Film and authorship

Abstract

During the 1960s, when cinema first entered the academy as a serious object of study, the primary focus was on "auterism", or on film's authorship. Burgeoning cinema studies courses demonstrated how directors were the authors of work that undermined (or succeeded in spite of) all the constraints that Hollywood threw at them. New critical methods were introduced as the field matured, and studies of the author/director, for the most part, were considered obsolete. The cSpanning fields from poststructuralism, feminism, queer theory, postcolonialism, and cultural studies, the contributors ask - what does "auteurship" look like today in light of these developments? ontent s are divided into three major sections: Theoretical Statements; Historical and Institutional Contexts; and Case Studies. Virginia Wright Wexman's comprehensive introduction contextualizes the selections and summarizes the scholarly approaches with which auteurism has been addressed in the past; it also provides a sketch of the history of media authorship.