Within recent film scholarship, directors have been divided into the category of being either a practicing ‘auteur’ or a ‘metteur-en-scéne’. This essay will explain why Steven Spielberg’s oeuvre as a director is best understood as the work of an auteur. By examining the historical and changing relevance of these two terms, this essay will apply the initial principles discussed by François Truffaut and Andrew Sarris, and explore the evolving nature of auteur theory as it applies to Steven Spielberg.
Steven Spielberg’s immense popularity and cultural influence have been counterbalanced for many years by disdain from many critics, members of the Hollywood establishment, and elements of academia. In recent years, as Spielberg’s seriousness as an artist has become inescapable, he has been increasingly accepted by many of those who previously rejected him (McBride, 2009, pg. 1).
Firstly to what separates an auteur from a metteur-en-scéne. French film critic François Truffaut originally published his article, ‘A certain tendency in the French Cinema’, in Cahiers du Cinéma in 1954 as a critique on the trend of cinema scholarship to award prestige to films only considered laudable under a ‘tradition of quality’. Instead, he proposed films could be judged worthy by using an auteurist methodology focused on a director’s “personal vision” (Truffaut in Grant, 2008, pg. 9). The increased level of personal control and influence is what separates auteurs from a metteur-en-scéne, who choose to leave authorship with the writer and instead focus on skillfully enacting the ‘scenarists’ words, usually in an undifferentiated manner to other filmmakers (Truffaut in Grant, 2008, pg. 15). Andrew Sarris introduced this thesis to American film criticism in 1962. He refined the qualifiers of auteur as a director, to someone who firstly displays “technical competence”, secondly exhibits a “distinguishable personality” (a signature style) derived from their individuality, and thirdly and most importantly, how the director’s personality affects the materials “interior meaning” that is entirely unique unto itself (Sarris, 1999, pp. 515-517). The deliberate connotative associations laid into their works is what defines an auteur, whereas the metteur-en-scéne will never move beyond the denoted meaning of the individual elements of a pre-existing text (Wollen, 1972, pg. 78).
The auteur theory however is not a fixed term of reference and has undergone much refinement over the years. Furthermore, the conferring of the title auteur doesn’t confirm that good directors will only make good films and vice versa (Sarris, 1999, pg. 515). Auteurism also itself exists on a sliding scale of lesser to more complex practitioners rather than pass or fail (Wollen, 1972, pp. 102-103). Sarris suggests that auteur status can be thought of more as a stage on a journey, neither the beginning nor the end of a body of work, and that the auteur theory itself is open to change, thus redefining previous and current ‘auteurs’ (1999, pg. 517). He states that “auteurism was never meant to be an exclusionary doctrine, nor a blank check for directors… more the first step than the last stop in film scholarship” (Sarris, 1974, pg. 63). There was initial reluctance by some critics unwilling to apply auteur theory to more popular works since they didn’t follow the traditional European approach of a single artist with total creative control (Wollen, 1972, pg. 77). Additionally, some filmmakers were denied the title of auteur domestically, yet celebrated by international markets. Sarris cites this dissonance as the language barrier in both directions allowing freedom for critics to focus on the directorial choices in mise-en-scéne and performance, while discounting bad dialogue (1974, pg. 62). The auteur theory at least proved helpful as a method for classification (Sarris, 1999, pg. 518).
The historical adaptability of auteurism, back through the works of early filmmakers like Von Stroheim and Eisenstein and through to the present generation of Spielberg and Cimino, identifies mainly the desire and demand of an industry to generate an artistic (and specifically Romantic) aura during a period when the industry as such needed to distinguish itself from other, less elevated, forms of mass media (Corrigan, 1990, pg. 45).
Auteur theory was to undergo further adaptions as the model of Hollywood film production changed. Buckland argues that the definition of what an auteur is has shifted considerably in line with the change to a package-unit-system. From the previously identified classical auteur or romantic auteur working within or against the Hollywood mass production system to the contemporary auteur (largely due to the impact of Steven Spielberg’s phenomenal early success), whereby they occupy the multiple positions of director, producer, writer, studio co-owner or other key role. In effect, auteurs are those who “vertically reintegrate the stages of filmmaking” under their own control rather than that of the studio (2003, pp. 84-87). Spielberg’s Amblin production company, as well as the creation of DreamWorks in 1994 with partners Jeffrey Katzenberg and David Geffen, successfully kept creative control in Spielberg’s hands. Problems with the initial interpretation of auteur theory was that the criteria was based on a subjective value of artistic expression as something separate from the marketing and commercial imperatives involved in its formulation. The transition of auteur involved recontextualising the ideological attachments to include how it shapes audience reception, distribution and marketing (Corrigan, 1990, pp. 45-46).
