Select either Michel Gondry, Alfred Hitchcock, David Cronenberg or Pedro

Almodovar (or any other auteur with negotiation with your tutor) and provide a

justification of how they could be considered a film auteur.

Auteur Theory

Autuer Theory is a theory to explain a director is one of the major facts that

could make the motion of film more creative and artistic.“A true film auteur is

someone who brings something genuinely personalto his subject instead of

just producing a tasteful, accurate but lifeless rendering of the original

material.” Quoted from Francois Truffaut. when they are making their film it

reflects their own style, techniques of shooting, lighthing, angles and the most

important thing the interior meaning of the movie that the director had made.

Sometimes audience can be easily recognize the film by just looking on the

skills and themes that usually used by the director of the movie.

Around 1950s, a group of French critics developed “ La Politique Des Auteurs”

in the Paris- Based journal named as Cahiers du Cinema by Eric Rohmer,

Francois Truffaut, Jacques Rivette and Jean- Luc Godard. The reason that “

La Politique Des Auteurs” had made is because of politically they want to

oppose that film is not just for social or political concern, which the

progressive force had erased all those films in that time after the war. This

topic had been argued for years and they feel that within the films, it should

reflect a director’s style and vision. The co- founder of the Cahiers, Andre

Bazin stated that: auteur theory was a way to let director find out their own

personal style in a artistic way as a “benchmark” as this is a standard

references for the director for their continuous literary works. Besides,
Alexandre Astruc defined that Directors should have the concept of camera-

stylo, like a writer using his pen and writing out the film that is a lively product

rather than a storybook.

Francois Truffaut, the person that leading French New Wave and

written the article about A Certain Tendency in French Cinema. In the article

he had stated that film is an art to let the director to expressing out his own

ideas and opinions. He recommended that if the director had achieved the

criteria of knowing how to develop his/ her own style of film to the audiences

then he/ she should therefore be called as an auteur.

Francois Truffaut had mentioned that he did not believe in “ Tradition

of Quality” as that is just a theory or another version of literature, it is pointless

that a director did not inserted it own vision into the film. He feel that the

director is the one that handle the word of becoming an “auteur” which there

are the chance for the director to shown their own talent to their audience with

the personal skills they have so he feel that “there are no good and bad

movies, only good and bad directors” with conducting the work as an director.

The French New Wave is founded by those directors who rejecting “

Tradition of Quality” in the late 1950s and they created new concept known as

a tendency- (psychological realism). They focus more on the progress of

making films, editing, shooting and the techniques they used to create a real

movie rather than just story telling. With the help of French New Wave,

directors like Alfred Hitchcock and Jean Renoir produced their own films with

distinct styles and themes.

“auteur theory” to United States. He revolutionized the theory that did not

further developed by France and he entitled the term” auteur theory” on a

Auteur Theory article. He mentioned in his perch at The Village Voice that he

had used auteur theory to further his research on filmmaking and the study of

mise-en-scéne. In the notes of Adrew Sarris had written, he separated the

premises of the auteur theory into three central aspects that identified the

expression of the director. Firstly, the techniques that used by the director to

express his own” vision”. Secondly, the personal style of the directors used as

the “benchmark” when goes into filmmaking. Lastly, the interior meaning that

the director wants to develop to the audience.

Alfred Hitchcock, a director, producer and screenwriter that born in

London since August 13, 1899. Before he enters into the film industry in 1920,

he started with working as an engineer. In year 1939, he went for his first

academy award for best picture with his first film that named as Rebecca.

Hitchcock created more than 50 films, including the Vertigo, The Birds,

Strangers on the train, Psycho, and Rear Window. Before he died in year

1980, he received an American Film Institute's Life Achievement Award in

year 1979 and a Nicknamed had been given to him as the "Master of

Suspense".

When Auteur Theory was starting to develop in United States, Alfred

Hitchcock is the best example that achieved the criteria of auteur theory. The

unique style that he usually used on every film that he made can lead us

easily know that the movie is conducted by him. Besides, the reason that he

choose to work with the same group of people in every film that he made is to

create a consistency so that he can roughly known that his crews quality and

standard of work. In that case, he rarely chooses to collaborate with others,

he would usually use the person like Bernard Herman that in charge of the

sound system in the movie Psycho and Vertigo.

Alfred Hitchcock films are usually taken script from someone else and

he produced into films with same as the original story or revised addition.

