address the audience directly, were radically innovative at the time.

Classic French cinema adhered to the principles of strong narrative, creating what Godard described as an oppressive and deterministic aesthetic of plot. In contrast, New Wave filmmakers made no attempts to suspend the viewer's disbelief; in fact, they took steps to constantly remind the viewer that a film is just a sequence of moving images, no matter how clever the use of light and shadow. The result is a set of oddly disjointed scenes without attempt at unity; or an actor whose character changes from one scene to the next; or sets in which onlookers accidentally make their way onto camera along with extras, who in fact were hired to do just the same.

Jean-Luc Godard: The Original Auteur

Se7en Magazine:

When one thinks of an auteur director, who is the first that comes to mind? Martin Scorsese? The Coens? Pedro Almódovar? Though these three would all make an iconic filmmakers list, the word “auteur” would have a different meaning, if it existed at all, if it were not for Jean-Luc Godard. He matches both radical themes and eccentric characters with unconventional cinematography – breaking diegesis left, right and centre. During a time when the French film industry could only be described as “Le Cinema du Papa”, Godard rebelled in a massive way, disregarding the traditions of lavish sets, rigid scripts and willowy, upper-class characters; he had his own way of telling a story.

Born in 1930’s Paris to wealthy parents, Godard first began his quest into filmmaking when he co-founded a Gazette du cinema in 1950. A year later, his parents had cut off his financial support and left young Godard with little money but big ideas. Along with contemporaries André Bazin, Jacques Rivette and François Truffaut, Godard began his foray into experimental cinema, forming the nucleus of what we now call “French New Wave directors” or cahiers du cinéma. He dabbled in documentaries and short films before finally making his most successful and iconic feature film: Á bout de souffle.

Roughly translated as "Breathless", Godard’s first feature film, co-written by Truffaut, was released in 1960. It was praised for its uniqueness and innovation; never before has a director used the jump cut so prolifically. He uses back-to-basics filmmaking, abandoning sets in favour of real locations. He rarely uses anything but natural lighting and handheld cameras and intentionally breaks the spell of cinema. He has no problem with revealing cinematic artifice; at one point, our hero, Michel Poiccard is humming a tune while the shot cuts several times despite tune remaining intact. Poiccard also uses direct address. Here Godard uses abstract realism. His themes reflect the existential boredom suffered by the youth of the time, explored through his non-motivated dialogue and fragmented narrative.

Keyframe presents the online debut of Godardloop, a multi-part video essay on the films of Jean-Luc Godard. Produced by Michael Baute and edited by Bettina Blickwede, this video explores a treasure trove of imagery found in dozens of Godard’s features and shorts, grouping them among several distinct themes. 47 films spanning 50 years of filmmaking are transformed into a stream of images that attest to an inimitable talent: an artist who can transform the world simply by the way he looks at it through his camera.

Godardloop - Visual Motifs in Films of Jean-Luc Godard from Fandor Keyframe on Vimeo.

FM4: Postmodern Theory - Useful Notes/Site

This extract on Postmodernism and Consumer Society provides some useful quotes that may be applied to many of the topics for A2 Film and Media this year. 'Fight Club' (FM4) is the most obvious text but these concepts can be applied to other examples of Film/Television/Music throughout the year. Getting to grips with this type of theory and applying it to those examples will set your answers apart from other students who rely upon more descriptive responses.

Working with Frederic Jameson's categories (Postmodernism and Consumer Society)

(1) "the transformation of reality into images" (cf. Debord and Baudrillard)

(2) "the fragmentation of time into a series of perpetual presents"

"the erosion of the older distinction between high culture and so-called mass or popular culture" (Jameson).

Pastiche and parody of multiple styles: old forms of "content" become mere "styles"

stylistic masks, image styles, without present content: the meaning is in the mimicry

"in a world in which stylistic innovation is no longer possible, all that is left is to imitate dead styles, to speak through the masks and with the voices of the styles in the imaginary museum" (Jameson).

No individualism or individual style, voice, expressive identity. All signifiers circulate and recirculate prior and existing images and styles.

The postmodern in advertising: attempts to provide illusions of individualism (ads for jeans, cars, etc.) through images that define possible subject positions or create desired positions (being the one who's cool, hip, sexy, desirable, sophisticated...).

"our advertising...is fed by postmodernism in all the arts and is inconceivable without it" (Jameson)

For more useful notes on postmodern theory visit here.

FM3 - Small-scale Research Project

Here is another good research site. The link will open on an analysis of the Chinese director Zhang Yimou who is another good example of an auteur.

You will find the site useful for many A2 Modules as it has links to several other A-Level Film resources. The posts are written specifically for film students so the language is relevant and precise.

French film-maker Chris Marker dies

The controversial Left Bank Cinema director scored an arthouse hit with Sans Soleil and made the brilliant, haunting, highly influential La Jetée.

• Chris Marker obituary

Chris Marker, the enigmatic master of left-field French cinema, has died at the age of 91. The artist and film-maker was best known for his award-winning documentary Sans Soleil and for his haunting drama La Jetée, charting the quest for memory in the aftermath of a nuclear apocalypse.Marker's other notable pictures include 1985's AK, an essay on the work of the Japanese director Akira Kurosawa, and 1977's A Grin Without a Cat, charting the socialist struggle in the period before and after the 1968 Paris uprisings. He scored an arthouse hit with 1983's Sans Soleil, his elliptical meditation on travel and memory that darted from Japan to Africa via an appreciation of the 1958 thriller Vertigo. Hitchcock's movie, said the director, was the only film "capable of portraying impossible memory, insane memory".

Born Christian François Bouche-Villeneuve, Marker fought for the French Resistance and then cut his teeth as a journalist and a critic for Cahiers du Cinéma. He made his film debut with Olympia 52, a documentary on the 1952 Helsinki Olympics, and went on to become a leading light of the Left Bank Cinema movement alongside his friends Agnès Varda and Alain Resnais. In 1961 he sparked controversy with the documentary Si Cuba, a film that praised Fidel Castro, denounced America and was promptly banned in the US.

Yet Marker's most influential production remains 1962's La Jetée, a 29-minute drama composed almost entirely of still images and tracing one man's attempt to reclaim an image from his past. Marker's poetic, provocative meld of global catastrophe and human frailty went on to inspire the 1987 drama The Red Spectacles and Terry Gilliam's 1995 blockbuster 12 Monkeys.

The teasing, elliptical nature of Marker's work was reflected in the man himself. He refused to give interviews, hated being photographed and claimed to have born in Mongolia despite contradictory sources that suggested he was a native of Paris. All of which, wrote the critic David Thomson, fostered the notion of Marker as "some mysterious if ideal figure, a hope or a dream more than an actual person". He was, Thomson added, "the essential ghost".

guardian.co.uk, Monday 30 July 2012

FM4/MS4: The Male Gaze - Useful Notes/Site

Despite the many references to an intimate and apparently heterosexual relationship with the celebrity in mass media and culture, it is important to stress that the ads are mostly reproduced in women’s magazines. In other words, the representation of gender in the perfume ad formula ads is designed for a female spectator. The typology of the perfume ad formula thus brings up a visual paradox in feminist visual culture. While the ads are designed for a female spectator, they apparently subscribe to the iconography of voyeurism, the commodification of women, even the visual codes of mens' magazines.

For further discussion of 'The Male Gaze' in perfume ads and other issues visit visualculture.blog here.

Or get an overview of the theory here.