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

Even though the names of Wilder and Preminger are not part of the top-twenty
auteur list of Andrew Sarris, I wish to discuss the work of these two émigrés for the
reasons mentioned above, but also for their courage in violating some of Hollywood’s
accepted standards of their time. Their “distinguishable personality” as directors may not
be easily subsumed to Sarris’s “concentric circles”, but I think their works speak for
themselves, and when, for instance, Preminger creates a whodunit like Laura, the viewer is
not especially interested in his personality (as it becomes part of the texture of the film), so
again this particular premise of the auteur theory, in my opinion, does not stand as a strong
marker of value. About this second premise (and the auteur theory in global term as
presented by Sarris), Pauline Kael has also a divergent opinion:
Up to this point there has really been no theory, and now, when Sarris begins to
work on his foundation, the entire edifice of civilized standards of taste collapses
while he’s tacking down his floorboards. (...) But how does this distinguishable
personality function as a criterion for judging the works? We recognize the hands
of Carné and Prévert in Le Jour Se Lève, but that is not what makes it a beautiful
film – we can just as easily recognize their hands in Quai des Brumes – which is
not a good film. (in Wartenberg & Curran 2005:109)
Finally, as I mentioned in the Introduction, in analysing their filmography I seek to
isolate their singularity, their fine noir achievements, and the way we, as spectators,
perceive an extraordinarily distinctive directorial talent. In the light of the auteur theory, I
hope to draw attention to the way these individual directors were capable of expressing
themselves in the unity of form and content by means of personal film technique. Here I
am aware that there is a possibility of disagreement with Sarris about Billy Wilder, the
director I am about to discuss next, for whom “Joseph L. Mankiewicz and Billy Wilder are
other examples of writer-directors without adequate technical mastery” (in Wartenberg &
Curran 2005:112). This, however, will also be a good opportunity for me to explain my
divergence of opinion concerning Sarris’s third premise (the “interior meaning, the
ultimate glory of the cinema” as being “extrapolated from the tension between a director’s
personality and his material”) and why he believes writer-directors are barred by this
premise.
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