Authorship and the film La Antena
By: Rafiqfuad Yarahmadi
Authorship in cinema
The key directors of the French New Wave Jean Luc Godard, Francois Truffaut, Claude Chabrol, Eric Rohmer had been a filmed critic writing for the French cinema magazine Cahiers du Cinema. This was the first film journal to treat cinema as an art form and to discuss it in an academic way. In the early 1950s this group of critics developed an argument through a long series of articles, which became known as 'la politique des auteurs'. Taken up by American critics in the 1960s these ideas became known as the auteur theory or authorship theory.
In their writings the critics argued that film was primarily a visual medium rather a literary one and that the director was the author of a film in the same way as a writer is the author of a novel. In one influential essay 'La Camera Stylo' (1954), Alexander Astruc argued that the film director 'writes' a film with the camera as if he was an artist with a paintbrush. Rather than film language being used for the adaptation of a script, it should be the visual language, which is most important. Therefore the director is the true author of a film because the visual language is the language of cinema; the script is literary, a different language entirely.
Authorship in film is a subject of debate in theory of film since the Cahiers du Cinema critics in 1950s for the first time birthed author theory. They believed that films should reflect a director's personal vision. Some directors such as Akira Kurosawa and Alfred Hitchcock are famous for been authors of their movies. 'This doesn't mean that the directors is an expert at every job or dictates every thing. The director can represent tasks to trusted members of crew, and directors often work usually with certain actors, cinematographers, screenwriters, and editors'. (Film Art page 33)
According to Francois Truffaut in an article that he published in Cahiers du Cinema in 1954, 'an expression of his own personality' an auteur converts the movie into something personal. The main version of French authorship theory was the impression of making a film different to the director by introducing ideas of his own into the characters and the story beyond what the story needed.
According to Film History by David Bordwell and Kristin Thompson the idea of authorship engaged with the growing art film in 1950s and 1960s. The prestigious directors of the period started to write their own scripts, all followed distinctive themes and stylistic choices in film after film. Film festivals managed to honour the director as a main creator. Tati, Michelangelo Antonioni, and others become 'brand' names in a commercial context.
In 1960s and 1970s, auteurism helped in creation of film studies. Film viewers made the idea of authorship a commonplace in the film culture. Most of film fans used term of auteurism as a kind of taste not just for film-art directors but they used also for Steven Spielberg, Brian De Palma and Oliver Stone who were Hollywood filmmakers.
Something that we have to consider is that feature movies never been made by one person. A big crew such as producer, cinematographer, director, editor, and lots of ideas and days of hard work go into collaborating on a film production. We should know that only theory of authorship would not answer the questions for all movies. As we know the process of filmmaking, film often supports with a more collaborative style of authorship than other artistic media. Even there are some movies that been recognised for their writing or directing style but the true authorship lies in the intentionality of the collective that produced the final product. La Antena
La antenna is a thriller movie directed by director/writer Estabin Sapir, stars of this movie are Vleria Bertuccelli, Alejandro Urdapilleta and Julieta Cardinali. This monochrome film was made in Argentina which the mostly is silent. I can clearly say that the theme of film is about media mind control. This film has got a comic vision and reminds me the Georges Melies's A Trip to the Moon, and the strange city in the film is remind me the film Metropolis by Fritz Lang.
A dictator called Mr TV, in a timeless city has made all the citizens of the city speechless. The city is looks like the Fritz Lang's Metropolis and it is so similar to Expressionist movies with animated billboards, TV aerials and towers.
The Voice, the only citizen who can speak, calms people who live in this city. We can't see her face and a hood masks her face. The Voice is forced to have a singing programme on Mr TV, s television. The only food that people in this city can get to eat is Mr TV.'s brand food. This behaviour remind us the dictatorship and totalitarianism in those countries that people hasn't have freedom of speech and the film shows swastika symbol several times. He is working on a device and wants to hypnotize his people to be able to control citizens and this is really similar factory scene in Modern Times movie by Charles Chaplin that the factory manager tries to control all workers by using CCTV.
