Which came first, the great movie or the great director?
Like the chicken or egg theory, people for years have wondered how great directors make lousy movies. Cinephiles have raged for decades and the following small treatise on auteur theory will bring us up to speed:
The Origins of Auteur Theory from FilmmakerIQ.com on Vimeo.
I say Truffaut is wrong to say there’s no good or bad movies. I have seen a ton of bad, some by pretty good directors. While a great script may or may not be destroyed by a horrible director, no amount of technical savvy can salvage a bad story.
Most people won’t discuss how good Fincher’s directing is on Gone Girl because we’re too busy screaming at the protagonist’s idiocy on screen, then rewatching The Princess Bride and completely ignoring how bad Reiner’s directing is.
It’s the story that matters, not the director. The director’s reputation might be able to get butts in seats, but we won’t stay there just because the director’s last movie didn’t suck.
Thoughts?