The Auteur Theory

Auteur theory does not have a certain definition, so it might not be easy to understand. Generally, it could be described as a personal style and characteristic of one film director. As Andrew Sarris mentioned in his essay Notes on the Auteur Theory in 1962, the auteur theory is made up with three things: director’s technical competence, director’s personality to how the film unfolds and the interior meaning. He described these three things as a concentric circle, which the “technique” is the outer circle, the “personality” is the middle circle and the “interior meaning” is the inner circle. He also claimed that this concentric circle can be achieved either beginning from the outer circle or the inner circle, but all three of them must be fulfilled, in my understanding, to become an auteur. I believe it is very important for a director to be an auteur in order to become a great director, or at least a memorable one. It is not hard to imagine that if one directs films in all different kinds of styles, he might not even be remembered by many audience since we might not able to find a focus point on him, therefore, we might not remember him as we do for those who continuously presenting similar style of works.