When looking at what defines an auteur, there are many different outlooks on the characteristic qualities an auteur should possess. A terminology which was inspired by the French critic review ‘Cahiers du Cinema’ the word auteur essentially means the author of a film, this author is regarded as being more of an artist and their films in some ways act as a blank canvas for their self-expression of individual style, themes and techniques. The films created by an auteur act as a reflection of their own personality, allowing them to replicate personal life experiences within scenes and characters in their works. John Caughie highlights this coherent use of personality within his book ‘Theories of Authorship: A Reader’ (1981) where he states:
“…a director who is genuinely an artist (an auteur) a film is more than likely to be the expression of his individual personality; and that this personality can be traced in a thematic and/or stylistic consistency over all (or almost all) the director’s films.” (Caughie 1981 p.9)
Another influential theorist within the film critique is Andrew Sarris, a critic who is renowned for his input in the building of the auteur theory. Sarris expresses in his book The American Cinema: Directors and Directions, 1929-1968 (1996) the three main aspects of auteur theory that he deems most important “The three premises of the auteur theory may be visualised as three concentric circles the outer circle as technique, the middle circle as personal style and the inner circle as interior meaning ” (Sarris 1996 p.39) Here it can be seen that Sarris believes that an auteurs work should consist of the continual use of specific techniques, personal style and interior meanings in order to define them as an artist rather than a director of a film.
Sarris also highlights in his article ‘Notes On The Auteur Theory’ (1962) cited in Leo Braudy and Marshall Cohen’s ‘Film Theory and Criticism’ (2004) of his belief that an auteurs personal touch can be added to the film through this theory and the audience can attain an individual accomplishment from the viewing of this art “The auteur theory is the only help for extending the appreciation of personal qualities in the cinema. By grouping (and evaluating films according to directors, the critic can rescue individual achievements from an unjustifiable anonymity.” (Braudy and Cohen, 2004, p.660)
Larry Clark
Larry Clark is a renowned director within the American film industry who has managed to establish himself through his raw, truthful and dark insights into the reality of todays youth culture. With a background in photography which he has managed to combine with cinema to produce deep and shocking imagery within his films, Clark most definately falls under the ‘auteur’ label. Clark’s characteristics of an auteur can be seen in his consistent use of specific styles, themes and techniques within many of his works.
He was born in Tulsa, Oklahoma, in 1943 and his first love for photography was when he was thirteen his inspiration came from his mother who worked as a baby photographer and the concept of capturing an image to enact reality fascinated Clark. Through this inspiration Clark chose to pursue photography at high school and over a period of nine years he documented the life’s of his peers in pictures. In these photos he highlighted the modern youth culture with images of underage sex, drug taking, violence and other common explicit activities that occurred within the everyday lives of youths. Clark’s first publication was entitled Tulsa and released in 1971, within this book were many of the photos which he had taken over the nine-year period of himself and his peers. At first people were taken back by the rawness and shocking reality within some of the images, however this publication would become an inspiration to director Gus Van Sant and would be a major influence within the making of his film Drugstore Cowboy (1989).
After realising that his photography had such an impact within the film industry, Clark decided to make his first film and take on the role of director within his cult youth hit Kids (1995). Clark chose to hire Van Sant as his executive producer in order to gain funding for the production of his first motion picture.
Larry Clark’s decision to start directing was a wise one and his qualities of authorship can be identified early within his first film Kids. This powerful film highlights the youth culture of New York and follows the lives of skateboarders Telly (Leo Fitzpatrick) and Casper (Justin Pierce) who are best friends. Telly’s mission in life is to de-flower as many virgins as he can, and the film starts off with a very graphic scene of him convincing an innocent girl of why she should sleep with him. Telly thinks that he his popular with the ladies and his aspiration to take as many virginities away from girls is highlighted throughout the film. However, Telly is unaware that he is HIV positive and this only comes to light within the film when a girl called Jennie (Chloe Sevigny) decides to get tested for sexual diseases to support her friend who is scared of doing it on her own. When the test returns positive, she is baffled as the only person she has slept with is Telly and can’t believe that she has contracted this disease after having sex only once. After being told of this detrimental news Jennie tries to find Telly to tell him of his sexual disease and try to prevent him from spreading it to any other unfortunate virgins. However, with the sadness of being HIV positive Jennie chooses to take acid in an attempt to drown her misery but the acid only makes her day worse and she isn’t in control of her actions. Telly has already managed to infect one girl earlier on in the day and his second ‘victim’ is a girl that he has had his sights on for a while. He asks her to come to a party with him and everyone ends up getting intoxicated with alcohol and drugs. By the end of the night the girl falls to become his second conquest and Jennie walks in the room when Telly is already spreading his disease. The film ends on a shocking note when Telly’s friend Casper rapes Jennie whilst she is knocked out on the couch from the acid she had taken earlier, giving Casper HIV aswell.
Kids (1995)
Within this film Clark goes against all the social taboo’s and is trying to reveal the dark truth of the youth culture within today’s society so the audience can gain a realistic image of what occurs amongst these social groups. He uses powerful imagery to present a raw and shocking picture of the youth culture within America today exploiting aspects of drug taking, underage sex and violence throughout the film. Kids also uses many different social and cultural backgrounds throughout it in order to highlight the vast amount of social groups that exist within the youth culture of today. In this film Clark cleverly uses shocking imagery within the scenes to grab the audience’s attention and the essential message which he tries to communicate throughout the film is that unprotected sex is dangerous. Clark managed to use real teenagers from New York within the film which gave it a more realistic and accurate depiction of American youth. Kids also managed to spark off the careers of some now famous actors such as Leo Fitzpatrick (Bully 2001), Justin Peirce (Next Friday 2000), Chloe Sevigny (American Pyscho 2000 and Boys Don’t Cry 1999) and Rosario Dawson (Sin City 2005). His qualities of authorship can be identified throughout the film and his display of various technical abilities which combine both photography and cinema have resulted in this motion picture being deemed as an art movement as opposed to just a normal run of the mill American film.
