Mar 01 2009
Question of the week—Who do you hold responsible for the success or failure of a movie?
This was a question discussed during an Intro to Film class I took several years ago. We were studying a very general gist of Auteur theory. Auteur theory is basically the idea that the primary person responsible for how the film turns out is the director. It considers the director the “author” of the film. Auteur is French for author—blame the French for this theory.
Having made a few little amateur films, I’ve seen that there are whole parts of movies that have nothing to do with the director, or even with the writer. They come out of the actors. Sure, the director tells the actor what to do, but a good actor gets a general outline of what he’s supposed to be doing and then motors about doing it autonomously. It’s like you tell someone “pace around muttering to yourself”. There’s 101 ways to do that action.
In the Intro to Film class, the teacher told us the person most pissed off by Auteur theory is the screenwriter. After all the screenwriter exists on a project before a director is even appointed. Figure out the fairness in that.
Most people will agree it’s a combination of people who are responsible for what a movie eventually becomes. Movies are, by their nature, a collaborative art. The oddest thing about that class discussion in Intro to Film was the main positions brought up were the director, the writer, and the actors. The guy behind the camera was totally ignored. Camera people do a whole host of their own decisions as far as framing and composition. Or rather the director of photography does this. I’m not sure how much free reign the actual camera guy is given in most films.
Any position in a movie with any kind of free reign, even if very limited, should get a percentage of credit from the audience. Yet audiences tend to only follow around movies by director or by actor. Directors are over rated. Writers and camera personnel are severely under rated.
Also, most people don’t seem to see the unique situation of the making of each individual movie. The amount of creative force given by a certain position changes from project to project. The process is a more living and unique thing per movie than most people seem to realize.
Also, let’s not forget the music. The movie “Lady Hawk” proves how important the soundtrack is. Lady Hawk’s a movie from the 80s with Michelle Pfeiffer and Matthew Broderick. It’s a great story, with great acting, and great everything else. However, the movie overlaid with this cheesy, horrendous 80s synthetic music. Seriously, the soundtrack makes you when the scene is serious. Even the 80s and whole lot of acid doesn’t explain how awful the soundtrack choices were.
So the question here is: who do you think makes the movie? Who’s the creative force(s) that drive(s) it?
Comments please.
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Good question, Jessie! Especially after the box office failure of a certain movie I was excited to see this weekend…but I think that was because the tickets were unusually expensive and the release was more limited than most. So, really, I think you have to blame lots of outside circumstances. Maybe it was or wasn’t the right time of year for a movie, or, like with Pirates 3, it was too long and no time for lots of showings. Sometimes it’s because the movie just sucked lol. But there are always tons of different factors to consider. It just depends on the movie.
@ Mary
yeah there is the distributors as well that have a lot to do with the financial success of movies. The when, the where, and the how it get thrown out there in front of people and what eles it going on at the time.
However, I was asking more on the outcome of the movie as a movie, not really the financial success or failure. But it’s all related in the end i guess.
Well in response to the random question you asked at the end lol…
Actually, I think that’s a mixture to, but of the cast and crew.