I saw this Q&A with the choreographer of This Is It on Fandango and it raised some questions to me, all of them coming from this introductory paragraph
"Ortega—the auteur behind High School Musical, Hannah Montana/Miley Cyrus: Best of Both Worlds and Dirty Dancing’s choreographer…"
I don’t know much about this cat other than he was involved in the HSM pictures, so he may very well be an auteur, but he also might not be one and that bothers me. To call someone an auteur means something in my book. Who knows something about this guy and more importantly why in the fuck would you call him an auteur?
i dunno more about this dude than you do, i just want to say that i am a 25 yo straight male who dug hsm. bring on “this is it”! looking forward.
calling him an auteur might be just marketing…
There’s a ridiculous amount of gay subtext in those films. I’m not just saying that because of the dancing and singing and shit.
The term “auteur” is basically used for a director that is more or less the sole author of their work. Directors who have a signature style and control over their work that can be seen across all their films.
You can say that Ridley Scott is a great director, but calling him an auteur would maybe be debatable. Considering the environment he works in.
I guess in the sense that Ortega is obviously the grand driving force in his films and has signature style to his films, the term auteur could apply. But they look to me like generic Disney outings for the most part.
And in this case, they are pretty much just selling him up. It’s a term that gets thrown around a little too much nowadays.
So excited to see This Is It, love me some Michael Jackson.
And that bothers me to say the fucking least Angel. I mean auteur means something to me. If making the HSM movies makes you an auteur then the word ceases to mean anything.
But now I’m curious, what kind of homo subtext can be found in those movies?
Q.What does an XBOX and Mchael Jackson have in common?
A.They are both made of plastic and get turned on by little boys.
[quote=“Mr.Pink”]Q.What does an XBOX and Mchael Jackson have in common?
A.They are both made of plastic and get turned on by little boys.[/quote]
I heard that before, but it is funny, I guess because I am not a fan of his. People are going crazy again because he passed away. No one gave a sh*t about him a year ago.
It means “Film Author”,
A filmmaker who in essence writes and directs is considered a “Film Author” or “Auteur” as Jean Levy Benoit assesed in the book “The Art Of Motion Picture”.
That is the definite meaning.
I really didn’t know too much about MJ until he passed. But when he did die I started looking over his career and records and now I really fucking dig him. Ironic. I did wait a month or two until all the hoobla passed a little before I started buying records and books though, I thought if I’m still interested later I’ll know I’m not just jumping on the bandwagon. Love his music now, he was a freaky guy but fuck could he put together a tune.
[quote=“Lt. BioBasterd”]It means “Film Author”,
A filmmaker who in essence writes and directs is considered a “Film Author” or “Auteur” as Jean Levy Benoit assesed in the book “The Art Of Motion Picture”.
That is the definite meaning.[/quote]
They don’t have to write to be an auteur.
It is simply a director whose creative influence or vision on a film is so great that he is considered the author. Usually there is a signature style that stretches across the filmmaker’s oeuvre. Someone whose style is distinct.
Andrew Sarris, in his paper Notes on the Auteur Theory published in 1962, outlines three premises for distinguishing an auteur:
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“the technical competence of a director as a criterion of value…a great director has to be at least a good director.”
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“the distinguishable personality of the director as a criterion of value. Over a group of films, a director must exhibit certain recurring characteristics of style, which serve as his signature”
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"Interior meaning is extrapolated from the tension between a director’s personality and his material. This conception of interior meaning comes close to what Astruc defines as mise-en- scene, but not quite. It is not quite the vision of the world a director projects nor quite his attitude to life. It is ambiguous, in any literary sense, because part of it is embedded in the stuff of cinema and cannot be rendered in non-cinematic terms."
I’d like to think that Ortega fails on the first count. But he has technical competence enough to retain continuity and tell a story, so I don’t think I can count him out on that.
If he’s an auteur it’s in a very slight sense of the word. He may very well have all those things but I doubt you can determine if someone’s an auteur just off two bad Disney movies.
[quote=“Ordell Rodriguez”]If he’s an auteur it’s in a very slight sense of the word. He may very well have all those things but I doubt you can determine if someone’s an auteur just off two bad Disney movies.[/quote]
He’s actually made a great deal of bad Disney films. And I can’t say that I think he is an auteur.
But it could be debated.
I only knew of two till right now. And now he’s definitely not an auteur.