Fallen Idol - The Child Star

When considering the career of the ‘child star’ in Hollywood, one cannot consider those brightest lights without the associative concept of the ‘fallen idol’ such as Brittany Murphy, Corey Haim or Judy Garland. The career of the child star is one that often cannot escape the inevitable troubles of adult life itself. This is natural when one might consider that the image of the child is one that is bound up in the idea of “potential and yet does not want them to grow up” (O’Connor page 147). 

The image of the child has become the most dangerous and yet most readily accepted image in today’s Hollywood cinema. “Stars are made for profit” (Dyer page 5) and we cannot escape that the star image, even for the child is "part of the way films are sold" (Dyer page 5). As a result, this marketisation of the child image can be nothing other than an exploitation in the truest terms, since children, under law, cannot see either the fruits of their labour, and exercise little freedom of choice. 

If the employment of the star image for profit is clear, what is more difficult to define is how this marketability works, and the appeal to the audience. It is the idea of spectatorship that provides the most discomfort when considering child stars. If, as has been discussed by Metz, and Lacan, we essentially see stars as objects of desire, an ‘ideal self’ (McDonald page 87) related to the mirror image stage of childhood development, then we would do well to consider exactly what desire a child star represents to us in film. Since Mulvey’s seminal work on the sexual politics of cinema, we have been urged to consider the audience as the subject of the male look, and the female to be the object of the look. In relation to the stars, one might consider the ego ideal of the male star to be acting out the desire of the spectator, and the woman as a “passive sexual spectacle” (McDonald page 88), with the audience in a state of tension between voyeurism and fetishism. It is necessary - though uncomfortable - to consider how this applies to the image of the child star. Although it is certainly a leap of logic to say that the audience views the child star as a passive sexual object (although the promotion of stars such as Britney Spears in her breakout single Hit me baby one more time may provide a different aspect), one might consider how certain desirable qualities of the child are promoted as part of the image. 

A classic example of the rise and fall of the child ‘star image’ is that of Drew Barrymore: aged six when she shot to fame as Gertie in E.T. the Extraterrestrial; put into rehab by the age of 13, having attempted suicide and addicted to cocaine. Although Drew Barrymore’s image did become subsequently sexualised, through her nude appearances in Playboy, later teenage film work such as Poison Ivy was not critically well received during this same period. Clearly then, the image of the rebellious, sexualised teenager was not one that audiences were comfortable with, and coincided with a ‘fall’ in her stardom. In this sense perhaps then it is unacceptable to view the child star as an extension of the male gaze, but perhaps of the ‘adult gaze’, a child, a child star, represents hope and potential. One might witness this marketing ploy in the text of the child as the ‘next big thing’ - an endless production line of hopes and dreams for the adult audience to believe in. For every Drew Barrymore we may see a Chloe Moretz or Kiernan Shipka in today’s society, the child stars for the new generation.  For the audience in the case of Drew Barrymore, perhaps the unravelling of the ego ideal off screen contrasted with the pure, innocent ideal of the Hollywood child star, and was too close to an uncomfortable truth, that the innocence of the child in Hollywood is an illusion, and in fact, the industry often sexualises young actors and actresses, such as Natalie Portman in Leon, or in the very tragic case of Corey Haim.

It would appear that the pleasure of the adult’s spectatorship of the child star cannot stray too far from the formulaic idea of innocence and potential. It is as though an unspoken bond is made between the adult viewer and the child star, the pleasure of reliving a lost innocence, to ‘grow up’ together, in an idealized way. It is this that I think is the guiding principle for the selling of the image of the child star to the audience, which in essence, enjoys the reliving of hope, of growing up, encompassing as it does the discovering of their own bodies, love, happiness, sadness and sexuality. The audience, lacking as it does its own idealised version of childhood, fills it up with their own desires, living each moment. Or as  O’Connor puts it “it is this very emptiness to represent whatever is required by their audience that most comprehensively determines and defines the child star” (O'Connor page 37). Perhaps, it is for this reason that the child star is tainted with sadness, washed up by later teens, unable to appeal in the same way, and usurped by new hope. Hollywood knows that this symbol of the child as potential and hope is marketable and bankable, and is exploits it, and the child, to its fullest extent.

References 

O'connor, J., The Cultural Significance of the Child Star, (2008), Routledge

McDonald, Paul. “Star Studies.” In Approaches to Popular Film. Joanne Hollows and Mark Jancovich, eds. Manchester: Manchester U. P., 1995, 79-97.

