2.5) Auteur Theory (Wes Anderson).pptx

2.5) Auteur Theory (Wes Anderson).pptx

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  Auteur Figures and PersonalExpression Year 12 Media Production & Analysis ATAR
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  Ihaveawayoffilmingthingsandstagingthem anddesigningsets.ThereweretimeswhenI thoughtIshouldchangemyapproach,butinfact, thisiswhatIliketodo. It'ssortoflikemyhandwritingasamoviedirector. Andsomewherealongtheway,IthinkI'vemade thedecision:I'mgoingtowriteinmyown handwriting. Wes Anderson
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  What isAuteur Theory andwhy is it important? AuteurTheory is a way of looking at films that state that the director is the “author” of a film.The Auteur theory argues that a film is a reflection of the director’s artistic vision; so, a movie directed by a given filmmaker will have recognizable, recurring themes and visual queues that inform the audience who the director is and shows a consistent artistic identity throughout that director’s filmography. The term “Auteur theory” is credited to the critics of the French film journal Cahiers du cinéma, many of which became the directors of the French NewWave. However, according to NewYork University professor Julian Cornell, the concept had been around for a while prior.The Cahiers critics simply refined the theory. “In the French NewWave, people developed the notion of the filmmaker as an artist. They didn’t invent the idea, but they did popularize it.A German filmmaker who started as a German theatre director, Max Reinhardt, came up with the idea of the auteur – the author in films. He came up with that around the teens….So,Truffaut and the French NewWave popularized it, or they revived it.” – NewYork University Professor Julian Cornell …creativecontrolfora personalendproductthat resonateswiththezeitgeist…
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  Up until the1950s/60s the studio film and production companies merely assigned ‘director-for-hire’s’.The cigar chomping studio heads steered the ultimate vision of many feature film productions. This is why a directorial stamp is rare on older films. While director names naturally got bigger over time and the choice of film projects became more lenient, it wasn’t truly until the French NewWave of the 1950’s when the love for auteur filmmakers and the commonality of the auteur theory in practice took off.  Two of the most notable pioneers included FrancoisTruffaut and Jean-LucGodard who began their careers with theories on the matter.They later made waves with their low budget, fast cut work that broke all of the rules when it came to sex, story, and violence.Their themes would never have been allowed in mainstream motion pictures, so their guerrilla-type shoots utilized real backgrounds, unknown actors, and freedom to explore what they wanted; funding came from minimal donations so they had no one to adhere to but themselves for content. A brief history How did Auteur theory come to be?
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  AuteurTheory Positives and Negatives.  Theauteur approach to films helps to elaborate on the context of production, but it neglects to fully acknowledge that filmmaking is a collaborative process involving creative input from many sources, including scriptwriter, cast and crew.  Auteur theory conditions audiences to treat film as a work of art, like a painting or performance.As such, every frame, every mise- en-scene, is regarded as the deliberately composed result of a series of artistic decisions made by the auteur (usually, but not always, the director.) When we talk about Citizen Kane as Orson Welles’ own story, for example, you’re influenced by theory – that is, the key to understanding the film is understandingWelles.  To be considered an auteur, a film-maker must have a Body of work (oeuvre) which can be analysed for ongoing themes and considerations, whether they occur intentionally or unintentionally. Michael Cimino’s Heaven’s Gate is a famous example of Auteur-ship going wrong. Fresh from the critical and commercial success of The Deer Hunter, Cimino was given free reign by his studio on his next project.The result was so massive, so late and so over-budget, that is very nearly put the studio out of business and radically changed the way many Hollywood studios thought about making films.
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  WesAnderson A close examinationof the generic, aesthetic, and cultural significance of Wes Anderson’s films, most prominently known for their Whimsical, deadpan humour, deliberately and studiedly (and sometimes jarringly) unique filming techniques, extensive literary references, and interplay with historically significant literature and films (Truffaut,Welles, Lubitsch. etc.), reveals thatAnderson's influence on American film culture and contemporary culture in general cannot be underestimated.
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  As an AuteurA study of Anderson's cinematic oeuvre necessarily leads to a particular focus on how his films cohere around a set of formal devices of storytelling and visual style balancing deceit and realism, and the central thematic concerns about nostalgia, family, and loss.These coherent formal and thematic devices amount to a highly personal style of filmmaking that defines Anderson as a cinematic artist.  While there is a widespread consensus among critics that Anderson is a modem-day auteur with a distinct directorial style and the understanding Anderson's auteurship requires the examination of those features of his cinematic techniques. Accordingly, it is important to demonstrate how Anderson's aesthetic and stylistic continuity in his films, his original and highly personal voice, and how he flaunts the incorporation of various influences (literary, cinematic, more generally artistic), so that his personal style is marked by a prominent allusive quality. Anderson's work can best be appreciated in conversation with his influences — all conjoin to define Anderson as an auteur. Legendary filmmaker and key player in the development of the French newWave movement, FrancoisTruffaut, fundamentally argued that an auteur director is the focal point of organization and control and, through participation in all stages of the filmmaking process, is thus able to imprint upon the final product their own "worldview” and that a true auteur is the "author" of a corpus of work in which every film displays a recognizable style and a consistent personal vision.