As this contemporary reshaping of auteurism developed, it is possible to see how it applies to the work of Steven Spielberg. Henry Jenkins’ appraisal of the package-unit-system was that since filmmakers were now considered independent contractors, fostering an “idiosyncratic style” was the key to marketability. Spielberg’s thematic consistencies of love and friendship; the ordinary man confronted by the extraordinary; as well as the moral and political themes of his later work would be his personal signature. Furthermore, it’s in his technical mastery of mise-en-scéne and narration that his singular authorship can be found (Buckland, 2003, pp. 90-91). Spielberg has forty-nine directorial credits to his name including film, television and games; has been nominated for countless awards and is the winner of the Best Director’s Oscar for Saving Private Ryan (1998) and Schindler’s List (1993) (IMDb).
Yet, even though he’s responsible for some of the most influential and popular films ever made, very little effort has been put into analysing Spielberg’s oeuvre in any psychological or thematic seriousness. McBride likens this academic breach to that perpetuated on previous ‘popular’ directors like Alfred Hitchcock, Howard Hawks, John Ford or Billy Wilder when Truffaut and Sarris first began utilising the auteurist theory to break away from ingrained biases in film scholarship. However, it’s gratifying that after decades of harsh critical bias, his work is now being studied by academics with a more nuanced approach rather than being dismissed or derided by misrepresentation or claims “Steven Spielberg is not an auteur” (McBride, 2009, pp. 2-3).
Even amongst his earliest films, it is capable to discern an auteur at work. Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1977) marks not only one of the rare occasions that Spielberg directed a script he himself had written, but explores his personal fascination with all things extra terrestrial (Buckland, 2006, pg. 111). Close Encounters of the Third Kind is explicitly about an everyman’s encounter with UFO’s, yet self-reflexively is actually a celebration of the cinema experience itself, right down to the casting of François Truffaut ‘directing’ the interactions of the alien encounter (Morris, 2007, pp. 12-14). It also incorporates elements of what would solidify into Spielberg’s signature stylistic flourishes: the prolonged opening black screen; the use of off-screen space to cue audience expectations; bright spotlights/backlighting (usually diffused); diagonal composition of shots and graphic matches; and a John Williams score (Buckland, 2006, pp. 115, 122-124, 127). Additionally, Spielberg incorporates numerous examples of intertextuality and self-reference (Morris, 2007, pg. 15). Buckland argues that critics fail to notice his attention to detail since his choices seem minute, but each directorial decision unifies his work in an organic manner (2006, pg. 127). Critics also overlook examples of symbolism and identification due to the populist nature of Spielberg’s films failing to cross what they consider the low culture/high culture barrier of other now recognised auteurs like Hitchcock or Ford (Morris, 2007, pg. 11).
As his career progressed, Spielberg’s self-reflection and engagement with the interior meaning of his work only became more complex. A.I Artificial Intelligence (2001) highlights Spielberg’s efforts to explore and ironize his own tropes with a maturation of skill, blending together what had previously been seen as his divided oeuvre of children’s films and adult films (Kreider, 2003, pp. 33-35). Even the much-maligned Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull (2008) not only parodies nineteen fifties cinematic tropes: flying saucers, mutant movies and the cold war, it’s also a self-reflexive caricature of his own previous work in the original sequels as well as in Close Encounters and E.T The Extraterrestrial (1982) with the ‘Doom Town’ sequence working on both the level of parodying government films of that time whilst also “annihilating a quintessentially Spielbergian suburban neighborhood” (McBride, 2009, pg. 7).
There is one criticism that gets leveled at him repeatedly, and it is also where most academics refuse to elevate his work above that of an assured metteur-en-scéne. Spielberg’s critics often append the derogative label of ‘manipulative’ when analysing his work, however Morris believes this superficial reading discounts the meta-textual “aspects of mise-en-scéne and editing [that exceed] their narrational function… to suggest significance beyond localised effects” (2007, pp. 9-10). There are three techniques in particular that have become known as ‘Spielbergian’: his use of light, both bright and diffused, to create mystery; an intense, reactive ‘face’ shot; and a subtle pushing in camera movement toward a character or group of characters. These have become known as the three Z’s: “the haze, the gaze, and the zoom” (Fortunato, 2014, pg. 44). These can however be read and understood via the application of the Lacanian mirror and self-reflexivity (Morris, 2007, pg. 11).
Lacan’s theory informs film theory in that, similar to the joy a child experiences in discovering its mirrored self, viewers of a film likewise identify with the facial images of the on-screen characters (Fortunato, 2014, pg. 43).
The most iconic moments within a Spielberg film are always accompanied by what Kevin Lee has called, “The Spielberg Face” (Fortunato, 2014, pg. 45). In this he is utilising ‘the gaze’ of an onscreen character staring into off-screen space in a moment of delayed narrative gratification in order that the audience occupy a surrogacy position. “Eyes open, staring in wordless wonder in a moment where time stands still”, the audience engages in a “childlike surrender in the act of watching, both theirs and ours” (Fortunato, 2014, pg. 41 & 45). In Spielberg’s employment of his stylistic, ‘gaze’, he is indeed manipulating viewers with a ‘mirror’ of themselves, however, “The Spielberg Face effectively illustrates the techniques employed by Spielberg to create the Lacanian images so prominent in his films” (Fortunato, 2014, pg. 41 & 45).