Dyer, R,. Heavenly Bodies, Film Stars and Society, (1986), St Martin's Press, New York

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[2] O’connor page 37

'Look Closer' - The Male Gaze in American Beauty

Sam Mendes' classic 1999 melodrama American Beauty is a shining example of how, through looking relations, the female figure is subjectivized and held up for the audience's voyeuristic pleasure. The woman in cinema as put by 'Doane' is an "enigma"with the images" written of the woman but not for her. For she is the problem" (Doane 1982 p.75) Although the male looking relation is developed throughout the film, (later through the use of video camera surveillance and window framing of Jane - Played by Thora Birch - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GNSEWWJLHb0) a memorable example is the gymnasium dance scene http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8a90BAwsvlA where we see a sexualised teenage 'Blonde Bomshell' seared into the mind as the object of desire for the Male protagonist and thus, by extension, the audience. Here we see scophophilia in full flight: initially the long shot of the gymnasium, from the man's point of view, views what is clearly a mundane and formulaic dance scene. As soon as the object is revealed, framed by other young females, we see a complete change in the editing, performance and sound in the scene. Firstly, we cut to a shot of the protagonist sitting in the crowd, surrounded by family, and then the shot switches to his point of view, resulting in a long zoom shot, (0.42secs in the clip) which relegates the rest of the girls, gymnasium crowd into the visual periphery, and makes us sure that the blonde teenage cheerleader is the object of desire. Next the point of view flips to the girl, looking up at Kevin Spacey's character, who is aghast and completely entranced, followed by another point of view shot, (from the male), with the girl, centre of frame, and the remainder of the background blurred and out of focus. The use of zoom clearly shows the 'to be looked at ness' (Mulvey 1975  p.17) of the girl, as well as zoom on the male, to highlight his is the desire, and she is the object. This is furthered by the use of lighting: a spotlight falls on the girl, singling her out, framing her in a way seen in classic bond films, and again emphasising the female as the object of desire. From here on we see the cheerleader dancing provocatively to a change of musical score, a rythmic, minimalist piece one might associate with snake charming or bellydancers. From here we see a mix of fetishism (close ups of the girl's legs and miniskirt), and scopophilia, with a shot of the male protagonist on his own, himself lit in an empty gymnasium. Crucially, in the editing, we see the look of the classic 'looking back over the shoulder' shot (shot with Hayworth, Monroe, and any number of Hollywood sirens on the red carpet) not just once, but reversed and repeated three times, coupled with the winking suggestion of implicit action of the girl, a classic cinematic 'come and get me'. If the audience was left in any doubt of their own complicit nature in this episode, an extreme close up of Kevin Spacey's eyes followed by an eyeline match shot (1min27). Finally, we see a careful use of editing emphasising the fetishistic desires of the male, when the young Angela begins to unzip her top to show her breasts - presented as glitch type shots - repeating a number of times close up, and in medium close up, and eventually revealing a shower of rose petals.

Clearly the tropes of voyeurism, fetishism and scopophilia are used in the piece, highlighting what Doane describes not only "as the image of desire but as the desirous image" (Doane 1982 p.77). In this scene, the desires of the male protagonist to undress and to 'have' the female, leads to a projection, whereby the id (in Freudian terms), desires the girl of questionable age, initially dancing in a non-provocative way, but who eventually becomes the canvas for the desire of the man. The man, in this sense, cannot help but explore this through the projection of his own sexual desires into the provocative, flirtatious and smutty dancing of the girl, touching herself and undressing in a teasing manner, complicit in his own desire. This sexualisation of the girl by the man becomes a theme throughout the film. It is left up to question whether this projection of the girl as complicit in the desire (through the wink), is a truth or merely a mechanism of the man's self preservation - a defence mechanism of the man's ego, convincing himself that in fact, she wants it too. In this sense it is possible to see what is perhaps one of the great patriarchal fallacies; the sexualisation of the female as the 'fault' of the female. Although this is still an idea prevalent in many aspects of society worldwide (the accusation that women dressing provocatively invites attention), it is one that is wrong. Still, we see this idea persistent throughout cinema, and is a clear example of an attack on the woman, by means of fetishising, or voyeurising her "to circumvent her threat" (Mulvey 1975 p.17). The medium of cinema is one that builds the way female is to be looked at into the spectacle itself. In this case, the female is spotlighted, focused upon, zoomed upon artificially, fetishised and repeated. Furthermore, through the eroticised form of dance, the cinema again emphasises "The image of woman as (passive) raw material for the (active) gaze of man" (Mulvey 1975 p. 17) much like Demi Moore's character in Striptease. However,  one might further comment that the problem of the female in this scene is not resolved, and that the man does not fully possess the object of his desire , and therefore neither does the audience possess the woman (we are not show the female's nakedness). Yet, like almost all 'problems' of the woman in cinema, the male (and ergo the audience), does solve it, culminating in the resolution of the seduction of the teenage girl, and the baring of her breasts on screen, "Demystifying her mystery"(Mulvey 1975 p.13).

