Week Nine: Voice and The Auteur Theory

Poster for Persona by Ingmar Bergman

Sometimes we think of cultural workers as having a distinctive "voice" in their work. Themes, locations, subjects, motifs, style, lighting, viewpoints, word choices, topics, accent, are just some of the elements that can make up the unique voice of an individual artist. Filmmakers with distinctive voices are often called "auteurs."  This week you are to watch three movies by a particular director and to write a response discussing how the three works you chose exhibit common themes or other elements that are attributes assigned to the personality of the director as an author of the works. In other words, describe the author's voice in these films.

(Or, alternatively, you could argue they are not an auteur or that the term "auteur" should not be applied in the critical discussion of film.)

I am asking you to choose three films by any one director on the following list.

Francois Truffaut	Federico Fellini
Ingmar Bergman	Michelangelo Antonioni
Robert Altman	Akira Kurosawa
Satyajit Ray	Maya Deren
Jane Campion	Stan Brakhage
Peter Greenaway	Andrei Tarkovsky
Sally Potter	Mira Nair
Paul Thomas Anderson	Sofia Coppola
Jean-Luc Godard	Tom Tykwer
Krzysztof Kieslowski	Wes Anderson
Jacques Tati	Mike Leigh

Link that helps to explain an author's tone.

Link that helps to explain an author's voice.

Check the Course Resources Page for a few resources for this assignment.