Analysis Of Look Who's Talking: The Auteur Theory

One aspect of film theory, the auteur theory, has been debated and critiqued by many film theorists since it was first introduced. The auteur theory is the idea that the director is the main creative force behind a motion picture; that similarly to the author of a novel, a director constructs a film through camera movements (akin to an authors pen). In this theory, the fundamentals of the film, which include blocking, lighting, camera movement and placement, are more important than the plot itself. The director, in a sense, makes the film great because of his/hers creative control over every aspect of the filmmaking process. The theory, however, has raised many concerns; it puts ‘great directors’ into this group of ‘auteurs’ and once you make

(562) Meaning, there must be a re-occurring theme or characteristic of a directors style that spans over all of his/hers films, and in turn becomes that directors signature. Heckerling has a pre-occupation with age, specifically the age of women. In Look Who’s Talking, Mollie seems to lie about her age quite often, since she doesn’t believe she is at a point in her life where a normal 33 year old would be. In Clueless, the protagonist Cher (Alicia Silverstone) desperately tries to prove to everyone around her that she is an adult. Similarly in Vamps, both Goody an Stacy (Kristen Ritter) get stuck in their 20’s and by the end of the film discover that eternal youth is not what they really wanted, but instead realize being able to age with time is more valuable. Another notable pattern is Heckerling’s aesthetic form of her films. In both Clueless and Vamps, color coordination stands out and both films appearances are very pleasing to look at. Sarris points out that this quality of having a personal style is what differentiates American directors with European directors.

Because so much of the American cinema is commissioned, a director is forced to express his personality through the visual treatment of material rather than through the literary content of the material. A Cukor, who works with all sorts of projects, has a more developed abstract style than a Bergman, who is free to develop his on scripts. Not that Bergman lacks personality, but his work has declined with the depletion of his ideas largely because his technique never equaled his sensibility.