Response to Auteur Theory

I had always believed that the auteur theory only extended to the vision of the director, and that it implied that everything within the film was methodically constructed and placed there for a specific purpose to create meaning. Thus, I was equally shocked when the article revealed that the auteur theory is not limited to the director itself. It very much involves the active decipherment on part of the viewer, in order to decode the ultimate meaning of the film, which at times is obscured by the introduction of other elements and often unconsciously placed by the director themselves.

I find it very interesting that the underlying principle of the theory is to uncover the motifs present in a group of films of a specific director and then analyze that structure. I find this even more appropriate now when I think of films by the Coen Brother, and how the themes in many of their films are constructed within a dark comical world, characterized by miserable people and money motivated murderers, where the women are usually the last ones standing.

The end of the article explains, "it is an illusion to think of any work as complete in itself, an isolated unity whose intercourse with other films, other texts, is carefully controlled to avoid contamination." After reading this article, I realize that taking a critical eye is necessary when analyzing films within a specific auteur's repertoire. Without doing so would only reveal a piece of the whole, leaving meaning obscured and overall appreciation diminished for variations within a repeated message.