Beyond the limits of the auteur: on the possibility of an encounter theory of modern cinema

Abstract

Despite contention and criticism, auteur theory has significantly influenced screen studies for over half a century and has framed the recurring “brand” or “style” of a director’s personal vision as cinema’s major creative force. Bounded as that theory is within one person’s thoughts and defined in terms of a director’s finite subjectivity what of the auteur’s relation with the world beyond their private selves? As a counterpoint to the exaltation of the cult of the director and in order to restore to film its value as a work, both this thesis and my associated studio practice will engage in a meditation on the idea of surpassing the self in the process of creation. This is an acknowledgement of an act in which one is both present but in a moment of leaving the self behind, dissolving the barrier between self and other as exemplified by the director’s willingness to yield to the work and during acts of genuine collaboration. In choosing the human factor, despite the industrial nature of film production, the view of authorship offered - the possibility of an Encounter Theory of Modern Cinema, a dialogical philosophy of transformative meeting will endeavour to broaden the concept of the auteur, beyond the self-enclosed, private subjectivity of the director. Encounter theory is grounded upon the percussive seeds of Personalist humanism which so informed the criticism of film theorist Andre Bazin. Personalism affirms the absolute dignity and value of persons as subjects and not as objects in which each person is not isolated from others but engaged in interpersonal relations. In acknowledging the interdependence of existence, Encounter Theory thus constitutes a refutation of an either/or division and proposes an aesthetics of cinema concerned with “relation between.” The overall aim of this thesis is to explore in depth the film medium’s primary artistic advantage, namely, its capacity to derive benefit from the negation of the presence of man, an acknowledgment of the continuum of existence in the very absence of one’s own self. Andre Bazin’s reflection upon “the world in its own image” interestingly pointed to this very challenge in cinema: the manifestation of the unique image that could overcome the distinction of the subject and object dichotomy, neither the expression of individual subjectivity, the distorting perspective of a singular point of view, nor the representation of illusion, acting as a barrier between life and art. In starting from the premise that it is from relations that we deduce things, it is concluded that “personal vision” is not an isolated phenomenon and that connectedness is an integral part of our relationship to one another and the world around us.