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Auteur theory

By Eamon McGillicuddy

Stanley Kubrick

What is an Auteur?

An Auteur is basically a Director who is considered an


author of film. Someone who reinvents and innovates
Cinema. Someone who reshapes the way we see film.
There are many brilliant directors who are considered
Auteurs, filmmakers like David Lynch, Martin Scorsese,
Alfred Hitchcock, and of course Stanley Kubrick.
The word Auteur is in fact French for Author.
An auteur is a director who has complete creative control
over a project.
An Auteur also has a recognizable and unique style of work
with several recurring themes.

Background on Kubrick

Stanley Kubrick was an American film Director, Producer,


screenwriter, editor and cinematographer.
Kubrick was born on July 26 1928 and he died march 7 1999.
When Kubrick was 13 his father bought him a Graflex camera
that triggered in him a fascination with still photography. He
began going to Cinemas and studying film technique.
Kubrick had little success in school only achieving 67 grade
average. He joined his schools photography club but often
skipped school to watch double feature-films. Later in life
Kubrick spoke disdainfully of his education and education in
general, saying that nothing about school interested him.
Kubrick has made many great movies, films like Dr
Strangelove, 2001: A space Odyssey, A clockwork Orange,
The Shining and Full Metal Jacket.

Auteur Theory

Francios Truffaut a French Filmmaker well known for films


such as The 400 Blows and Jules and Jim was one of the
domineering voices in the creation of Auteur theory.
Truffaut developed this theory while writing for the French
film magazine Cahiers Du Cinema. The Theory would
travel in the later years through the writings of American
film critic Andrew Sarris.
In Truffaut article on Auteur theory, he makes a detailed list
of the elements of required for one to be considered an
auteur in filmmaking. Kubrick fits into all of these elements.
Truffaut provocatively said There are no good or bad
movies, only good or bad directors.

Kubrick as an Auteur

Kubrick is without a doubt an auteur. Kubrick had a very creative


vision.
He often took inspiration from books for films but he would change
most of the source material to make it his own. A good example of
this would be Kubrick's film The Shining. Kubrick changed the story
of The Shining so much that the original author Stephen King
attacked the film. The book version is about a haunting in The
Overlook Hotel but in the film Kubrick changed it to being much
more psychological than supernatural. Kubrick also changed the
character of Jack Torrance, in the book he is taken over by spirits
in the Hotel and he eventually breaks the hold an saves his family
but in the film Jack goes insane and stays the villain of the film
until the end when he freezes to death. King was furious about this
change. King felt that Kubrick had completely changed the
message of the story.
Kubrick kept a close group of people with him when making
movies. James Liggat was his casting director for Lolita, 2001, A
clockwork Orange, and the Shining, Margaret Adams went from

Kubrick and the one-point


perspective

There was a very specific shot that Stanley Kubrick would


use in many of his films. This is called the One-Point
Perspective.
Its a very long and wide shot that really makes you focus
on the middle of the shot.
You can find this perspective in every one of Kubrick's films.
This is a compilation video of all the one-point perspective
shots in Kubrick's films,
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=flq0t4jrqJQ

The Shining

Many of Stanley Kubrick's films didnt get great receptions when they Premiered and one of the
films was the Shining.
The Shining is a horror classic today but back when it
premiered it was criticized to no end. The film had been
criticized for Nicholson's over the top acting and a lot of
people just didnt really understand it. Today The film is
considered a masterpiece of horror and Kubrick's intentions
behind the film and what he's trying to say through the
movie. Many have had different theories of what the film
means and what Kubrick was trying to say. Some said that
Kubrick was trying to tell the public about how he directed
the moon landing and the US had never landed on the
moon. There are many theories about the intention of the
film and a lot of them are explained in the documentary
Room 237.

The Shining

The camera work of Kubrick's films were also extremely effective in


the creation of mood and atmosphere, especially his iconic use of
tracking shots. In the Shining, Kubrick is constantly moving the
camera through the overlook hotel, slowly, even if there is no one
in the frame.
Kubrick normally ends his film with you questioning what the
ending was about. In 2001: A space Odyssey the ending is very
strange and confusing, the same goes for A Clockwork Orange but
the beauty of these endings is that it leaves the viewer questioning
the film and still thinking about it and it makes the audience want
to watch it again and understand it. Also Kubrick would never
explain what a lot of his strange and abrupt endings meant. The
Shining's ending is very confusing and unclear of what it exactly
means. The shining ends with Jack Torrance the main character of
the film who freezes to death in a maze, in a picture on a wall of
the overlook hotel.

The Shining

Jack Torrance's body is found at the end of the film in the maze, he
froze to death. The film then ends with a shot of the picture with Jack
Torrance in it and in the picture you can clearly see the picture was
taken in 1921. So the point of the ending is very unclear.
There are theories of what the ending means and one of the theories
are that after Jack had died he was sucked into the overlook hotel
and became one of the spirits in the hotel, He had become part of
the history of the hotel.
Another theory is that Jack Torrance (Jack Nicholson's character) was
a reincarnation of the old caretaker Delbert Grady who Jack meets
the spirit of in the film as a bathroom attendant. Grady had killed his
family in the hotel when he was the caretaker and through out the
film his spirit tries to get jack to do the same thing to his family.
There is no clear explanation and there probably never will be
because the point of these endings in Kubrick's films is for the
audience to decide.

Conclusion

To conclude I believe Kubrick is a great director and without a


doubt an auteur with a very unique style and technique in
filmmaking.
If it can be written, or thought, it can be filmed Stanley Kubrick

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