Sarris highlights the importance of technical abilities within an auteur “…if a director has no technical competence, no elementary flair for the cinema, he is automatically cast out from the pantheon of directors” (Braudy and Cohen, 2004, p.662)
From the success of Kids, Clark managed to build a platform for his style to progress and a recurrence of his techniques, themes and characterisation’s can be seen within his disturbing film Bully (2001). This film which is based on a true story describes the story of a group of teenagers living in a small town in Florida who become sick of a bully within their social group and decide the only way to get rid of him is to kill him. Marty is Bobby’s best friend, but Marty is becoming tired of being constantly tormented by Bobby and when Marty gets a new girlfriend who also thinks Bobby is a bully, they decide to plot his murder. Once again this film is trying to produce the dark realities of urban youth culture to the audience and Clark aims to shock the audience with images of drug taking, underage sex and gruesome violence throughout the film. Clark uses actor Leo Fitzpatrick again within this film, showing his trust and belief in him as an actor as Clark believes that Fitzpatrick can effectively communicate his intended messages for the audiences. This film reiterates Clark’s qualities of authorship which can be seen in his coherent and effective use of style, technique and contemporary themes which can be seen in both Kids and Bully. Through Clark’s building of a personal style which has a dark edge of truth and can be distinguished from many other directors he manages to grow his authorship qualities which define him as an artist rather than director.
Sarris highlights this when he states “The second premise of the auteur theory is the distinguishable personality of the director as a criterion of value…’” (Braudy and Cohen, 2004, p.662)
The last film which also represents Clark’s growing qualities of authorship is his youth hit Wassup Rockers (2005), a film that looks at the day in the life of a group of South Central punk rockers who decide to take a venture on a bus ride to Hollywood and Beverly Hills in order to escape the grim realities of their neighbourhood and find a new place to skateboard in peace. Along the way they meet two local rich girls who are attracted to their rocker image. However, soon the girls nervous parents and jealous boyfriends are chasing the punk rockers out of Beverly Hills as they have turned up and caused chaos within their mundane lives. The boys also get into trouble with the law and are questioned by police after a series of thefts have occurred that day. In the end, one of the rockers ends up getting shot by an over-protective homeowner who thinks he is trying to steal from him whilst running through his backyard. The film which cleverly highlights all of the different social and cultural backgrounds within the youth culture of today manages to maintain Clark’s style of cinematography with effective use of imagery, characterisation and narrative. The whole point of the film is to produce the audience with the reality of youth culture today, once again exploiting aspects of drug taking, underage sex and violence throughout the film. This maintenance of themes, styles and techniques used within Clark’s films highlights his consistent qualities of authorship which manages to create his own personal approach to films inspired by his own personal experiences and perceptions of youth culture within a postmodern society. Through this coherence and consistency within his works, Clark manages to make his interior meanings within his works easy to identify and this building of meanings can also reiterate his status as an auteur.
Sarris highlights this importance of a building of meanings to an auteur’s personality “The third and ultimate premise of the auteur theory is concerned with interior meaning, the ultimate glory of the cinema as an art. Interior meaning is extrapolated from the tension between a director’s personality and his material.” (Braudy and Cohen, 2004, p.663)
It can be said that Larry Clark is a true auteur, using his inspiration and love for photography to replicate his art within his films. With a recurrence of themes which manage to highlight scenes of drug taking, underage sex and violence within todays urban youth culture and the use of shocking imagery to Clark effectively grabs the audience’s attention. He has also maintained the use of some actors within his works and the trust which he shows to these actors is a reflection of his belief that they are capable of communicating his personal style to the audience. He has managed to make a collective of films which all touch on the same issues within the youth of today, whilst also highlighting the vast amount of social groups that exist within society and the dangers which surround them within these groups. Through this maintenance of recurring themes, styles and techniques used within his films Larry Clark has managed to attain his own ‘signature’ to his films, distinguishing himself as an auteur enabling to define himself from other directors within the film industry.
Sarris expresses this attainment of a signature to an auteurs collective works “…over a group of films, a director must exhibit certain recurring characteristics of style’ which the auteur theorist asserts ‘serve[s] as his signature” (Braudy and Cohen, 2004, p.662)
References
SARRIS, A., 1996. The American Cinema: Directors and Directions, 1929-1968. New York, NY: Da Capo Press
Bully (2001) trailer – YouTube . [ONLINE] Available at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=d0y-CUdF8Ws. [Accessed 25 April 2012].
BRAUDY, L. and COHEN, M., 6th ed. 2004. Film Theory and Criticism. Oxford, OXF: Oxford University Press
CAUGHIE, J., ed.1981. Theories of Authorship: A Reader. London, LDN: Routledge
Kids, Offical Trailer – YouTube . [ONLINE] Available at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=Myzec1dgSqc. [Accessed 25 April 2012].
SARRIS, A., 1996. The American Cinema: Directors and Directions, 1929-1968. New York, NY: Da Capo Press
2005: Wassup Rockers Trailer HQ – YouTube . [ONLINE] Available at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=E8A5-gQQMh4. [Accessed 25 April 2012].
sahandcinemasociety 