Historically we could argue that there were film makers who genuinely controlled all aspects of their creative work, Sergei Eisenstein, Orson Welles and Stanley Kubrick come to mind. Today in an increasingly complex cinematic world and one in which investment in films is perhaps more directly controlled by mega-studios how do we make this distinction?
An interesting question. We do still have this with filmmakers such as Guillermo del Toro and Quentin Tarantino, but they are not prolific filmmakers and we do see people wanting to put their stamp on their films. I think this would be a good discussion to have. – SaraiMW7 years ago
After a little more thought, Pedro Almodovar (in his early incarnation) would be a 'classic' auteur. Can an auteur be classified on the basis of one film - that is another thing to consider e.g. Robert Rodriguez after El Mariachi, or is he an 'incidental auteur' based on the expediency-triumphs approach he took to making a film for less than $30k... – Menadue7 years ago