Every movie needs a director, but only some directors are auteurs. Critics first identified this category in the mid-20th century, and it is still widely celebrated and debated.
Some people love the personality that auteurs bring to the big screen. Others find them pretentious and problematic. So what exactly is an auteur, and which directors have earned this label? Stick around to find out.
What is an Auteur?
‘Auteur’ is French for ‘author’ and describes a director who is firmly in artistic control of the films they make. This includes everything from the plot and themes to how each shot is composed, the score, and more.
An auteur of movies is equivalent to an author of novels. They have a style that’s distinctly their own, like a fingerprint. It can be experimental and avant-garde or more conventional. The main point is that they’re the one calling the shots.
Of course, movie-making is a collaborative process. Even the most headstrong auteurs need other people to make their creative visions a reality. That’s why directors tend to work with the same teams. It’s also the main criticism leveled at the term over the years. How can a director be called an ‘author’ of a movie if they had hundreds of people helping them?
Despite this minor controversy, it’s a widely used and accepted term. It’s also helpful for drawing a line between jobbing directors and ‘true’ artists. Some filmmakers are happy to turn up, take the paycheck, and disappear behind the camera. They’ll let studio bosses have their way, and won’t try to assert themselves creatively. Auteurs want to show the audience something unique and express themselves in a bold, unapologetic manner.
Characteristics of an Auteur
Auteur is an umbrella term that covers every genre of filmmaking. As such, there’s no one thing connecting the movies made by directors in this category. The link comes from the fact that the person in the director’s chair is the driving artistic force of the project.
You’ll find auteurs behind big-budget blockbusters as well as indie releases. It’s a category that covers high-energy, mainstream movies from Baz Luhrmann, surreal and unsettling films from David Lynch, and low-fi mumblecore flicks from Joe Swanberg.
Auteurs are common in international cinema. In fact, with its roots in the French New Wave, some of the earliest auteurs were European rather than American. Back then, it was about breaking the mold and throwing out the movie-making rule book. Today, an auteur like Greta Gerwig can turn indie coming-of-age excellence into a career at the top of the box office. Meanwhile, old masters like Ridley Scott are notable for taking a clinical approach to mainstream moviemaking. He presents sprawling stories set in space or on ancient battlefields in a way that’s artistically interesting and polished while still being commercial.
Rules of Auteur Theory
There’s a strand of film theory specifically dedicated to viewing directors as the authors of films they make. First proposed by André Bazin and his contemporaries in the 1940s, this approach to movies impacts every other aspect of analysis.
There are three main components used to single out auteurs on this academic level:
- Recognition: First, there’s the clear and instant association between a director’s name and particular stylistic or thematic aspects of their films. For Quentin Tarantino, this is made up of snappy dialogue, retro and idiosyncratic soundtrack choices, and his recurring theme of trapped female characters.
- Transparency: Next, there’s the conspicuous role of an auteur in their projects. They don’t hide their personalities, politics, or artistic preferences. We can see their hand guiding every frame and hear their voice in every line of dialogue.
- Consistency: Finally, there’s the consistent connection that links their movies, even if they are superficially different. This might mean using the same actors time and again, picking specific shots and editing techniques, or favoring certain color palettes and lighting. Again, it’s that clear fingerprint of a director plastered on the films in their back catalog.
Noteworthy Auteur Directors
Auteurs have existed since the dawn of the movie industry but only got this label later. Here are a few examples of directors who deserve to be called auteurs and what makes them significant.
Fritz Lang
If you study film, you’ll come across Fritz Lang early on. There’s a good reason for this. His 1927 masterwork Metropolis is a gorgeous, sprawling film. It used innovative special effects and camera techniques. It took the German expressionist movement to new heights, bending reality with its sci-fi sensibilities. It continues to leave a mark on pop culture today, praised by critics and influencing other art.
Aside from this career-defining creative success, Lang is also an auteur who successfully switched to Hollywood. This move wasn’t without compromises, and studio interference took its toll over time. Some directors can cope with or work around it better than others.