A more difficult question to answer in this scene would be that of the notion of female spectatorship. Doane hypothesises the female perspective as a form of "narcissism". The image is the woman, and the distance required for voyeuristic pleasure is negated as the female on screen is equivalent to the female off screen. One might see that the image is focused here around the male gaze, and thus assert that the woman has to reassign her gender identification to the male to act out his own fantasy, creating a narcissistic love of the self, however, the central issue I feel is one of power. More than the man possessing the woman in this scene, the female possesses the man, his thoughts, gaze, his mind. In fact it is the man who is demystified, for there is no doubt as to what the man's central focus, and carnal desire is. Perhaps in this sense the lack of revulsion a female may have to this scene, is the pleasure in exerting this power over the male in an embodied sense. In fact, rather than the joke being on the female, the image only serves to subvert the man, visually agog and hanging on the every movement of his own fantasy, rather than the reality of the situation around him. Perhaps, if the pleasure of the female spectator is in the ultimate knowledge of control of the man, for even in classical hollywood, the destruction of the female, or the possession of her through sex, is not in fact the last will of control over the woman but for the female, but ironically, the possession of man's desire, his will, his emotions, his very way of looking. The image focused on the female, therefore relegates the man to the irrational, the animal or in even the insane, locked into a never ending state of anxiety, to have, to need, to want and to destroy, the decline of man viewed "with sentimental regret" (Mulvey, 1975 p.18). I suggest that this use of cinema to subjectify the female, as a vehicle for projected desire, is a representation of the way that our patriarchal society seeks to control and to dominate the woman, and it is in this strife that the man reveals himself as the weakness, and himself the problem.

References

Mulvey, L., (1975) Visual Pleasure and the Narrative Cinema, Screen, autumn edition 16.3

Doane, M.A., Film and the Masquerade: Theorising the female spectator Screen (1982) 23 (3-4): 74-88

Continuity Editing in the Opening Scene of Drive

N.B. the scene I am referring to can be found here - http://www.dailymotion.com/video/xqei6w_drive-opening-scene-gateway_shortfilms

“Editing supported by specific cinematic strategies and mise-en-scene, was used to ensure narrative continuity” (Bordwell 1993 p 15). The influence of editing on the narrative continuity is seen in the opening sequence of Drive, which eshews the typical bombastic car chase scene, for an altogether more focused and character centric take on a getaway scene.

During the opening scenes of the film Drive, the audience is given an instant insight into the focus of the entire film, the mysterious character of the Driver, who throughout the piece, is in total control.

Rythmically, the editing emphasizes the character’s control. In terms of the overall rhythm of the piece Bordwell argues that a steady metrical pace can be obtained by making all of the shots approximately the same length” (Bordwell 1993, p10). This is certainly true of the opening scene of Drive, which sees two distinct rhythmic patterns deployed effectively with shots in the 2mins 40 typically lasting around 4 seconds (with slightly longer added to the facial close ups). This pacing significantly changes when the helicopter appears and the driver applies the accelerator, leading to a number of fast 1-2 second cuts. In this case, the rhythm of the editing is matched by the action on screen, and the character’s control over it (through the car).

Although the opening sequence is told in a linear fashion, so that the editing does not jump in terms of temporality, it involves a complex use of shots. Unlikely fairly run of the mill getaway scenes where the main focus is on the action of the car chase shot from outside of the car, this has a highly personalized feel to it, with the main focus being the cold, mysterious protagonist, showing a total mastery of his own emotions in the face of stress, in a modern day example of how the Kuleshov effect may be employed. This is done through the repeated use of hyper close up shots of the protagonist in the car, focusing on his emotions (or lack thereof), and the frequent use of gaze matching shots. Furthermore, the use of shots showing the protagonist through the rear view mirror, emphasise the “mutation from seeing subject to seen object”, in that the protagonist is watched by others (the police).

