the recognitions

Style/brand. The function of the director is as much a label, a title. The director of Die Hard III—who cares? It is, rather, the actor—Bruce Willis—and the name of the film that matter. Bruce Willis + [Action Movie] = Brand. Transformers—the director is Michael Bay, which fact is important only insofar as we know that Michael Bay=Action (explosions + running + fast cars +wry humorous comments made by the hero(ine)). Michael Bay—the label—then, is important only in that it lets us know that the movie is an Action movie directed by an Action director with experience (he’s really good at blowing things up). [Experienced Action Director] + [Big Name Action Star] = [Successful Action Movie]. Each series of labels appeals to a certain audience. Auteur itself is label designed for a certain crowd, as are the labels Foreign Film, Art House, Independent Film, Anime, etc. Steven Spielberg is as much a brand as a label. Steven Spielberg, Director; or, Steven Spielberg, Producer. The credits roll: Large print: “A Steven Spielberg Production” small print: “directed by [Steven Spielberg Proxy].”

Often these labels are broken up into “periods.” So we have “Early” Bergman versus “Late” Bergman. The label is thus modified. This is usually done when critics feel that the director’s style has changed (usually when they think one of the “periods” lacks in comparison to the others). So we have “Late” Godard, which acquires the following epithets: crappy, obscure, blowhard, not-as-good, etc. This “Late” label allows us to cut off a particular era and toss it into the dustbin, where later scholars can “rescue” it as “underappreciated” or “misunderstood.” Of course, for some directors, these periods are merely time markers: “Late” Ozu is really the same as “Early” Ozu, except for the fact that “Early” Ozu is black-and-white (Ozu namedrop, one of my favorite directors).

So the style becomes enmeshed with the brand. The brand can be a director (George Lucas, Ridley Scott), a production company (LucasFilm, Miramax), an actor (Julia Roberts, Brad Pitt), or a genre (Romantic, Screwball Comedy)—or, more often, the three working together (Brand= director + star + production company + genre--all of which you'll find on the movie poster). Style is tied to milieu, to historical-cultural circumstances. Just as important to style is the technology—technology shapes style. Style, then, is well-connected to the cinematographer or special effects crew. The style of the Matrix is tied to the special effects technology behind it; the style of Days of Heaven is tied to cinematographer Nestor Almendros; the style of Miami Vice is tied to its video/digital cameras. All of these work together—selecting one element as more important, refers back to the critic’s own bias. To focus only on the director shows more than anything else that the critic is a proponent of auteur theory—much in the same way that focusing only on a political reading of a film shows the critic to be biased toward political readings (yes, I’m looking at you, Jameson), and to focus only on the technology will show the critic to be most likely a technology theorist. Reading a criticism tells us as much (or more) about the critic as it does the text. Deciphering Foucault’s own bias is perhaps easier for us after having read the work of his devoted followers, much in the same way that is easier to cast a critical eye on Freud and Marx after reading the work of hard-line Marxists and Freudians.