Formalist Film Theory - Formalism in Auteur Theory

Formalism in Auteur Theory

If the ideological approach is concerned with broad movements and the effects of the world around the filmmaker, then the auteur theory is diametrically opposed to it, celebrating the individual, usually in the person of the filmmaker, and how his personal decisions, thoughts, and style manifest themselves in the material.

This branch of criticism, begun by François Truffaut and the other young film critics writing for Cahiers du cinéma, was created for two reasons.

First, it was created to redeem the art of film itself. By arguing that films had auteurs, or authors, Truffaut sought to make films (and their directors) at least as important as the more widely-accepted art forms, such as literature, music, and painting. Each of these art forms, and the criticism thereof, is primarily concerned with a sole creative force: the author of a novel (not, for example, his editor or type-setter), the composer of a piece of music (though sometimes the performers are given credence, akin to actors in film today), or the painter of a fresco (not his assistants who mix the colours or often do some of the painting themselves). By elevating the director, and not the screenwriter, to the same importance as novelists, composers, or painters, it sought to free the cinema from its popular conception as a bastard art, somewhere between theater and literature.

Secondly, it sought to redeem many filmmakers who were looked down upon by mainstream film critics. It argued that genre filmmakers and low-budget B-movies were just as important, if not more, than the prestige pictures commonly given more press and legitimacy in France and the United States. According to Truffaut's theory, auteurs took material that was beneath their talents—a thriller, a pulpy action film, a romance—and, through their style, put their own personal stamp on it.

It is this auteur style that concerns formalism.

A perfect example of formalist criticism of auteur style would be the work of Alfred Hitchcock. Hitchcock primarily made thrillers, which, according to the Cahiers du cinema crowd, were popular with the public but were dismissed by the critics and the award ceremonies, although Hitchcock's Rebecca won the Oscar for Best Picture at the 1940 Academy Awards. Though he never won the Oscar for directing, he was nominated five times in the category. Truffaut and his colleagues argued that Hitchcock had a style as distinct as that of Flaubert or Van Gogh: the virtuoso editing, the lyrical camera movements, the droll humour. He also had "Hitchcockian" themes: the wrong man falsely accused, violence erupting at the times it was least expected, the cool blonde. Now, Hitchcock is more or less universally lauded, his films dissected shot-by-shot, his work celebrated as being that of a master. And the study of this style, his variations, and obsessions all fall quite neatly under the umbrella of formalist film theory.