Essay on What is an Auteur?

Lewis uses lighting to dramatize the opening scene of the film and characterize the protagonist of the story. The most noticeable utilization of film noir lighting is in the beginning

How auteur theory can be applied to the study of Hitchcock’s North by Northwest and Vertigo

They take up the entire screen, so for the first minute or so of the film, the audience does not realize that they are, in fact, photographs that detectives are examining. The darkness of the photographs also references the genre. It is as if Polanski is immediately trying to convey to the audience that regardless of the fact that it is a color film, it is still a film noir.

The original film is eerily presented in black and white and uses mood influencing silences, long pauses, and various sound effects to depict the hallucinations. Furthermore, the angle of the camera is positioned below the actors, which intensifies the feeling of horror. Visually, the film using ‘chiaroscuro lighting’, which is designed to cast shadows and contrast light with dark to dramatically intensify the gloominess of the films context. These film features are necessary because the actual murder, dismembering and disposal of the corpse portrayal is relative tame and largely left up to the viewer to determine what is actually happening. The dismembering in particular largely relies on the viewers memories of the opening scenes where the younger man is preparing a chicken for his dinner by grizzly hacking

An auteur is a director who personal creative vision and style is expressed through films. The term auteur is originated in France and is French for author. There are different ways in which a director can express their vision in films and show who they are. There are many directors that are considered to be a auteur such as: Quentin Tarintino, Tim Burton, Kathryn Bigelow, Stanley Kubrick and Woody Allen. The director I have chosen as an auteur is Spike Lee.

The lighting there is much darker than outside without any light. There is a medium shot from low angle facing the cellar door. Then, Lila opens the door and slowly walks down the stairs and proceeds to another basement room. The scene of walking steps from the door down into the room generates a mysterious mood and it symbolizes that Lila is going deeper into the hidden secrets. The shot then edited to another brighter room with lights on and a worn out setting continues with Lila opens the door producing a creaking noise. Then, it shows a medium shot of a back of a woman sitting on a chair with her hair-tied in a bun. Lila then walks closer to the woman and call Mrs. Bates. When she is walking, the camera is constantly stay and Lila is getting closer and the focus point changes from the hanging light bulb to her face. Her facial expression shows that she is curious about the appearance of Mrs. Bates in the cellar. She taps on the right shoulder of the woman and the body of the woman slowly jiggles back and turns over. There is still medium shot when she taps on her shoulder and audience can see the shadow of the woman reflected on the wall behind. Then, the shot is cut to a close-up shot with the skeletal of the woman’s corpse with empty eye

In the film industry, there are directors who merely take someone else’s vision and express it in their own way on film, then there are those who take their own visions and use any means necessary to express their visions on film. The latter of these two types of directors are called auteurs. Not only do auteurs write the scripts from elements that they know and love in life, but they direct, produce, and sometimes act in their films as well. Three prime examples of these auteurs are: Kevin Smith, Spike Lee and Alfred Hitchcock.

Alfred Hitchcock is widely regarded as a prime example of an auteur, a theory that emerged in the 1950s by Truffaut, in the ‘politique des auteurs’ of Cahiers du Cinema (Tudor 121). The auteur theory, as defined by Andrew Tudor, is premised on the assumption that “any director creates his films on the basis of a central structure”(140) and thus, if you consider their films in relation to each other, commonalities can be found within them. These commonalities work to demonstrate the view of the director as “the true creator of the film” (Tudor 122). Evidence of an auteur can be found in examining a director’s creative tendencies, in their distinctive themes and motifs, stylistic choices,

One of the ways why cinematography made the film was the lighting. To get the feel, the lighting appeared to be fake shadows that were painted on the set. The fake shadows that were painted on the set gave the lighting appeared to be harsh and sharper to set the mood for the audience. If it weren’t for the painted shadows, the movie wouldn’t have been so successful in the horror genre. Since it was a silent movie, if it weren’t for the shadows, you wouldn’t of seen it as a horror film, but as an original film that was trying to be creative.

On the other hand, John has half of his face covered in shadow several times while they are watching the fireworks. While Francie is tempting John as well as getting him to admit his true identity, John disregards Francie’s scenarios and states that he would not take part in such acts. The fact that we can see one side of his face could mean that John is trying to conceal his identity as the former cat burglar. Hitchcock could have manipulated the shadows to highlight John’s dual identity. The only reason I can think of for why Francie’s shots are not covered in as many shadows is that Hitchcock wanted to emphasize her beauty to the audience and to John.

One such flashback begins at Thatcher’s building where the reporter Thompson enters an exaggeratedly large room and begins to read about Kane. This is one of the scenes in which cinematographer Greg Toland’s deep focus technique of filming and use of unique lighting, in which the only light source hits

Another aspect of any film is the way the lighting is used. Which also makes shadows very important. There were times throughout the film that light represented the time of day. When it comes to a black and white film it is much

In the film industry, directors have control over the entire production process and shape the film to fit their vision (Creativeskillset.org, 2015). In 1954, François Truffaut took this notion, applying it one step further, in his essay entitled ‘A Certain Tendency in French Cinema’, by saying that directors have complete creative control over the film’s production and that the director is the sole creator. (Nelmes, 2012). Developing this newfound term, auteur theory, coming from the French word ‘author’, François Truffaut came to this conclusion after studying the filmography of famous directors including the works of Alfred Hitchcock and Jean Renoir (Acu.edu.au, 2011). François Truffaut noticed that many elements

The movie employed Chiaroscuro lighting in many scenes to highlight the black-white stock and to capture the intense, anxious atmosphere the characters live in. To further allude to German expressionism, black backgrounds were painted shadows and some walls and painted shadows on another to make them look ominous. Coppola was keen on capturing that atmosphere that he actually shot many scenes using a hand-held camera to let the audience feel that anxiety. prominent presence of clocks in the background was another clever cinematographic choice to one of the novel’s thematic elements. The time flow premise in the movie dealt with perception time vs its passing.

The lighting in this point in the film almost camouflages the car as it is pitch black at nighttime. It enables the audience to only see the car 's window and the faces inside the car. This gives the audience a feeling of mystery as they’re trying to work out who is inside the car. Waititi uses this aspect as well in his other film, Two Cars One Night. He uses the lightning to control the audience 's emotions around who in what cars. By weaving the dark lightning around.