فصل النظرية ، نظرية المؤلف ١-a .. كتاب فهم السينما

Author's theory

In the mid-1950s, the Journal of Film Papers (Film Criticism) revolted with its principle “the philosophy of authors, which was legislated by its young critic, Françoise Truffaut. This polemical position became the focus of the critical debate that later spread in England and America. It wasn't long before the author's theory became a kind of fount for the gathering of fighters, especially among the young critics who dominated live magazines such as (Cinema) in England, (Film Culture) in America, and (Film Papers) magazine, which is issued in both French and English. Actually Although there were a number of the best writers of the following decade who resented the theory, the author's theory dominated most of the good criticism in the sixties, and even the most ardent opponents were later influenced by it. Authoritarianism in cinema became a sign of defiance and contempt towards the entire film establishment at that time. In fact, thanks to the outcry of many of its practitioners, the theory was able to offend almost all the old and traditional critics, even Bazin, the founder and editor of The Film Papers, wrote an article warning against the excesses of the theory as practiced by some of its young interlocutors.
In fact, the main lines of the theory are not particularly disturbing, at least when we look back at them. Truffaut, Kodar, Chabrol, and their fellow critics were appalled by the deplorable state in which the French film industry had reached at a time when cinema was in the hands of businessmen, not artists. Moreover, those films that were often praised for their aesthetic value were dominated by writers who were considered the main creators of the best films (in many cases art films were merely ambitious subjects written by liberals. Tactful, even if they were sincere. These films dealt with great topics, which were generally praised because they were “serious” and mature, but as films, they were boring, heavy, and lacking in imagination. The director was considered a kind of executive businessman's assistant whose work was interpretive in essence as he staged the production just as a theater director directs a play.

Compositional theorists have suggested that the greatest films are dominated by the director's personal vision. This dominance can be seen by examining the director's overall output, which is distinguished by unity of theme and style. The contribution of writer-subject matter is technically neutral, as it can be handled with brilliance or with minimal potential. Films should be judged on how, not what. The authorial critics, like most of the impressionist theorists, claimed that what makes the film good is not the subject material as it is, but (the treatment) of the subject matter, and that the director is the one who controls the treatment, provided that he is a good director and author.

These critics turned to American films as a measure of quality. They turned to thrillers, westerns, gangster and musical films. What they admire about these films is their narrative vitality, their stylistic spirit, and their artistic brilliance. (10-19). Most of these writers would have agreed with Orien Panofsky who notes that while commercial films are always in danger of ending up becoming To end up as a prostitute the so-called art films are also in similar danger of spinster Most of the American authors praised by these critics are within And with the studio system, a system that killed the artistic dreams of many inferior filmmakers. What these authors admired in particular was the extent of resourcefulness and cunning that the director could exercise in order to circumvent studio interference and even meager scripts by means of his artistic experience. Therefore, these two authors were able to manage the production of great films because the real subject “was reached through mise-en-cine, montage, and all the formal means at the disposal of the director. This is according to the authors. Before long classes gathered around the most popular of these directors in general. These were filmmakers who had been neglected by serious critics. In fact, they were Alfred Hitchcock, John Ford, Howard Hux, Nicholas Anderson, and Samuel Fuller, to name a few (10-20).

The mere breadth of their knowledge of the history of cinema made these critics re-evaluate the most major films of a variety of directors. In many cases, these critics shifted their critical judgments in the opposite direction. literary. However, authorial critics insisted that classic westerns such as The Mail Cart Wore a Yellow Ribbon, Two Rode Together, and The Searchers were technically superior to Ford's socially conscious films. They also pointed to what is normal in film and literary criticism, that is, the subject material in the artwork is not always evidence based on its value.

French authors viewed the field of film criticism as an introduction to making their own films, and this is what most of them did, starting in the late fifties. However, in England or America most authorial critics remained in the field of criticism. Unlike their French counterparts, they were less familiar with the problems and techniques of directing To become a cinematic so they focused on the thematic and stylistic aspects of the films themselves. Which for the French was a necessary evil. Studio system - cad is now a virtue or at least a challenge. American auteurists, including Androsaris, concerned the tension between the artist's self-image and that of the genre from the routine tasks assigned to directors by their Hollywood bosses. English and American auteurs put a major emphasis on how a director makes a silk purse out of a sow's ear, and how he performs his work under pressure, and these critics rightly insist that complete artistic freedom is not always a virtue. But despite this, Michelangelo, Dickens, and Rembrandt, among others, accepted works of art commissioned by others. (10-21)