The Elusive Auteur

Barrett Hodsdon has spent many years teaching, writing and researching in the area of film studies and associated film industry research. In the 1970s he pioneered the concept of a specialist film studies collection for the National Library of Australia. He has written on a wide variety of topics for local specialist Australian film journals covering film aesthetics, Hollywood, film genre, documentary and domestic film culture issues. He lives in North Sydney, Australia.

Table of Contents


Acknowledgments

Introduction

Notes on Terminology

Part I: Critical Origins

 1. Authorial Function and Historical Precedents

 2. Cahiers du Cinéma and Founding the Discourse of Auteur Criticism: Snapshots in Time

 3. Andrew Sarris and the Auteur ­Re-Evaluation of Hollywood

Part II: Auteur Concepts and Problematics

 4. Reconsidering the Underpinnings of Traditional Auteur Criticism

 5. Agency and Authorship: Forms of Mediation

 6. Extending the Lineages of Authorship: Art Cinema and the ­Avant-Garde

Part III: The Director in the Classic Hollywood System

 7. The Hierarchy of Directors and Work Relations

 8. Reconciling the Director with Creative Contributors

 9. Reformulating Authorial Presence: The Value of a Neoformalist Designation

10. Triumphs, Accommodations, Victims and Mavericks: 15 Examples

Part IV: Cinephilia Revisited

11. Cinephilia and Its Historical Trajectory

12. Recapturing the Sublime Moment: A Spectrum of Films

Part V: The Changing Face of Hollywood

and the Shifting Sands of Authorship Since the 1970s

13. From Vision to Branding

14. Contemporary Hollywood Directors and Auteur Slippage: Illustrating the New Breed of Auteurs

Part VI: Auteur Displacement in the Digital

15. The Inheritance from the Past

16. The Enclave of Art Cinema

17. Old Notions of Authorship Unhinged

18. Revamping Cinephilia in a Postmodern Climate

19. Implications of the Media Revolution

The Last Word

Chapter Notes

Bibliography

Index