In terms of action, we can perhaps split the scene into two broad sections, the section where the car is stationary, and the section after the car begins to move, and with this in mind we see the use of extreme close ups and POV shots which suggest

During the opening minute we are presented with a great deal of close up shots of the driver in profile looking off screen, followed by eyeline matches of the Driver to establish a sense of place. This is employed 4 times in the opening minute. Certainly one could say that through the sequence of close ups and gaze matching, the Kuleshov effect could easily be applied. The Kuleshov effect argues that only through the editing can the audience infer a sense of spatial locale, particularly when there is an absence of an establishing shot (Bordwell 1993, p12).  The protagonist in question rarely shows any discernible emotion, giving very little indication to what is going on in the sequence on there own, however, in the context of other shots, we are aware of what is going on. Furthermore, there is not real sense of an establishing shot in the sequence until the 8^th shot in the sequence, which is from the character’s POV, establishing that we are outside of a compound.

Although Noel Carroll argues that the Kuleshov experiment is not coherent with POV editing, as “the Character’s face is not …emotionally amorphous, merely awaiting emotive shaping from ensuing shots”, (Orpen 2003, p29) there is an argument to say that the principle of the Kuleshov effect – “that POV shots do not necessarily reveal what the character is thinking” (Orpen 2003, p30).  Certainly we can see that an interest is piqued in the driver, but emotionally, the film seems to be at pains to say that this is a person who is mysterious, cold, and lacking emotion. In that sense, it is difficult to see how the Kuleshov effect could not work in this situation.

Once the car has moved the editing moves towards an even greater use of close ups and gaze matching shots. Frequently we see close ups of the Driver’s emotionless face concentrating on the road ahead, to the right of the frame, often followed by a point of view shot looking out onto the road through the windscreen. This is used a total of 16 times once the car has started moving. As we see the police helicopter come into view, the close ups begin to change angle, preferring a more front on angle followed by a point of view shot of the driver, to perhaps give emphasis to the fact that he is the man under surveillance, he is being pursued, and perhaps framed as the police might frame a suspect in an issued photo.

Again the use of extreme close up shots does not exactly follow conventional patterns of continuity editing in terms of the pacing of the shots. One might expect a wide establishing shot to be lingered on for a great length of time and close up shots to be for shorter spaces of time (Bordwell 1993 p16), however, in the Drive sequence the hyper close up shots are frequently lingered on for a number of seconds longer than one might normally expect, again emphasizing the driver as the focus of the on screen action.  The editing here, as discussed previously, provides our frame of reference for what is happening in the scene, with the close ups followed by eyeline match/POV shots that ‘create’ the narrative, which otherwise would be unclear.

One final key aspect of this opening sequence is the aspect of graphic matching between cuts. In adapting an almost film noir take on mise-en-scene composition (particularly in the use of mirror and low lighting), between all shots, as an audience the editors have ensured the narrative continuity as mentioned by Bordwell.

References

David Bordwell and Kristin Thompson, 'The Relation of Shot to Shot: Editing' in David Bordwell and Kristin Thompson, Film Art: An Introduction 4th ed. (New York: University of Wisconsin Press/McGraw Inc., 1993)

Extract from Valerie Orpen, Film Editing: The Art of the Expressive (London: Wallflower, 2003)

The Genre Film

The idea of Genre in film is one that is shifting and not well defined. Certainly, when considering what makes a ‘Genre Film’, it may seem at first particularly easy to focus on certain stylistic or iconographic aspects of the film, but a closer inspection reveals certain problems with this means of analysing film. For Andre Bazin the Genre film centres around the idea of ‘the myth’, and in describing the Western as the ‘American Film par Excellence’, he focused on the universal, the popular notion of good versus evil (Hutchings, 1995, p62). Furthermore, Bazin focused on the changing nature of the Westen Genre, noting a 30s classical perfection that then led to Baroquish tendenceies, thus highlighting the important aspect of genre theory, that in terms of the time in which it was produced, the important aspect is not the production process, but rather what the Western is saying about society itself in that period (Hutchings, 1995 p62). Warshow also posits a similar line, that the most important aspect of a ‘Genre Film’ is its cultural and historical specificity (Hutchings, 1995, p63). However, more recent writing on the notion of Genre (Grant 2006 p4-10) has placed a little more emphasis on the conventions (such as the mise-en-scene or narrative flashbacks), setting (i.e. space being a sci-fi), and iconography (pinstripe suits and hats in the gangster film), in defining genre (Grant, 2006, p10-12).  Significantly, this structuralist view of film focuses on how these certain feautres produce meaning in the film on the part of the audience, who expect to see certain aspects of a genre film as part of their cultural consensus.

