Joaquim da Silva Fontes, Significação e Estabilidade do Género no ...

wants anymore” (in Wartenberg & Curran 2005:104), he gave the Cahiers critics full
acknowledgment for the innovative formulation of “an idea that reshaped my thinking on
the cinema” (ibid.). Therefore, the auteur theory attributed to the director a different
position since s/he is then seen as the author of the film or the individual who gives the
film any “distinctive quality”. Yet, one may wonder how there can just be a single person
when the production of a film and its consequent success involves a full set of people who
have left their marks on the final product. In this respect, Sarris conceives the auteur
theory as three concentric circles, of which the outer circle represents the “technique”, the
middle circle “personal style” and the inner circle that of “interior meaning”. The role of
the director is to be found in these three circles and hence s/he is designated as a
technician, a stylist and an auteur. Perhaps for this reason, in his 1996 book The American
Cinema: Directors and Direction 1929-1968, Sarris would upgrade Wilder to his pantheon
and would apologise for having made such a tremendous omission.
Alexandre Astruc is also another major figure in the establishment of this theory
back in March 1948 when he compared the new subtlety found in cinema to the writing
process and the filmmaker to an “auteur” writing his work with the presence and force of a
writer. This notion of the caméra-stylo (or “camera-pen”) stresses the idea of directors
handling their cameras like pens or painters their paintbrushes and that they need not be
constrained by traditional modes of storytelling. Truffaut followed the same line of
thought, that of a cinema seen as an industrial process in which we see directors using the
commercial apparatus the way a writer uses his pen, and through their mises-en-scène,
imprinting their personal stamp on their work. In this way, the auteur theory appears to be
closer to the process of creation than to the critical rereading of films as texts. From that
viewpoint, Truffaut’s politique is not a theoretical movement but an intimate approach to
cinema as an act of love, by registering one’s recognition and love for the director’s body
of work. As Bazin suggested it, the theory constitutes a process through which any filmic
construction as a standard of reference falls exclusively on its director and this position is
even assumed from one film to the next.
I reckon that this attitude sounds a little too ideal to be useful at times, and one
cannot ignore the fact that these auteurist critics (François Truffaut, Jean-Luc Godard,
Claude Chabrol, etc) who used to write about and judge film directors were directors
themselves. It is also for this reason that the “politique” is often questioned by critics who
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