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  As with manyAuteurs before him, Anderson’s work contains clearly autobiographical content. Anderson has claimed time and time again that the most traumatic time of his childhood was the divorce of his parents. He returns again and again to the motifs of familial disfunction, conflict and pain.
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  Wes Anderson wasinspired to make The Grand Budapest Hotel by a certain kind of early twentieth- century travel literature encapsulated in the style of Austrian novelist Stefan Zweig (1881– 1942), author of numerous works, including Letter from an Unknown Woman(1922) and Beware of Pity(1939), both of which Anderson claims to have yielded ideas that were later incorporated into his screenplay, and the memoir The World ofYesterday(1942). The Grand Budapest Hotel (2014) The dandyistic nature of this literature matches the high farcical style of Anderson’s film. Whether audiences embrace or reject his work, Anderson’s brand of off-beat, sad comedy remains remarkably unique, and his meta-nostalgic voice remains his own.
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  The Grand BudapestHotel is one of Anderson’s more recent films, and is arguably one of the best examples of his auteurism.The film is the perfect visual display of the conventions which make him a distinctive auteur as well as narratively following elements from his previous works. The above scene from the film is representative of Anderson’s attention to detail and is an example of the dynamics of his films.This shot denotes actress,Tilda Swinton, as Madame D. She contributes to Anderson’s style since his films usually cast recurring actors and actresses.  All of Anderson’s productions feature this symmetrical composition, adding to the post-modernist style of Anderson as he combines period time settings (1930s featuring inThe Grand Budapest) through mise-en-scene, alongside the use of characters based on pastiches and hyperrealist elements. Pastiche has been used by Anderson and can be seen in this shot as he pays homage to Eastern European style in the design of his props and sets; for example the vases holding the flowers in this shot and also the large white doors with skirting. The opulent setting connotes a sense of grandeur that is reflective of the title and plot of the film. It also reinforces the sense of escapism for the audience.
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  Anderson is mostfamous for the consecutive colour schemes throughout his films; these shots above represent the colour schemes used in the Grand Budapest Hotel. A variety of muted pink shades have been used, they are seen on the walls, and complimented by the flowers in the vases, he takes this detailing further by incorporating it into Madame D’s makeup as a shade of pink blush has noticeably been applied to her cheeks – this was a common makeup trend amongst rich aristocratic women during the 1930s. Shades of mustard yellow and brown have been used as an accent against the pink, contrasting well to make Madame D’s clothing stand out amongst the set to connote her importance and match with the paintings on the wall. Anderson’s colour schemes also include a rich primary or secondary colour, further making his shots appealing as they contrast well with the mutual pastel shades he uses. In this shot, Madame D’s red lipstick has been used to further draw attention to her face and to compliment the pinks in the shot, in particular the rose shade on her cheeks.The Grand Budapest’s protagonists, Mr. Gustav and Zero, are dressed in a rich purple shade alongside other hotel employees, again chosen by Wes Anderson to draw attention to characters against the muted pink interior of the hotel.
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  The significant useof colour creates a sense of hyperrealism in Anderson’s films. The audience is introduced to a visually perfected world, everything is matched, and the shots are evenly balanced on each side. Our understanding of why the use of symmetry and colour appeals to audiences can be understood by looking back at the Uses & Gravitation communication theory. This theory stipulates that people use the media for their own needs and are satisfied when their needs are fulfilled. In other words, it can be said that the theory argues what people do with media rather than what media does to people. In simple terms, using media to gratify their own needs and wants. Audience Making Meaning
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  Audiences for theGrand Budapest Hotel are gratified through escapism and can suspend their sense of disbelief as they enter a world created by Anderson which is contrary to reality. Hyper-realistic settings and scenarios have been created by Anderson as his films are not only timeless in a sense, but placeless, defined by familiar but wholly fictional spaces.This therefore allows even the most causal viewer to quickly translate these settings into their real-life equivalences. This gratifies audiences as they can compare the mundane settings of everyday life, to the aspirational settings portrayed in the films. Audience Making Meaning
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  This technique hasbeen described by Author Michael Chabon as, being “honest only to the degree that it builds its precise and inescapable box around its Anderson’s scale version of the world. Anderson is thus able to operate as an auteur within the contemporary US film industry as he is able to appeal to audiences unconventionally to mainstream cinema, through using techniques exclusive to his work.” When studying media, we can consider Anderson’s PERSONAL EXPRESSION as these themes, styles, motifs and techniques that he continually revisits in the creation of his art. TheWes Anderson style isWes Anderson himself. A hard working, thoughtful human who is focused on his imagination. His visuals an extension of his own psychology. Audience Making Meaning
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  Personal Expression You know it’s aWes Andersonfilm if…  Rather than portray himself predominantly through his characters, he finds a much more sophisticated way to express his unique personality...Through his visuals.  This is where many other directors fall short with their auteurist spirit. Discerning film fans don’t get the feeling thatTarantino, Spielberg, or Nolan are, they themselves, visual representations of their films... But you do get that feeling when you look atWes Anderson. You see these aesthetics and techniques: -