If the definition of the Genre is based around the audiences expectations rather than the cultural and historical specificity of the film, then it is necessary for us as critics to try to understand where this consensus on genre conventions come from. How did we know that the bad guy in a Western always dressed in black, or that the pinstripe suit was the uniform of the Italian-American wise-guy gangster? Received knowledge of film from media outlets, discussion, study and word of mouth surely plays a part for the modern day viewer, as well as the fact that nowadays, the viewer would feel that a Genre film had broken the “implicit contract” (Grant, 2006, p21), that we expect of a film were these aspects not there.  Certainly with Genre films such as the Gangster film or the Sci-fi film a huge part of the draw of the film is the satisfaction in the production and recognition of these genre conventions. However, returning to the problem of definition, Genre theory, would again struggle to identify how these expectations have developed. Perhaps then it is necessary to return to the idea of ‘the myth’ in film being the key aspect of genre, as asserted by Bazin. Certainly, we can see the idea of good versus evil as key to Westerns, however, the problem here is two-fold, firstly that this idea is too general to be considered relevant to the Western genre (since this idea of good versus evil can be seen in sci-fi epics e.g Star Wars), and that the idea of who the good guy and the bad guy is doesn’t always translate culturally.

In terms of Genre theory, I think that it is easier to say which film belongs to a Genre, rather than to define the Genre itself. Certainly the nature of the Genre shifts and is subject to cultural and societal influences, but I think on a personal level, the idea of genre is more useful in providing a shorthand for describing a film to other potential viewers than it is for providing any real critique. Furthermore, the nature of Genre in terms of film, as well as other art forms such as music, is ever changing, and more and more I believe to driven by the commercial pressures of marketing and finance. Films such as The Expendables easily fit into the ‘Big budget action’, and ‘The Avengers Assemble” fit into superhero films, and ‘Paranormal Activity’ into the horror genre often because Marketing executives promote them as such. In fact, even when considering films such as ‘Let the Right One In’, we may reflect on how marketing and commercial interests strip down the original genre fluidity of the film into a more palpably ‘Horror’ film, in order for the average horror film goer to quickly engage with the piece. Furthermore, when films are deemed to be 'genre busting', quickly we will see radio and newspaper coverage positing the creation of a new 'genre', often made up as a hybrid of two existing ‘genres’, in order to communicate effectively what you are going to spend your money on. While this is a commercial driven critique of genre theory in film, that is not to say that the audience does not participate in this. Certainly, if the potential viewer had no idea what a horror film was, it is unlikely that the description will produce any reaction at all. In this sense, the marketeers of film rely on the viewers own personal experience of film.The audience watches a film, is then being told it is a horror through media outlets, which solidifies and simplifies the viewer’s own perception of the film. This is then played on in the marketing of new films in that ‘genre’ thus creating reinforcement of the genre construct and a film classification feedback loop.

References

Peter Hutchings 'Genre Theory and Criticism' in Joanne Hallows and Mark Jancovich, eds., Approaches to Popular Film (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1995)

Barry Keith Grant, Film Genre: From Iconography to Ideology, (London: Wallflower, 2006)

