The Auteur Theory

774 Words2 Pages

The Auteur Theory It compares the film director

to the author of a book, it attributes artistic control to the

director and proposes that the film is the artistic project of the

director primarily. His or her vision, creativity, and design

determine the end result, the finished film. Basically, it means that

if the director is an auteur, the film will be completely their ideas

and visions and they have complete control of it. I believe Danny

Boyle uses this control to make his films.

Danny Boyle was born in Manchester in 1956. He started a career in

theatre at the age of 18 and by the time he left the Royal Court

Theatre in 1987 he was the deputy director. He also did some

television direction in the 80s including Mr Wroe's Virgins and

episodes of Inspector Morse.

Shallow Grave, released in 1994, was Danny Boyle's first film. It took

30 days to film and had a budget of £1,000,000. £150,000 was from

Glasgow Film Fund and the remaining £850,000 came from Channel Four.

Although the film was set in Edinburgh, the money from Glasgow meant

that a lot of the film was made there. The film's scriptwriter John

Hodge was very clear minded about how to get the film made for

"virtually nothing", for instance the majority of the film is filmed

inside a flat. Danny Boyle said the film has "fascinating character

development" but not in the "traditional" way because "audiences are

not there primarily to watch a character being drawn...they want the

excitement and speed of the journey that cinema can provide". He

described the film as "intelligent en...

... middle of paper ...

...inal book,

Leonardo DiCaprio's character Richard is English. Boyle felt this

would not have worldwide appeal so he chose to make him American and

chose Leo to play him. In the film, Richard lies to his girlfriend

about sleeping with another woman and later splits up with her. The

studio tried to get Boyle to change these things but he retained his

creative control. This film is a perfect example of how he lures

audiences into his films then shocks them. This film has all elements

to make a film popular - big Hollywood star, soundtrack, adventure,

romance - but the story soon changes to a much darker one than an

average Hollywood blockbuster. There were reports of Boyle being

disrespectful to Thailandauthorities and damaging land but he made

every effort not to and he is proud of his end result, as this quote

shows.

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