In the world of film scholarship, Steven Spielberg as an auteur is finally being granted legitimacy. With the influence of popular culture supporting him, and the shift of theory to encompass “the auteur as commodity, as brand name” (Martin, 2004, pg. 95), Spielberg supporters amongst the younger academics, unburdened by older cultural bias, are achieving the kind of recognition reminiscent of that Alfred Hitchcock received after being belittled the majority of his career for being ‘too popular’ for serious study (McBride, 2009, pg. 1). Spielberg’s propensity for genre parody, postmodernism, stylistic reflexivity and complex attitudes towards paternalism and restoration of the nuclear family are applied with a poignant frequency that implies more than a simple metteur-en-scéne enacting the works of others (McBride, 2009, pg. 4 & 10).
The emotional and intellectual complexities of the positions Spielberg takes in his best work, when carefully examined, demonstrate the falsity of the caricatured portrait offered by his detractors (McBride, 2009, pg. 11).
To conclude, this essay has explained why Steven Spielberg should be considered an auteur, rather than a metteur-en-scéne throughout all the various permutations of meaning the theory has undergone. Firstly, he fulfills Truffaut’s ‘personal vision’ by repetitively incorporating themes of paternalism, family, love and the unknown, alongside topics he is passionate about. Secondly, his films always display Sarris’ ‘technical competence’ through his use of mise-en-scéne, lighting, and performance: and as his two Oscar wins and numerous nominations prove. Furthermore, his ‘distinguishable personality’ has become known by the monikers of either ‘The Spielberg Face’, or the ‘Three Z’s’ to indicate his personal signature. And a constant self-reflectivity and usage of Lacanian ‘mirror’ techniques indicate a director exploring the ‘interior meaning’ of his work. His level of personal control and development via Amblin and DreamWorks fulfills Buckland’s amended theory on vertical integration and Corrigan’s integration of reception and market realities into the overall definition. While it might be conceded that it’s “convenient to choose a theory of film that embraces our favorites as examples” (Staples, 1966, pg. 6), this essay has proven that the director, Steven Spielberg shouldn’t be understood only as a metteur-en-scéne, but rather an auteur of the highest caliber.
References
Buckland, W 2003, ‘The role of the auteur in the age of the blockbuster: Steven Spielberg and Dream Works’, in J Stringer (ed.), Movie Blockbusters, Routledge, London.
Buckland, W 2006, ‘The UFO experience: Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1997 theatrical release)’, in Directed by Steven Spielberg: Poetics of the Contemporary Hollywood Blockbuster, Continuum, New York.
Corrigan, T 1990, ‘The Commerce of Auteurism: A Voice without Authority’, New German Critique, vol. 49, viewed 16/05/14.
Fortunato, J 2014, ‘The Gaze and The Spielberg Face: Steven Spielberg’s application of Lacan’s Mirror Stage and Audience Response’, Visual Communication Quarterly, vol. 21, no. 1, viewed 21/05/14.
IMDb 2014, Steven Spielberg, viewed 21/05/14.
Kreider, T 2003, ‘A.I. Artificial Intelligence’, Film Quarterly, vol. 56, no. 2, viewed 01/05/14.
Martin, A 2004, ‘Possessory Credit’, Framework: The Journal of Cinema and Media, vol. 45, no. 1, viewed 16/05/14.
McBride, J 2009, ‘A reputation: Steven Spielberg and the eyes of the world’, New Review of Film and Television Studies, vol. 7, no. 1, viewed 15/05/14.
Morris, N 2007, ‘Close Encounters of the Third Kind: tripping the light fantastic’, in The Cinema of Steven Spielberg: Empire of Light, Wallflower Press, London.
Sarris, A 1974, ‘Auteurism is Alive and Well’, Film Quarterly, vol. 28, no. 1, viewed 16/05/14.
Sarris, A 1999, ‘Notes on the auteur theory in 1962’, in L Braudy & M Cohen (eds), Film Theory and Criticism: Introductory Readings, 5th edn, Oxford University Press, Oxford.
Staples, DE 1966, ‘The Auteur Theory Reexamined’, Cinema Journal, vol. 6, viewed 16/05/14.
Truffaut, F 2008, ‘A certain tendency in the French cinema’, in B.K. Grant (ed.), Auteurs and Authorship: a Film Reader, Blackwell, Malden.
Wollen, P 1972, ‘The auteur theory’, in Signs and Meaning in the Cinema, 3rd edn, Indiana University Press, Bloomington.
Mickey Richards 