Example like Vertigo, he taken the story from the novel D’entre Les Morts by

Boileau and Narcejac, book is just a story without any sounds and actions so

Alfred Hitchcock make it into his film which using his personal style with

expressing the story through mise- en- scene to make the story more
interesting. In Vertigo, he fully used the advantages of landscape and

geography to expressed his techniques of controlling the time with the past

and present: the ancient red wood, the Palace of the Legion of Honor

Museum and the Portals of the Past. Besides, he presented his technique of

shooting with a series of 360 degrees tracking shoots around the couple

kissing and suddenly the background turn into the scene of the another place

which was the first time that Scottie kissed Madeleine and it background turn

back again into the apartment to show that it was just a interior vision of

Scottie mind, to show the mania of Scottie turn into madness.

Besides, another movie of Alfred Hitchcock in year 1954, Rear Window

also created with suspense. The story about Jefferies the main actor which is

leg broken and restrained in his apartment using his plenty of time watching

on his neighbor daily life. Hitchcock had built the suspense on the scene that

Jefferies saw Thorwald leaving his apartment with a big case in and out for

several times in one day. With using this suspense, audiences will usually

questioned in their mind “ why Thorwald bringing such a big case in and out

for so many times?” this is the technique that Hitchcock draw our attention

into the film through a none proper intellectual engagement. We can see

Thorwald action is very weird in that case but we don’t really know what is in

the big case so it causes us to have a limited information to answer the

question in our mind until the movie show us the answer. In another scene,

Hitchcock used his editing skill of montage to build suspense on Lisa, a girl

that climbed into the room of Thorwald to search for the clues. Thorwald had

already went off to the restaurant which Jeffries faked a phone call to

Thorwald. At that time we can see two scenes are happening on the same
time. While Thorwald walking down to the hallway back to his apartment and

Lisa still continue finding the wedding ring of Mrs. Thorwald, the suspense

climax happened on Thorwald opening the door and he found Lisa is at her

room and searching for something so he attacked her. As we are standing on

the view of Jefferies, we are helpless and Thorwald will kill Lisa on that

moment but luckily Jeffries has called the police so that Lisa had the chance

to run away from death.

In the movie ‘Psycho’, Alfred Hitchcock created many surprises shock

for the audience with using the misleading of information to make his

audience become more surprise when the thing happened to be different with

all the audiences are expected. Especially starting with scene that showing

Marion Crane and Sam Loomis in the bedroom together, audience will usually

think that this is a love story. But the first shock happens, she steals the

money from her boss then audience will definitely change their vision to a

crime movie but the strange thing happened again the style of movie change

into horror movie. False suspense is more frightening than the others type of

suspense as we don’t even know what will happen next in the next scene.

One of false suspense falls on the scene when Marion Grande is going to buy

the car from the second- handcar dealer. At that time she still didn’t realize

that the police are already looking on her until she found out that the police is

looking on her when the mechanic is going to check her car and sell her a

different car. She is too nervous that she keeps forcing the car dealer to pass

the new car to her and nearly she forgot to bring her bag away, which

contained a false shock at that moment. After that, audience will think that the
police surely will catch her but luckily she went away successfully with that

money.

In the famous scene of psycho, he had included the features of 70

different shots in not more than 1 minute in the scene that shown in the

shower scene of Marion Crane. They are fused together until it is hardly

separate it out between the two scene that combine together to create a inner

meaning by the juxtapositioning of the images (Montage) and the Mise-en-

Scène part of the movies. In between scene of showering of Marion Crane,

Hitchcock create tension with using music that is terrifying compare to the

music that used in ‘The Birds’, it is more scary and uncomfortable.

As being a Master of Suspense, his movie is generally marked by the

filmic skills of him which using the techniques like the unusual camera angles

to capture the scene, editing and sound tracking to build suspense on his

movie films. According to the notes from Donald Spoto, it identified Hitchcock

had based on ‘the arrangement and content of a film in the screenplay . . . the

plots and theme and images that want to develop to audience; in the selection

of manufacturing and setting; the style that he used on lighting and placement

and movement and angle of the camera; the atmosphere that created,

sustained, and shifted; the attention grapping of an audience's fears and

desires; in the flows; and in the steps of the film's final cutting" to create his

films. He has already surpassed the constraints of that tradition movie filming

into a higher level that is nearly the style of our modern films as now.
Conclusion

After done all those research about auteur theory with Alfred Hitchcock, I

believe that Alfred Hitchcock worth to get the title as an Auteur with all those

creative suspense and horror movie that made by him. He had achieve all

those criteria than require to be an auteur as he is the one that using his own

personal style and experience to expressing his ideas into his hard works.

Besides, the movie of Alfred Hitchcock I like the most is’ Rear Window’ as this

film had reflected the lifestyle of our normal citizens and the story is very

interesting especially the last part of the movie whenThorwald want to kill

Jefferies before he get caught by the polices. Lastly, I had learned the

knowledge of different kind of shots in filming, this would be a knowledge-

able thing for me in the future.

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