Film Authorship Quotes

I'm accused constantly of having 'no signature.' That's the big artistic demerit. You can't tell a Wyler film from another man's film just by looking at it.

As a loyal believer in the Auteur Theory I first felt editing was but the logical consequence of the way in which one shoots. But, what I learned is that it is actually another writing.

When I've acted, and it's not been something I've written or have had at least a hand in writing, I do think there is a controlling side of me that is frustrated by that. And I actually don't think that it's a bad thing, because if I'm going to be in movies, in large part they're going to be movies that I write.

I think, as a filmmaker, you're always responsible for your film.

There are directors, and there are authors. I think I am more of an author than a director.

Some of our favorite films are obviously not written by the person who directed it. And yet a 'Taxi Driver,' or some Nicholas Ray movie, like 'In a Lonely Place,' seems so personal or obsessive or whatever.

A script arrived, and on the front cover - scrawled really big, as if it were a book report - is 'Django Unchained, written by Quentin Tarantino.' And I thought, 'Well, no art department came up with this; this is Quentin's writing.'

Most of the films that I've written, made in my life, I've written. Not all, but most I would say.

I feel like if you see five films not knowing who made them, you know which one is the Coen Brothers.

I personally like to see films that are the work of as singular a consciousness as possible.

With 'PKP,' I did not own the film.

In Europe, the director is the king: it's his vision. It's an auteur tradition.

Film’s thought of as a director’s medium because the director creates the end product that appears on the screen. It’s that stupid auteur theory again, that the director is the author of the film. But what does the director shoot-the telephone book? Writers became much more important when sound came in, but they’ve had to put up a valiant fight to get the credit they deserve.

There is no obligation for the author of a film to believe in, or to sympathise with, the moral behaviour of his characters. Nor is he necessarily to be accredited with the same opinions as his characters. Nor is it necessary or obligatory for him to believe in the tenet of his construction - all of which is a disclaimer to the notion that the author of Drowning by Numbers believes that all men are weak, enfeebled, loutish, boorish and generally inadequate and incompetent as partners for women. But it's a thought.

In some instances, I would say the writer does deserve equal billing with the director. In other instances the director - especially if he wrote part of the script himself - is clearly more the author of the movie.

I don't really believe in the auteur theory.