Auteur Quotes & Sayings

There's no such thing as "an auteurist filmmaker." Every film directors is an auteur. We only make films that we do because we cannot put on clothes that don't fit us. — Lee Yoon-ki

People know that I have a great love for cinema. Not just for commercial cinema, but for the 'cinema d'auteur.' But to me, two of the great 'auteurs' are actually actors and they both happen to be French. One is Alain Delon and the other is Jean-Paul Belmondo. — Harvey Weinstein

I pitied the French for their naivete in believing that they had to visit a country in order to exploit it. Hollywood was much more efficient, imagining the countries it wanted to exploit. I was maddened by my helplessness before the Auteur's imaginations and machinations. His arrogance marked something new in the world, for this was the first war where the losers would write history instead of the victors. — Viet Thanh Nguyen

I don't quite know what an auteur is. — Peter Jackson

I don't really believe in the auteur theory. — Park Chan-wook

My roommate at Yale University introduced me to the auteur theory of filmmaking. I soon became a big fan of the works of John Ford, Kenji Mizoguchi, Ernst Lubitsch, and Stan Brakhage. I then decided to make my own films! — Lloyd Kaufman

When you have an author and an auteur, it's a difficult and challenging relationship. — Sam Taylor-Johnson

Un auteur ga te tout quand il veut trop bien faire. An author spoils everything when he wants too much to do good. — Jean De La Fontaine

I never feel weird about being the main character in the nontransferable, nonexistent movie of my life. That's totally fine. What makes me nervous is a growing suspicion that this movie is fucked up and devoid of meaning. The auteur is a nihilist. — Chuck Klosterman

I liked the Hollywood stuff. But I also liked the fact that in both, you know, I guess in the, like, the auteur, the art film auteur at that time was Lina Wertmuller. So, you go see "Swept Away" or you go see a movie she did "Blood Feud" with Sophia Loren and Giancarlo Giannini. And I remember "Wifemistress" was a big movie at that time, really liked it, Laura Antonelli. — Quentin Tarantino

I'm better suited to be a director, I think. I see myself as the general author. I hate the word 'auteur,' because it sounds so solitary when filmmaking is anything but solitary. — Cary Fukunaga

They seem much rarer now, those auteur films that come out of a director's imagination and are elliptical and hermetic. All those films that got me into independent cinema when I was watching it seem thin on the ground. — Toby Jones

In a certain respect, in a movie, you inevitably have a lot of people doing a lot of different jobs because that's the only practical way to get it done. When you make a record, you can still be an auteur, because you can make a whole record without anyone's help if you want. — D.A. Wallach

Le mot 'psychologie'est un de ceux qu'aucun auteur d'aujourd'hui ne peut entendre prononcer a' son sujet sans baisser les yeux et rougir. The word 'psychology' is one that no author today can hear said about her work without lowering her eyes and blushing. — Nathalie Sarraute

Sometimes you see auteur TV shows and movies, and those are great. — Akiva Goldsman

At the age that I was when I stopped reading comics, and with a set of talents that would seem to mark a future comic-book auteur, my son has had only a passing enthusiasm for the medium. — Steve Erickson

Design isn't about getting your way, it's not about being a great genius or auteur who is followed by everyone else on the team, and it's not even about doing a great job of communicating your vision to the rest of the team. Design isn't about you; it is about the project. Working as a game designer is about collaborating with the rest of the team, compromising, and above all listening. — Jeremy Gibson

There's sketch, improv, writing, acting, music, and badminton. Those are the seven forms of comedy. But I do like the idea of being an auteur in the sense of writing and being in your own stuff. — T. J. Miller

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. — Billy Wilder

I'm very strongly in favor of the auteur theory. — George Hickenlooper

Although human beings are incapable of talking about themselves with total honesty, it is much harder to avoid the truth while pretending to be other people. They often reveal much about themselves in a very straightforward way. I am certain that I did. There is nothing that says more about its creator than the work itself. — Akira Kurosawa

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. — Bernardo Bertolucci

Seeing Taylor Swift live in 2013 is seeing a maestro at the top of her or anyone's game. No other pop auteur can touch her right now for emotional excess or musical reach - her punk is so punk, her disco is so disco. The red sequins on her guitar match the ones on her microphone, her shoes and 80 percent of the crowd. — Rob Sheffield

There are no good and bad movies, only good and bad directors — Francois Truffaut

I know how to work with people. I've worked with the same people for 10 years. I'm not that kind of auteur. I hear ideas. — Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu

I think the bigger the movie is, the harder it is to maintain the idea of an auteur. You're servicing something beyond just your own vision. Whenever there's a lot of money on the line, it is your responsibility to make sure that you're doing your best to have people not lose their money and to actually win by betting on it. — Jon Favreau

The basic project of art is always to make the world whole and comprehensible, to restore it to us in all its glory and its occasional nastiness, not through argument but through feeling, and then to close the gap between you and everything that is not you, and in this way pass from feeling to meaning. It's not something that committees can do. It's not a task achieved by groups or by movements. It's done by individuals, each person mediating in some way between a sense of history and an experience of the world. — Robert Hughes

I have the highest respect for stars and auteur directors. But I don't want to work with people who only invite me to the preview. We want to be in the collaborative movie business, not the financing one. — Sidney Sheinberg

I always argued against the auteur theory; films are a collaborative art form. I've had some fantastically good people help me make the movies. — Alan Parker

Quand on voit le style naturel, on est tout e tonne et ravi, car on s'attendait de voir un auteur, et on trouve un homme. When we see a natural style we are quite amazed and delighted, because we expected to see an author and find a man. — Blaise Pascal

I think the art film, or the auteur-driven film - and not only foreign, but domestic films following that path - can get a small share of the box office. And I think that small share may open up a little bit. — Roger Corman

We once believed we were auteurs but we weren't. We had no idea, really. Film is over. It's sad nobody is really exploring it. But what to do? And anyway, with mobile phones and everything, everyone is now an auteur. — Jean-Luc Godard