Date: Wed, 13 Dec 1995 09:54:12 -0800 (PST) From: Hannu Juhani Salmi <hansalmi@utu.fi> To: h-verkko@sara.cc.utu.fi Subject: CFP
III INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE IN FILM STUDIES Udine, 21-23 March 1996
CALL FOR PAPERS
BEFORE THE AUTEUR Screen practice, text, authorship from early cinema to the thirties
In recent years, work in film history often came to displace or revise a number of well-established concepts in film theory, as was the case for instance for the concept of text. A similar process of displacement could perhaps be attempted also with the idea of the auteur. Developed in a historically specific context, the auteurist paradigm has often been retroactively or artificially adapted to silent cinema, which might on the contrary be envisioned as the most radical challenge to the auteur approach. The issue of whether and how silent cinema makes the auteur a problematic concept will be the subject of the III International Conference in Film Studies, to be held in Udine, from 21 to 23 March 1996. Proposals for papers are cordially invited. The following are key-points to be hopefully investigated at large.
1. Auteur theories. The film author appears as a significant issue already in early film theory. France is perhaps the most notable example. We could think for instance of the series of terms created by theorists like Canudo (craniste), Delluc (cinaste) or Moussinac (cingraphiste). This debate locates the issue of authorship into a net of crucial problems: relationship artist/machine, production/reproduction, literary invention/filmic invention, etc.
2. Screen practice and the spectator as auteur. Is it possible to define the auteur as the specific role "authorizing" the filmic work? From this perspective, both the spectator and the exhibitor might be represented as possibile "authorities." This is particularly relevant for determining what has to be considered as the "original text." The notion that film restoration should aim to reconstruct the film as it was at the moment of its "first public screening" is itself grounded in this particular idea of authorship. At this level, an interplay of reception theory and philology of film might produce interesting results.
3. Rather than a real practice of authorship, early cinema seems to imply a series of "authorial marks" (stylistic tropes, techniques, narrative modes) that were used not just by single individuals but also by production companies, genres or collective movements. These "authorial marks" might determine what appears as an "auteur film" much more significantly than the director's personality. Is it possible to make a catalog of these marks and to reconstruct a map of their circulation?
4. Nonfiction cinema raises a number of specific and still unexplored problems. While in the early period the territory of nonfiction is free from any claim of authorship, later in the twenties it assimilates a notion of authorship derived from fiction cinema. More interestingly, nonfiction cinema poses the question of authorship in relation to reality - that is, the question of reality as auteur.
5. How relevant is the concept of "authorial intention" to the practice of restoration and philology? What role should it play in determining the "critical version" or the "original version" of a film?
6. The author as a juridical figure and the copyright debate.
7. Before crystallizing in the figure of the film director, authorship is attributed to a number of different figures: screenwriters, actors, producers, operators, etc. In some cases, silent cinema shows conflicts between productive policy and authorial inspiration that anticipate a dialectic typical of modern cinema (i.e. the cases of Griffith, Tourneur, Pickford). Musical accompaniment in silent cinema also implies a multiplication of figures of authorship, as does the practice of film coloring.
8. The film director as "personality." The existence of a sort of "personality cult" surrounding the figure of the film director can be gauged by considering the huge number of interviews published in the silent period by the specialized press. The film director often becomes a "quality trademark" used to promote the film product: this is the case of DeMille in the United States, Feuillade in France, Lang in Germany. In a similar way, the director's "crazy genius" can be used as a publicity motif (from Stroheim to Sternberg).
9. Europe vs United States. While European directors are commonly thought of as auteurs, American directors are often represented as elements of the studio system. However, the opposition art/industry is more likely to be a primary contradiction both in Europe and the United States. The history of important non-western national cinemas (such as for instance China and Japan) shows on its turn the possibility of different philosophies of authorship that would be worth to investigate.
BEFORE THE AUTEUR, III International Conference in Film Studies, is organized by the Dipartimento di Storia e Tutela dei Beni Culturali (Universit di Udine), in association with: Cineteca del Friuli, Gemona Giornate del cinema muto, Pordenone Unione Italiana Circoli del cinema Dipartimento di Musica e Spettacolo (Universit di Bologna)
Those wishing to give a paper should send a 300-word abstract and a brief curriculum vitae no later than 15 December 1995 to:
BEFORE THE AUTEUR Dipartimento di Musica e Spettacolo Via Galliera 3 40121 Bologna Italy fax +39 51 231183 E-MAIL: mc2976@mclink.it