Stanley Kubrick - Auteur?

BTEC EXTENDED DIPLOMA – CREATIVE MEDIA PRODUCTION (TV & Film )

Unit 26: Film Studies

Assignment 1 of 1

What is an Auteur?

Out of all of the media texts, film is probably the one that requires the most collective effort, from a lot of different people, who all work together to get a film made. People generally see the most important people as the actor’s, who are on-screen but those who are also of great importance are the directors, as they are almost like the puppet master of the whole process. Some directors are very specific with their technique, personal style, and the meaning of their films. Directors who follow this path are known as auteurs.

          An auteur’s film reflects their personal vision, and is very stylistic. They are the type of director that will never change their vision for anything; they are usually very artistic and are very specific with what they want. Many directors who are considered auteurs become very well known, and develop their style as they make more and more films. There are many “auteurs” in the world of film-making, each with their own views and opinions, which shine through in each of their films in a very specific way because of their unique style. Many auteur directors will not settle for anything less than their vision, because of this they may stick to certain types of story’s, certain crew members, or even similar shots and sound-tracks.

Stanley Kubrick

Stanley Kubrick was an American film director. He is known as one of greatest filmmakers to come out of America. Kubrick was known for his perfectionism, using extreme care with scene staging and working extremely closely with his actors. His films were known for their amazing and unique cinematography, attention to detail, realism and beautiful soundtracks. Kubrick's films covered a variety of genres. These included horror, science fiction, war and even black comedy. During his career, Kubrick directed 16 titles, these included; A Clockwork Orange, Dr. Strangelove, 2001: A Space Odyssey and The Shining. In regards to auteur theory, Stanley Kubrick has very specific views and opinions on the world. And in my opinion this shows very well through his work, and even though he has directed many different genres, each of his movies has certain traits that let you know it’s a Kubrick movie. For a first, a lot of his films talk about almost “Controversial issues” and they are shown in an almost beautiful way. Kubrick uses a lot of very nice tracking shots and almost always uses a very “classy” musical score, and despite being an American, Kubrick filmed nearly every single film in the UK, which was where he lived with his family. Kubrick was also known for his extreme attention to detail. For example, during filming of the movie “The Shining”, Kubrick wanted approximately 70 takes of the scene where Halloran gets killed by Jack Torrance, but Jack Nicholson talked Kubrick into going easy on the 69-year-old Scatman Crothers and stopping after 40. Although Kubrick’s style is very “Specific”, it is all worth it in the end though. As his films end up being “Close to perfect” masterpieces.

My Opinion

In my opinion, Kubrick is definitely an auteur. As he fits into a lot of the point’s mentioned in the “Auteur Theory”. He has very specific ideas and he has a very specific way of film making, he uses similar shots, similar sound tracks, and even similar crew and filming locations, and because of this, I think that Kubrick will never be forgotten, and will always be considered one of the greatest (Auteur) directors of all time.