It is more a sensibility or critical stance than a word. Most auteurists like Sarris, were in favor of pluralism in film criticism. Sarris even urged Richard Corliss to give the auteurist treatment to American screenwriters. As one Polish critic said to Sarris, "Let us polemicize!" Sarris cited the influence of Manny Farber upon him, among others. In France, the Cahiers crowd sought to revolutionize French cinema and they succeeded. Most of the American critical establishment of the 1960s (John Simon, Stanley Kauffman, Dwight MacDonald, Judith Crist, even Pauline Kael) were as clueless about the impact of the French New Wave as they were about Hitchcock. Despite my petty demurrals, I heartily enjoy Frederik on Film.
Ugh, John Simon is not someone I can stand. But Kael and Kauffman definitely got the French New Wave. But more importantly, the names you mention are a only a small group of New York-based critics, and Sarris's contemporaries. They're all part of the same world. They're not all there is, or was.
Thanks for your comments, it's more fun when someone replies!
Sure, but there were plenty of critics looking beyond literary and sociological aspects, there was no need to add a new word to the mix, and Hitchcock was more highly regarded then than the critics are given credit for. That something rankles doesn't mean it is relevant, or ever was.
Sarris seized upon les politiques des auteurs because he thought the American critical film establishment was overly biased towards the literary and sociological aspects of American films at the expense of visual analysis. That is why directors like Hitchcock or Sirk were under valued in America circa 1960. Auteurism was always more of a critical tendency than a theory. That the term still rankles people today is proof of its potency.
It is more a sensibility or critical stance than a word. Most auteurists like Sarris, were in favor of pluralism in film criticism. Sarris even urged Richard Corliss to give the auteurist treatment to American screenwriters. As one Polish critic said to Sarris, "Let us polemicize!" Sarris cited the influence of Manny Farber upon him, among others. In France, the Cahiers crowd sought to revolutionize French cinema and they succeeded. Most of the American critical establishment of the 1960s (John Simon, Stanley Kauffman, Dwight MacDonald, Judith Crist, even Pauline Kael) were as clueless about the impact of the French New Wave as they were about Hitchcock. Despite my petty demurrals, I heartily enjoy Frederik on Film.
Ugh, John Simon is not someone I can stand. But Kael and Kauffman definitely got the French New Wave. But more importantly, the names you mention are a only a small group of New York-based critics, and Sarris's contemporaries. They're all part of the same world. They're not all there is, or was.
Thanks for your comments, it's more fun when someone replies!
Sure, but there were plenty of critics looking beyond literary and sociological aspects, there was no need to add a new word to the mix, and Hitchcock was more highly regarded then than the critics are given credit for. That something rankles doesn't mean it is relevant, or ever was.
Sarris seized upon les politiques des auteurs because he thought the American critical film establishment was overly biased towards the literary and sociological aspects of American films at the expense of visual analysis. That is why directors like Hitchcock or Sirk were under valued in America circa 1960. Auteurism was always more of a critical tendency than a theory. That the term still rankles people today is proof of its potency.