Seminar 3: Auteurship and the Avantgarde

Auteur theory (Auteur meaning author in french) is a theory in film production that the director is seen as the major creative force in the production of film, deriving from the theory of “Camera Stylo” that the director is an artist and that the film is simply a canvas for the director to “paint”. The theory of the auteur started in france with Andre Bazin and writers for Cahiers du Cinema in the 1950s due to the influx of imported American Hollywood films, to which Bazin stated that “American films are anonymous products of the studio system and the culture industry” to which François Truffaut replied in A Certain Tendency in French Cinema a few years later, that the french film industries over use of literature to adapt into films and directors just adding their own images to a previously existing scenario.

When applying the auteur theory to animation, quite a few problems arise, Animation companies are often huge groups of people working together without someone taking a leading auteur role, however the processes for creating animation is so cost effective and the requirement for manpower is only necessary if the animation needs to be done in a short space of time, meaning that one person can produce their creative vision with relying on anyone but themselves and the media they are working with, meaning that animation can give auteurs the power to create something a lot closer to their exact vision without relying on budgetary, acting, or even scientific restraints, if a director wants to create a feature length film in space, it becomes a lot easier and a lot cheaper to create on a computer rather than fly into space with a camera crew and actors.