Film Culture (Winter 1962/3)

could probably cover up for a chimpanzee in the director’s chair. How do you tell the genuine director from the quasi-chimpanzee? After a given number of films, a pattern is established. In fact, the auteur theory itself is a pattern theory in constant flux. I would never endorse a Ptolemaic constellation of directors in a fixed orbit. At the moment, my list of auteurs runs something like this through the first twenty: Ophuls, Renoir, Mizoguchi, Hitchcock, Chaplin, Ford, Welles, Dreyer, Rossellini, Murnau, Griffith, Sternberg, Eisenstein, Stroheim, Bunuel, Bresson, Hawks, Lang, Flaherty, Vigo. This list is somewhat weighted toward seniority and established reputations. In time, some of these auteurs will rise, some will fall, and some will be displaced by either new directors or rediscovered ancients. Again, the exact order is less important than the specific definitions of these and as many as two hundred other potential auteurs. I would hardly expect any other critic in the world to fully endorse this list, especially on faith. Only after thousands of films have been revaluated, will any personal pantheon have a reasonably objective validity. The task of validating the auteur theory is an enormous one, and the end will never be in sight. Meanwhile, the auteur habit of collecting random films in directorial bundles will serve posterity with at least a tentative classification. Although the auteur theory emphasizes the body of a director’s work rather than isolated masterpieces, it is expected of great directors that they make great films every so often. The only possible exception to this rule I can think of is Abel Gance, whose greatness is largely a function of his aspiration. Even with Gance, La Roue is as close to being a great film as any single work of Flaherty’s. Not that single works matter that much. As Renoir has observed, a director spends his life on variations of the same film. Two recent omnibus films — Boccaccio 70 and The Seven Capital Sins — unwittingly reinforced the auteur theory by confirming the relative standing of the many directors involved. If I had not seen either film, I would have anticipated that the order of merit in Boccaccio 70 would be Visconti, Fellini and De Sica, and in The Seven Capital Sins, Godard, Chabrol, Demy, Vadim, De Broca, Molinaro. (Dhomme, Ionesco’s stage director and an unknown quantity in advance, turned out to be the worst of the lot.) There might be some argument about the relative badness of De Broca and Molinaro, but other 8 FILM CULTURE wise, the directors ran true to form by almost any objective criterion of value. However, the main point here is that even in these frothy, ultracommercial servings of entertainment, the contribution of each director had less in common stylistically with the work of other directors on the project than with his own previous work. Sometimes a great deal of corn must be husked to yield a few kernels of internal meaning. I recently saw Every Night at Eight, one of the many maddeningly routine films Raoul Walsh has directed in his long career. This 1935 effort featured George Raft, Alice Faye, Frances Langford and Patsy Kelly in one of those familiar plots about radio shows of the period. The film keeps moving along in the pleasantly unpretentious manner one would expect of Walsh until one incongruously intense scene with George Raft thrashing about in his sleep, revealing his inner fears in mumbling dream talk. The girl he loves comes into the room in the midst of his unconscious avowals of feeling, and listens sympathetically. This unusual scene was later amplified in High Sierra with Humphrey Bogart and Ida Lupino. The point is that one of the screen’s most virile directors employed an essentially feminine narrative device to dramatize the emotional vulnerability of his heroes. If I had not been aware of Walsh in Every Night at Eight, the crucial link to High Sierra would have passed unnoticed. Such are the joys of the auteur theory. N. Y. FILM BULLETIN 3139 Arnow Place, New York 61, N. Y. AMERICA’S SPOKESMAN FOR. THE “NEW CRITICISM.” NEWS, REVIEWS, ARTICLES, REPRINTS IN TRANSLATION FROM CAHIERS DU CINEMA. Recent articles: HITCHCOCK AND HIS PUBLIC; a listing and analysis of CAHIERS’ “Ten Best Lists” 1955-60; a complete issue devoted to LAST YEAR AT MARIENBAD including an extensive interview with Alain Resnais; THE WORLD OF HOWARD HAWKS by Andrew Sarris; THE ART OF STANLEY DONEN; AN INTERVIEW WITH ANTONIONI; a complete issue devoted to Francois Truffaut including two interviews, articles and background on the POLITIQUE DES AUTEURS, JULES AND JIM, SHOOT THE PIANO PLAYER. One year (12 issues): $5.00; six months (6 issues): $3.00; single copy: 50 cents. Listing of contents of back issues available: 25 cents.