Martin Scorsese Films

[Robin Davies]

It is, by some people apparently. There was one at the start of this very thread who said that's how it was taught.

g.d.h. said "They are still teaching the Auteur Theory and I agree with you because it reduces a director to only focus on one thing throughout his/her films and surely a director should have the freedom to include all characteristics of filmmaking into their films." which is indeed surprising. Perhaps g.d.h. can confirm that they are actually teaching that the director is the sole author of all their films.

That's your definition. It seems to be hard to pin down anyone else to a definition even though I often ask what people mean by the term.

Well, I'd be interested to hear other people's definitions. But film (like any art form) is not a science and nothing about it can be rigorously defined. For example what is "film noir" or a "horror film"? Neither term has a 100% rigid definition but they are still useful reference points for discussion. As will.15 said even the originators of the theory cited the director as the primary author not the sole one. There's plenty of room for argument about the parameters of the theory but you seem to think that because (in your opinion, this super-hardcore version exists) then the whole theory can be junked.

They were questions, questioning other people's views. Not statements of my own views

No, you were questioning my views with the clear implication that you believed I was wrong.

You are very vehement on this issue, Steve. I wonder if you were bitten by a Cahiers du Cinéma as a child?

Spot on! Mind you, after reading Intellectual Impostures (a jaw-droppingly revealing book about the misuse of scientific terminology by French intellectuals) I have some sympathy with Steve on that score!

I did not know that a strict reading of the Auteur theory was even taught or accepted anymore, but an uninintended consequence is that there is a backlash that claims there is no link between the works of a director in the form of similar themes or mood or style - and that is just as foolish as the extreme Auteur theory.

Spot on again! I think that's the crux of my disagreement with Steve.

[Moor Larkin]

Watching the opening of Gangs of New York (again) and then as much of the subsequent nonsense as I could stand, I'm left aghast at the awesome waste of even the best film-makers. This whole film must be right up there with Waterworld as a colossally expensive piece of utterly boring nonsense. Surely when they were building that enormous wooden trellis work of platforms, in some TARDIS brewery building, someone must havre thought.... This is just daft. I kept thinking it seemed about as *real* as ..............


I watched Daniel Day Lewis in "There Will be Blood" and at least that movie was sit-throughable, even if I fail what is so marvellous about this guys acting. He's no more or less competent than many others in the trade.