Alfred Hitchcock
Psycho, Rear Window, The Birds—few directors have a back catalogue as impressive as Alfred Hitchcock’s. It is equally rare that such a distinct style and creative vision also flourished at the box office.
Hitchcock is all about pushing boundaries. His presence as an auteur is often expressed on a technical level, such as in the case of Rope. It plays out in real-time, and the edit makes it seem like four seamless shots. The camera movements, actors, and background elements are all carefully choreographed. He also pushed the envelope in terms of taste. In Spellbound, love, sex, death, and mental health are explored and exploited to shock and surprise us.
Jean-Luc Godard
The French New Wave had many members, but Jean-Luc Godard was the most respected and influential. His love of cinema shaped his films and paved the way for directors like Quentin Tarantino.
In 1960, we got À Bout de Souffle (or Breathless), in which Goddard broke new ground with jump cuts, semi-improvised dialogue, and regular references to other movies. Goddard’s auteur instincts made history by rebelling against the status quo of movie-making.
Steven Spielberg
Spielberg continues the tradition of the auteurs who came before by being a creative trailblazer. Jaws birthed the high concept summer blockbuster in 1975, and gave him the clout to dominate the industry for the next two decades.
The scale and escapism of Spielberg’s best films are unique. E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial and Jurassic Park are movie magic, pure and simple. His family-friendly hits also contain a surprising seam of horror that makes them instantly recognizable.
Of course, many other people were responsible for making these masterworks. Even so, without Spielberg as the author, the most important ingredient would be missing.
Martin Scorsese
Scorsese is famed for his gangster movies, which share elements like voiceover exposition, decade-spanning stories, and violence as his authorial calling card. However, he’s an auteur who won’t stick to one style or genre. He’s just as happy shooting the mean streets of New York as he is making documentaries about Bob Dylan. The breadth and variety of his creativity are enviable. When he’s at his best, the technical aspects of his movies are impeccable.
Hayao Miyazaki
Animation is a movie niche with more auteurs than almost any other. Hayao Miyazaki is the most consistently acclaimed director working within it. He is an unashamed perfectionist and demands the same from everyone he works with. This has given us all-time greats, including My Neighbor Totoro, Princess Mononoke, and Spirited Away.
Wes Anderson
“I see that Wes Anderson has made his film again”. It’s a joke that goes around whenever we get a new movie from a man with an instantly recognizable style. There’s a look and feel to his projects that’s completely individual. There might be a lot of similarities within the Wes Anderson canon, but no one else is giving us this.
Anderson is also interesting from a commercial perspective. He has a core group of fans who will see anything he makes. As long as his films’ budgets stay between $15-$30 million, they’ll turn a profit.
Bong Joon-ho
Bong Joon-ho is unafraid to do things differently. His authorial trademark is making movies with a political message, packaging this in a way that’s palatable to mainstream audiences. Critical and commercial success with Parasite established him as an auteur with the golden touch. If this was your first contact with his work, his back catalog is worth plundering.
Christopher Nolan
Christopher Nolan is another auteur who is also very bankable. His movies have made billions, and he rose to prominence by directing a comic book franchise. At the same time, he holds all the cards from a creative perspective.
One of his hallmarks is using IMAX to elevate action set pieces to new heights. He can also tell complex, dark, and intelligent stories while remaining accessible. There’s also a shared thematic consistency in that they can be overly sentimental. Inception, Interstellar, and Tenet are full of twists and turns, with action set pieces backed up by an emotional core. Not many directors working with budgets in the hundreds of millions of dollars trust audiences to follow along.
Wrapping Up
Movies are at their best when the person behind the camera has something to say. Artistic expression makes cinema significant, whether small and subtle or big and brash.
It’s also important to recognize that everyone working on a film shares in authoring it. The amount of control they have when collaborating varies, but their value doesn’t.
