Collaboration and Why The Auteur Theory Is Bull

I’m going to admit right at the outset that I know that I’m distorting the “auteur theory” here, but I’m just doing what most people think that theory says. Ask anyone, even our amazing film students at USC, what the “auteur” theory is, and they’ll tell you that it’s about the supremacy of the director in terms of guiding the vision of a film.

In fact, as I understand it, the auteur theory really says something much subtler – that, over the course of a number of films, a good director imbues each film (no matter how different in subject matter) with a recognizable point of view. The difference between an “auteur” and a “journeyman” director — common in Hollywood in the Sixties when that French theory came to prominence — is that each film of an auteur becomes inextricably intertwined with that director’s style, vision and personality. A “work-for-hire” director has no such distinctive stamp. In this version of the theory, Michael Bay is as much an auteur as John Ford. And I think that’s true.

So, the auteur theory really talks about subtleties that are visible in retrospect. Yet, it has somehow become the torch by with which less talented directors tend to immolate their films (sorry for the strained metaphor there), as they consciously attempt to force their “personal vision” onto each of their films. (For yet another sense of what the auteur theory is, check out this rather well-crafted explanation on Wikipedia)

That’s what I understand about the auteur theory. But now I’ll ignore that knowledge go with the more popular definition – that it’s about the director imposing a vision on a work.

That auteur theory is bull.

These thoughts were raised by a question that someone asked me on Twitter several weeks ago: “How do you deal with a director who has incredibly idiotic ideas?” the questioner asked. Implicit in that question was a second one: “And what do you do when that director forces those dumbnesses onto you?”

In typical Norman fashion, I’d like to address that question by looking at it from another angle.

In today’s New York Times, Jeannette Catsoulis, reviews Robert Rodriguez’s new film SHORTS, a film in which a number of children live and learn in a town whose main company, Black Box Industries, manufactures one product – the Black Box – which she describes as “a strange, multipurpose gadget that resembles an ebony Rubik’s Cube and can serve as everything from a cheese grater to a solar panel.” Catsoulis, who didn’t much like the film, goes one to say:

Concocted by Robert Rodriguez, a kind of filmmaking Black Box (he wrote, directed, edited, produced, photographed, composed some of the music and supervised the visual effects), ‘Shorts’ feels underwritten and overdressed.

Aside from the fact that I have never particularly warmed to Rodriguez’s films (most of which seem to me to suffer from a love of technique and shortcuts to character), it seems to me that Catsoulis is accusing the director here of falling in love with his own voice and his own work. It’s an Emperor’s New Clothes sort of fable, in which no one wants to tell the King that he’s nearly naked.

[As an aside, Manohla Dargis off-handedly (and quite nastily, I thought) makes a similar claim on Quentin Tarentino’s new film, INGLOURIOUS BASTERDS, when she says: “He has also turned into a bad editor of his own material (his nominal editor, as usual, is Sally Menk.” This comment  manages to insult both the film and a fine editor at the same time even though it is obvious to anyone who has actually worked in the industry that Menke’s been doing this long enough, and worked with enough people, to turn down a job if she knows she is going to be treated like a mere pair of hands, even if it’s from Tarentino.]

Both of these reveiws make for a good object lesson for directors which I will now shout out to them.  Directors –  it’s impossible to make a film by yourself. Not every idea you’re going to have is good, and not all good ideas are going to come from you. The best comments I’ve gotten from directors are when they turn to me after viewing my Editor’s Cut and say “Wow, there were some things in there that I never would have thought of myself. Thanks.” That doesn’t mean that we’re going to use those ideas, but it does mean that the director’s creative juices are going to be kicked up a notch and there will new and better ideas flowing very shortly.

That is the ideal way to work with any creative person: come to the table with an idea (the “thesis”), let that person come up with a different idea (the “antithesis”) and then to let those two opposing notions contribute to a third, usually better, idea (the “synthesis”). Directors who feel that they are the sole auteurs of their work, and are too afraid or guarded to open up to other ideas, will generally miss out on those “third, usually better” ideas, and their work will suffer.It’s why the more roles that a creator takes on, the more the work will usually suffer. Being a writer/director is dangerous enough. When you become a writer/director/editor the combination is almost always disastrous.  I’d venture that John Sayles films, for instance, were never as good as when he worked with an editor. Even the vaunted Coen Bros have suffered when they edited their own work.

It’s a problem that I’m continually fighting among those talented students at USC. I’d rather they learned how to talk to an editor in order to bring their ideas to the fore, than edit their film themselves. Simplifying the communication process, in this case by eliminating the editor, doesn’t make for a better film. Creating a common language (such as the one I talk about in my book THE LEAN FORWARD MOMENT) does.

So, let’s get back to the Twitter question, “How do you deal with a director’s stupid ideas?”

In my opinion, the first thing to realize is that they might not be stupid ideas at all. The fact that they seem stupid to you, may say more about you than about the director. You might be jealously guarding an idea of yours that you’d be better off questioning. Just as we want our directors to be collaborative, it is important for us (as editors) to be open to those “antithesis” ideas.

The second thing to realize is that, even if the ideas are stupid (“Can’t we take every other shot and turn it upside down?”) most directors who have done their homework are coming up with these crazy ideas because they are missing something in the edit that they are watching. They aren’t getting the emotional kick from a scene that they wanted. They don’t understand a character’s motivation the way that they feel is necessary. There is more confusion by the end of a commercial than they desire.

The problems are myriad (haha, a very subtle HEATHERS reference there) but the psychology is the same. Unless the director is a complete moron, every idea and question that they have comes from some place. It is the job of the editor to dig below the question/comment and figure out what it is that the director (or producer or showrunner or whoever is in charge of the vision) really wants.

And the third thing is that if the director really is a complete moron, I’d take a look at yourself and ask why you took the job in the first place. I know that there’s always rent that you have to pay, but if that’s the deal that you’ve made with the devil, then you’ve got no business complaining about idiot directors. You knew the deal when you signed your contract or shook their hand. Here’s a piece of advice that I only learned after many years in the editing room - life is too short to be working with people who don’t fill you up with artistic and/or emotional fulfillment.

As an aside, on my other blog today (http://normanhollyn.com) I’m posting a piece about two times when collaborative editorial really worked well.