HOLLYWOOD STUDIO SYSTEM

Auteursm and the nature of Hollywood studio system



Auteursm and the nature of Hollywood studio system

Introduction

Since the late '50's, European influence had been prominent within the consciousness of the aspiring American auteur, with young independent film makers like John Cassevetes writing, directing and producing their own low budget pictures. 'Shadows' (1959) had been a critical, if not commercial success for Cassevetes; it was a step away from the traditional assembly line methods of Hollywood while being unconventional with its complex, emotive themes and predominant use of Afro-American actors and actresses. (Gallagher 2006 pp 202-215) As with Robert Frank's 'Pull My Daisy' (1959), 'Shadows' was as much a realisation of the jazz and poetry influenced beatnik subculture that had been steadily growing in ranks on the East and West coast of America as it was of European cinema, and symbolised the not so distant future of American film making. As the 1960's were winding down, fresh-faced directors such as Francis Ford Coppola, George Lucas and Bob Rafelson wanted similar creative control, and with the distributors threatened by dwindling profits the studio gates were finally opened to new ideas and new ways of filming that echoed the techniques adopted by their European predecessors. (Bach 2005 pp. 262-267)

Auterism and the nature of Hollywood studio system

'Beginning roughly with the release of Stanley Kubrick's Dr. Strangelove: Or How I Learnt To Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb in 1964, and continuing for about the next decade, the "Sixties" era of filmmaking made many lasting impressions on the motion picture industry.' (Gallagher 2006 pp 202-215) The development of the auteur from this period on saw a significant change in the film industry that was going to have an influence on films up until the present day. This essay is going to look at the development of the auteur and the reasons why it developed during the sixties, even before the 'breakthrough' film 'Dr Strangelove: Or How I Learnt to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb'. (Brode 2005 p. 96)

The dictionary definition of auteur states that the director of a film '…dominates the film-making process' so much '…that it is appropriate to call the director the auteur, or author, of the motion picture' (Bach 2005 pp. 262-267) The theory also states that the director projects his or her own personal style onto the film as they are '…the primary person responsible for the creation of' (Brode 2005 p. 96) the film. However, another important aspect of this theory is the '…commonality of theme'(Brode 2005 p. 96) that is seen in each of the films that the director makes. Auteur theory developed through the work of François Truffaut and Andrew Sarris, (Gallagher 2006 pp 202-215) which began in the early 1950s and developed through into the 1960s.

The director as Auteur had certainly been around before the 1960s, but these directors were few and far between, such as Tod Browning, who was dubbed 'the Edgar Allan Poe of the cinema'(Bach 2005 ...