Auteurs and Authorship - by Barry Keith Grant (Paperback)

Book Synopsis

Auteurs and Authorship: A Film Reader offers students an introductory and comprehensive view of perhaps the most central concept in film studies. This unique anthology addresses the aesthetic and historical debates surrounding auteurship while providing author criticism and analysis in practice.

• Examines a number of mainstream and established directors, including John Ford, Alfred Hitchcock, Howard Hawks, Douglas Sirk, Frank Capra, Kathryn Bigelow, and Spike Lee
• Features historically important, foundational texts as well as contemporary pieces
• Includes numerous student features, such as a general editor's introduction, short prefaces to each of the sections, bibliography, alternative tables of contents, and boxed features
• Each essay deliberately focuses across film makers' oeuvres, rather than on one specific film, to enable lecturers to have flexibility in constructing their syllabi

From the Back Cover

Auteurs and Authorship: A Film Reader offers students an introductory and comprehensive view of perhaps the most central concept in film studies. This unique anthology addresses the aesthetic and historical debates surrounding auteurship while providing author criticism and analysis in practice.

The book draws on a wide variety of sources to highlight the major debates, criticisms, and analyses of traditional auteur theory and authorship in cinema. For the first time, classic and lesser-known film reviews are gathered in one convenient student volume. Francois Truffaut, Andre Bazin, Andrew Sarris, Pauline Kael, Peter Wollen, and Robin Wood are among the critics featured. The lifetime cinematic achievements of established directors such as John Ford, Alfred Hitchcock, Howard Hawks, Douglas Sirk, Frank Capra, Kathryn Bigelow, and Spike Lee are examined.

The essays are organized chronologically, except in cases where flexibility adds an important historical or practical dimension. The book is an ideal resource for use in courses on authorship in the cinema, auteur theory, film theory, film criticism, film aesthetics and history of film.

Review Quotes

"This book is a classroom. One hopes that by reading it, eager young cinephiles may pass through words into the true life of the screen." (Quarterly Review, December 2009)

"Presents an arresting, thoughtful procession of ideas about who makes a movie." Afterimage

"The question of authorship in cinema remains a crucial area of debate. Barry Keith Grant's excellent reader, which brings together most of the important French, British and American material, looks set to become a required text on the subject." Jim Hillier, University of Reading, England

"Without doubt the best collection available on film authorship, which remains the single most challenging issue in film studies and the abiding mystery of cinema. From the groundbreaking polemics of the 1950s and '60s to cutting-edge analyses by top contemporary scholars, Auteurs and Authorship examines this endlessly salient topic in a remarkable array of essays that, taken together, provide the most comprehensive, in-depth treatment available." Tom Schatz, University of Texas, Austin

"Deep and fulfilling examination of the theory ... [and] inclusion of virtually every valuable essay on cinema auteurism makes [it] an indispensable book." RogueCinema.com

About the Author

Barry Keith Grant is Professor of Communication, Popular Culture, and Film at Brock University. He is the author or editor of more than a dozen books, including Film Genre: From Iconography to Ideology, Film Genre Reader, The Dread of Difference: Gender and the Horror Film, Five Films by Frederick Wiseman, Voyages of Discovery: The Cinema of Frederick Wiseman and Documenting the Documentary: Close Readings of Documentary Film and Video.