Auteur Theory

Auteur means “Author” in French. The idea behind this theory is that a film director personal creative vision can be seen through the director’s film thus making him the author. However as simple as this may sound, the question to be asked is who is really considered as the Auteur. Auteur theory has influenced film criticism since the 1950s, as there is a lot of collaboration in film production the controversy caused by this theory was that who was considered the auteur. the director is responsible for the film. However, more than one person will work on a film, so what makes the director more worthy of Authorship than, say, the editor, camera operator or scriptwriter. However this does not mean every film director should be considered an “Auteur” of a particular film. To be considered an author, a director must have a variety of work which have ongoing themes, whether they occur intentionally or unintentionally.

Similarly this theory can be applied to music videos; the directors own visual significance should be seen throughout the music video. A famous music video director that I have chosen to look at is Joseph Kahn.