Bibliography:
Continue => Part 2
By: Rafiqfuad Yarahmadi
Authorship in cinema
The key directors of the French New Wave Jean Luc Godard, Francois Truffaut, Claude Chabrol, Eric Rohmer had been a filmed critic writing for the French cinema magazine Cahiers du Cinema. This was the first film journal to treat cinema as an art form and to discuss it in an academic way. In the early 1950s this group of critics developed an argument through a long series of articles, which became known as 'la politique des auteurs'. Taken up by American critics in the 1960s these ideas became known as the auteur theory or authorship theory.
In their writings the critics argued that film was primarily a visual medium rather a literary one and that the director was the author of a film in the same way as a writer is the author of a novel. In one influential essay 'La Camera Stylo' (1954), Alexander Astruc argued that the film director 'writes' a film with the camera as if he was an artist with a paintbrush. Rather than film language being used for the adaptation of a script, it should be the visual language, which is most important. Therefore the director is the true author of a film because the visual language is the language of cinema; the script is literary, a different language entirely.
Authorship in film is a subject of debate in theory of film since the Cahiers du Cinema critics in 1950s for the first time birthed author theory. They believed that films should reflect a director's personal vision. Some directors such as Akira Kurosawa and Alfred Hitchcock are famous for been authors of their movies. 'This doesn't mean that the directors is an expert at every job or dictates every thing. The director can represent tasks to trusted members of crew, and directors often work usually with certain actors, cinematographers, screenwriters, and editors'. (Film Art page 33)
According to Francois Truffaut in an article that he published in Cahiers du Cinema in 1954, 'an expression of his own personality' an auteur converts the movie into something personal. The main version of French authorship theory was the impression of making a film different to the director by introducing ideas of his own into the characters and the story beyond what the story needed.
According to Film History by David Bordwell and Kristin Thompson the idea of authorship engaged with the growing art film in 1950s and 1960s. The prestigious directors of the period started to write their own scripts, all followed distinctive themes and stylistic choices in film after film. Film festivals managed to honour the director as a main creator. Tati, Michelangelo Antonioni, and others become 'brand' names in a commercial context.
In 1960s and 1970s, auteurism helped in creation of film studies. Film viewers made the idea of authorship a commonplace in the film culture. Most of film fans used term of auteurism as a kind of taste not just for film-art directors but they used also for Steven Spielberg, Brian De Palma and Oliver Stone who were Hollywood filmmakers.
Something that we have to consider is that feature movies never been made by one person. A big crew such as producer, cinematographer, director, editor, and lots of ideas and days of hard work go into collaborating on a film production. We should know that only theory of authorship would not answer the questions for all movies. As we know the process of filmmaking, film often supports with a more collaborative style of authorship than other artistic media. Even there are some movies that been recognised for their writing or directing style but the true authorship lies in the intentionality of the collective that produced the final product. La Antena
La antenna is a thriller movie directed by director/writer Estabin Sapir, stars of this movie are Vleria Bertuccelli, Alejandro Urdapilleta and Julieta Cardinali. This monochrome film was made in Argentina which the mostly is silent. I can clearly say that the theme of film is about media mind control. This film has got a comic vision and reminds me the Georges Melies's A Trip to the Moon, and the strange city in the film is remind me the film Metropolis by Fritz Lang.
A dictator called Mr TV, in a timeless city has made all the citizens of the city speechless. The city is looks like the Fritz Lang's Metropolis and it is so similar to Expressionist movies with animated billboards, TV aerials and towers.
The Voice, the only citizen who can speak, calms people who live in this city. We can't see her face and a hood masks her face. The Voice is forced to have a singing programme on Mr TV, s television. The only food that people in this city can get to eat is Mr TV.'s brand food. This behaviour remind us the dictatorship and totalitarianism in those countries that people hasn't have freedom of speech and the film shows swastika symbol several times. He is working on a device and wants to hypnotize his people to be able to control citizens and this is really similar factory scene in Modern Times movie by Charles Chaplin that the factory manager tries to control all workers by using CCTV.
Bibliography:
Continue => Part 2