Essay about Blake Edwards

This paper was prepared for Introduction to Film History, Module 1 Homework Assignment, taught by Professor Stephanie Sandifer.

In Tom Gunning’s ‘Weaving a Narrative: Style and Economic Background in Griffith’s Biograph Films’ Gunning explores how the film industry in 1908 to 1909 became unified in terms of profitability and distribution in order to limit competition. He identifies through extensive analysis into American director D. W. Griffith’s Biograph films how they satisfy the demands and expectations of this new economic industry of film. Gunning further looks into the progression in film narrative by analysing the use of parallel editing, understanding the development of film from an exhibition to an art form, where films are capable of expressing emotions, ideas and meanings.

Hollywood cinema is primarily subjected to telling stories. The inclination of Hollywood narratives comes not just from good chronicles but from good story telling. The following essay will discuss Hollywood’s commercial aesthetic as applied to storytelling, expand on the characteristics of the “principles of classical film narration” and evaluate alternative modes of narration and other deviations from the classical mode.

What exactly is an auteur? According to Graham Roberts and Heather Wallis, ‘film’s generic ideas produced creative conventions in cinema language which could then be exploited and developed by individual artists into a personal vision’ (127). That individual artist is the auteur; someone who, through their work, displays several key qualities that are uniquely their own, namely: reoccurring themes and plotlines throughout their movies; specific stylistic qualities in their films such as mise en scene and cinematography styles; similar character attributes and traits; and narrative structure and features (Roberts and Wallis 128). Throughout cinema’s history, only several directors have ever been referred to as an ‘auteur’. Some names that are

In contemporary film making, “Hollywood-ization” generally refers to the re-creation of a classic work in a form more vulgar and sexually explicit than the original in an effort to boost movie attendance. After all, sex and violence sell. However, from the mid-1930’s to the 1950’s, “Hollywood-ization” referred to the opposite case where controversial books had to be purified to abide by the Production Code of 1934.[1] This occurred to many of James Cain’s novels as they moved from text to the genre of “film noir.” As has been said about Cain’s The Postman Always Rings Twice, “The property, bought several years ago, was kept in the studio’s archives until now

The Production Code Administration emerged in 1934. It was the organic outgrowth of a backlash to immorality in film perceived since the 1920’s (Gomery & Pafort-Overduin, 2011). As an entertainment medium, film was revolutionary: all of the sudden, vivid snippets of life could reach a mass audience. Not long after motion pictures enthralled the country, producers began to recognize the opportunity to attract larger audiences – and increase profits – by filming stories involving provocative subjects and thus stimulating the people’s sense of wonder (Gomery & Pafort-Overduin, 2011). A natural outgrowth of this trend was the increasingly transgressive nature of motion pictures. In an age characterized by both economic and social progress, a backlash against new ideas

Being one of the world’s most popular art forms, it was inevitable that these archetypes would find their way into film as well. In this essay I will argue that the

Billy Wilder’s film not only combine social realism, crime, moral degeneracy and humor; but they represent cultural, political and personal identity through the characters and narratives he constructs. Wilder directed a number of genre films ranging from comedy, film noir, romance, drama, adventure and even fantasy. These different genre aspects of narrative and character are essential to analyzing or critiquing Wilder’s body of work and his significance as an “auteur.” According to Noël Simsolo, a famous French author, Wilder’s thematic approach “looks at the world with a cynical eye, but… knows how to make people laugh.

Without doubt, Tim Burton has one of the world’s most unique styles when it comes to directing a movie. Burton’s use of tone, mood, diction, imagery, flashbacks, and -most of all- his point of view within his films easily allows him to be a director like no other. Effective techniques such as these contribute to conveying an underlying message to his audiences. Two impacting techniques are the use of makeup/effects and his choice of actors. Although the two may not seem important, they can be terrifically illustrated by Burton’s award winning film: Edward Scissorhands.

The auteur theory holds that a director's hand is clearly and consistently evident in their work, regardless of involvement in the rest of the production process. It's not uncommon for artists to have a signature or quirk--- Author Stephen King uses simplistic writing and significant world building to frame his often dark and fantastical stories, and some painters choose to put their own hair or saliva into their work rather than a signature. In the same way, an auteur's films have an instantly recognizable atmosphere, motif, or even color palette--- and, just as importantly, such an impression can give insight into an auteur's life and mind, lending that much more weight to a body of work. Two such auteurs are thriller and suspense master

The studio system was an arrangement of craft services and talent that made movies dictated by contractual terms. Through this system, studios could easily move from project to project, producing like that of a factory. Creating movies in this arrangement eliminated the need to raise money or finances; directors usually created movies in the style of the studio which lessened artistic creativity (Lewis, p 104). The studio system was dominant in Hollywood through the 1920’s well into the 1950’s.

Wes Anderson, an American director widely known for his idiosyncratic films, is the epitome of an auteur. However, what does being an auteur entail, and why are directors like Anderson (and e.g. Woody Allen, Akira Kurosawa or Alfred Hitchcock) separate from metteur-en-scenes or those simply regarded as filmmakers? To even begin justifying Anderson’s auteur status, prior knowledge of the history of auteur theory and its intended function is essential. Authorship was introduced by filmmaker Francois Truffaut, a catalyst of the French New Wave (1958 – 1962), to advocate that “...a great director speaks through his films no less than a master novelist speaks through his books...” (Powell, 2010, para 8). It is also used to address the

Unlike older directors, directors in New Hollywood were both aware of critical film terms like auteurism and had nearly endless control over their production. In this way, these directors were often aware of their corpus, and tried to implement their styles into that corpus. One of the earlier auteurs that French film credits were able to identify was Howard Hawkes. Hawkes, being a classic Hollywood director, was very limited in that he could not break the established invisible editing. His auteurisms, therefore, could only be implemented thematically or through certain motifs. One of Hawks signatures was to cast a funny man as comedic relief. However, in post-production code New Hollywood, directors began to have almost total control of their corpus.

Quentin Tarantino is considered a film maker who has always thought outside of the box.

The theory of authorship as applied to film directors is a subject that is argued extensively throughout the film world. The auteur theory was first introduced in the French film journal Cahiers du Cinema. Andrew Sarris who suggested that there are a group of filmmakers who fit into this category brought the theory to America. It states that in order for a director to be considered an auteur, there must be a consistency of style and theme across a number of films. Very few contemporary filmmakers fit into this category. One filmmaker, however, expanded his filmography over four and a half decades, and created a consistent theme and style. That director was Stanley Kubrick.