Lynch, Auteurism, and the Myth of the Author

David Lynch's directorial films such as, Wild at Heart, Blue Velvet and Mulholland Drive offer us good examples for discussing the difficult subject of the author in Film. From watching and experiencing films such as these, the audience may often be able to pinpoint the very 'Lynch' like qualities of the film, which as we know, boil down to some rather glaring stylistic qualities that are shared between his films. Noticably the juxtaposition of jarringly different music in the opening scenes, melodrama, hyper close up shots (showing some sort of imagery) are some aspects that we may decipher to be very Lynch-like. This focus on the 'autuer-structuralism'' (Crofts 1998, p89) may give rise to the idea that these stylistic decisions might imbue on Lynch the position of an author. This is however a false assumption. Particularly, the elevation of the director of the piece disempowers the 'authorship' of say the set designer, scriptwriter or the producer in the collaborative process of film-making, in the sense that the director cannot fully control the individual's organic interpretations of the original piece of film writing, based on their own cultural, creative and societal skills, experiences and beliefs. Sure, a director may well modify the product of these, criticise and harmonise these together, but he does not have ownership of the crew's thoughts and ideas in relation to the concept or idea. As Croft posits, the challenge to Autheur theory is the idea of communication, and that later theory has criticized the idea of a "transcendental subject in full control of the meanings she or he somehow directly communicates to the reader". (Crofts 1998, p.89) Furthermore, as I personally watched clips from Lynch directed films, I noticed a number of significant differences in the pieces (particularly when considering Inland Empire), where opening credits were removed, human faces were blurred out, and the lack of a jarring juxtaposition of the narrative, and music. What we see to be structural authorship, based on clear similarities between work, is actually a rejection of the problem of difference in the acceptance of homogeneity through the director. Perhaps, though, as argued by the writers of Cahiers du Cinema, the authorship lies in the pure aesthetic of the mise-en-scene - in essence the 'style' of the piece. I think that in considering this standpoint, it must not be forgotten that, the Cahiers' point of view was inherently political (To elevate film into the same landscape as fine art), in describing the similarities between art forms asserting that as much as the painting has an creator, the film therefore must have an author - the director. However, by limiting the film to the style of the mise-en-scene, we see then that the supposed author has appropriated and interpreted the idea, an idea that, prior to his interjection, was perhaps not his own. A tricky idea then is that of creation vs interpretation. For me, at the bottom line of authorship lies in the creation of the idea - surely the true author is the holder of the idea, the 'work', and therefore anyone who employs this idea interprets and influences the piece based on their own culture and experiences. This applies to the director, the producer, the scriptwriter. I firmly believe that there are no 'original ideas', since these ideas are formed out of our cultural and societal existence. Barthes' 'The Death of the Author' (1967, '77), implies that the focus should then be on the reader or audience, who populates the work with meaning, and this is true, in the sense that there never was, or has been an 'author' in the classical sense (Barthes, 1967, '77). So why do we continue to foster the myth of the director as the author, and particularly in reference to Lynch, why are there, Lynch 'fans'? I think the answer lies in the idea of belonging and expectation, based on a cultural reverence of the individual and the name. As Croft points out, the name David Lynch cannot be void of meaning, and taps into our semantic memory, providing associations and expectations of a piece of work he is attributed to. This point is further developed in Foucault's writings - "an author's name performs a certain role with regard to narrative discourse, assuring a classificatory function...It establishes a link between the texts."(Foucault, 1969, p.107). This is certainly true of Lynch, one cannot say the name David Lynch without bringing to mind a swathe of cultural and filmic references, often classified together. This however is the crux, of the matter, in that David Lynch himself is no longer the author of these films, but the works are appropriated by the audience to give reference to a single figure, rather than the author being the single owner of 'The Work'. In fact, the author is in fact a "projection...of the operations we force texts to undergo...the continuities we recognize"  (Foucault, 1969 s p.110).
The film going experience is said to be 'a suspension of belief', I believe that in the reverence of the director such as Lynch, we are trusting an almost God-like figure, who will deliver to us the pleasure of the satisfaction through the use of particular techniques, particular to the director's style of film making. The suspension of belief requires trust, and we place that in a person attributed to the film, often the director or perhaps even an actor. In essence the audience are the subjects and we place our faith, or even our love into the piece. Furthermore, since we are not only the subject of the film, but also the subject of marketing and advertising strategies, we are constantly reminded who directed the film that we enjoyed, and this is particularly focused around the cult of the individual. Since a film title is never the same twice, marketing strategies focus on the constant (the director), who, since the beginning of franco-american auteur theory, has been the predominant figure in film theory in the 20th century. This pre-occupation with the director is a cultural construct, based around our need to hang our beliefs on an individual that we trust, as we would a God, or perhaps in a Freudian sense, a Mother. This belief and trust in the individual director's creative influence on a piece of work, should not be confused with authorship however, as it is clear that the director can never be the sole creator of the moving picture as a piece of art.

References

Roland Barthes, 'The Death of the Author' (1967) in Barthes' Image, Music, Text. (Glasgow: Fontana 1977)

Stephen Crofts, 'Authorship and Hollywood' in John Hill and Pamela Church Gibson (eds.) The Oxfod Guid to Film Studies (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998)

Michel Foucault, 'What is an Author?' (1969) in Paul Rainbow (ed.) The Foucault Reader (New York: Pantheon Books, 1984)