Auteurs and Authorship
A Film Reader
1. Edition January 2008
344 Pages, Hardcover
Wiley & Sons Ltd
Auteurs and Authorship: A Film Reader offers students an introductory and comprehensive view of perhaps the most central concept in film studies. This unique anthology addresses the aesthetic and historical debates surrounding auteurship while providing author criticism and analysis in practice.
* Examines a number of mainstream and established directors, including John Ford, Alfred Hitchcock, Howard Hawks, Douglas Sirk, Frank Capra, Kathryn Bigelow, and Spike Lee
* Features historically important, foundational texts as well as contemporary pieces
* Includes numerous student features, such as a general editor's introduction, short prefaces to each of the sections, bibliography, alternative tables of contents, and boxed features
* Each essay deliberately focuses across film makers' oeuvres, rather than on one specific film, to enable lecturers to have flexibility in constructing their syllabi
Acknowledgments.
Figures and Captions.
Preface: How to Use this Book.
Introduction.
Part I: Classic Auteur Theory.
Introduction.
1. Francois Truffaut: A Certain Tendency of the French
Cinema (1954).
2. André Bazin: La Politique des Auteurs (1957).
3. Ian Cameron: Films, Directors and Auteurs (1962).
4. Andrew Sarris: Notes on the Auteur Theory in 1962
(1962).
5. Pauline Kael: Circles and Squares (1963).
6. Peter Wollen: The Auteur Theory (1969) (excerpt).
7. V.F. Perkins: Direction and Authorship (1972)
(excerpt).
8. Edward Buscombe: Ideas of Authorship (1973).
9. Robin Wood: Ideology, Genre, Auteur (1977).
Bibliography.
Part II: The Contexts of Authorship.
Introduction.
10. Roland Barthes: The Death of the Author (1968).
11. Charles Eckert: The English Cine-Structuralists
(1973).
12. Graham Petrie: Alternatives to Auteurs (1973).
13. Claire Johnston: Women's Cinema as
Counter-Cinema (1973).
14. Angela Martin: Refocusing Authorship in Women's
Cinema (2003).
15. Richard Kosarzski: The Men with the Movie Cameras
(1972).
16. Richard Corliss: Notes on a Screenwriter's Theory,
1973 (1974).
17. Gore Vidal: Who Makes the Movies? (1976).
18. Peter Lehman: Script/Performance/Text: Performance Theory
and Auteur Theory (1978).
19. Jerome Christensen: Studio Authorship (2006)
(excerpt).
20. Matthew Bernstein: The Producer as Auteur (2006).
21. Bruce Kawin: Authorship, Design, and Execution
(1987).
Bibliography.
Part III: Close Readings.
Introduction.
22. Maurice Yacowar: Hitchcock's Imagery and Art
(1977).
23. Editors of Cahiers du Cinema: John Ford's Young Mr.
Lincoln (1970).
24. Paul Willeman: Towards an Analysis of the Sirkian
System (1972).
25. Paul Kerr: My Name is Joseph H. Lewis (1983).
26. Michael Budd: Authorship as a Commodity: The Art Cinema
and The Cabinet of Dr.Caligari (1984).
27. Claire Johnston and Pam Cook: The Place of Women in the
Cinema of Raoul Walsh (1974).
28. Judith Mayne: Female Authorship Reconsidered (The
Case of Dorothy Arzner) (1990).
29. Barry Keith Grant: Man's Favorite Sport?: The
Action Films of Kathryn Bigelow (2004).
30. Michael DeAngelis: Todd Haynes and Queer Authorship
(2006).
31. J. Ronald Green: Twoness' in the Style of Oscar
Micheaux (1993).
32. S. Craig Watkins: Spike's Joint (1998)
(excerpt).
Bibliography
young cinephiles may pass through words into the true life of the
screen." (Quarterly Review, December 2009)
"Presents an arresting, thoughtful procession of ideas about who
makes a movie." Afterimage
"The question of authorship in cinema remains a crucial area of
debate. Barry Keith Grant's excellent reader, which brings together
most of the important French, British and American material, looks
set to become a required text on the subject." Jim Hillier,
University of Reading, England
"Without doubt the best collection available on film authorship,
which remains the single most challenging issue in film studies and
the abiding mystery of cinema. From the groundbreaking polemics of
the 1950s and '60s to cutting-edge analyses by top
contemporary scholars, Auteurs and Authorship examines this
endlessly salient topic in a remarkable array of essays that, taken
together, provide the most comprehensive, in-depth treatment
available." Tom Schatz, University of Texas, Austin
"Deep and fulfilling examination of the theory ... [and]
inclusion of virtually every valuable essay on cinema auteurism
makes [it] an indispensable book." RogueCinema.com