2

De la Politique des Auteurs

Andr6 Razin

Andr6 Bazin was one of the founding editors of Cahiers du Cindma along with Jacques
Doniol-Valcroze and Lo Duca. He was an influential voice in French film culture and a major
film theorist, approaching realism from the perspective of style in relaiion to space and time
rather than in mimetic terms. As such, he became a champion of ltalian neorealism. AJter his
death in 1958, a four-volume collection of his writings was published entitled Qu'est-ce que
le cin6ma? (What is Cinema). Two of these volumes were translated into English and have
been required reading in film studies courses since their publication more than 30 years ago"
ln this essay, originally published in J957-when=he was editor of Cahiers, Bazin addressed
'ih,politQue des auteu.rsll,-the auteurist polemic, of his "young firebrands." Bringing his typical
acumen to weigh the pros and cons of auteurism, Bazin seeks to rein in the excessive claims
of his junior colleagues by pointing out thatiindividuals transcend society, but society is also
internalized within each of us, so that any auteurist aTalysis must necessarily take into account
relevant social forces and technical circumstances. lAs well, Bazin cautions against ignoring
the context of genre and studio production ("the genius of the system") in considering Holly-
wood directors as auteurs.

(a'ctlte? Shakespeare? Euerything they put their namt to is
,vspo5sf to be good, and people rack their brains to Jind beauty
tt ilrc silliest little thing they bungled. All great talenX, like
tl,ethe, Shakespeare, Beethouen, Michelangelo, created not only
wtutilil works, but things that were less than. medioue, tluite
:rmoly aw;ful.
(Toktoy, Diaqu 1895-99)
I rreiize my task is fraught with difhculttes. Cahiers du
Gnurnrr is thought to practise the politique des auteuys.
lfiftms opinion may perhaps not be justified by the
,cmcne output of articles, but it has been tn-re of
the majoriry, especially for the last two years. It would
be useless and hypocritical to point to a few scraps of
evidence to the contrary, and claim that our magazine
is a harmless collection of wishywashy reviews.
Nevertheless, our readers must have noticed that
this critical standpoint - whether implicit or explicit
- has not been adopted with equal enthusiasm by ail
the regular contributors to Cahiers, and that there
might exist serious dillerences in our admiration, or
rather in the degree of our adnriration. And yet the
truth is that the most enthusiastic among us neariy
always win the day. Eric Rohmer put his finger on
the reason in his reply to a reader in Cdhiers 63: when

hE 3'm. "De la poLitique d.es auteurs," pp. 137-55 ftom Peter Graham (ed.), The New Waue (London: l3FI/New York: Doubleday, 1968). @ 1968 by Peter
{rflnri.* Reprinted by per-mission of BFI pubLishing.
20 Andr6 Bazin
opinions differ on an important fihn, we generally
prefer to 1et the person rvho likes it n-rost write about
it.1 tt follows that the strictest adherents of the politique
des auteurs get the best of it in the end, for, rightly or
rvronelv, they ah,vays see in their favor-rrite directors
the nranifestation of the same specific qualities. So it
is that Hitchcock, Renoir, Rossellini, Lang, Hawks,
or Nicholas Ray, to judge from the pages of Cdhicrs,
appear rs alrnost infallible directors who could never
rnake a bad film.
I would like to avoid a nisunderstanding fronr the
start. I beg to difltr rn"'ith those of rny colleagues r,vho
are the nrost firmly convinced that the politique dcs
duteurs ).s lvell foundecJ, but this in tro wav contpro-
rnises the general policy of the nragazine. 'Whatever
our ditTerences of opinion about filnrs or directors,
our cornlrolr iikes and dislikes are nunlerous enough
and strong enough to bind us together; and althoush
I do not see the role of the auteur in the cir-remr in
the sanre way :ls Francois Truffar-rt or Eric Rohmel
for exarnple , it does not stop nre believing to a cert.rin
extent irr the concept of the dutoil' and very often
iharing their opinions, although not ahva,vs their p.rs-
sionate 1oves.'l fall in with them more reluctantlv in
the case ol their hostile reactions; often thev are verl'
harsh with films I find defensible - and I do so pre-
cisellr because I find that the rvork transcends the
director (they dispute this phenonrenon, u'hich thev
consider to be a critical contr.rrlictron). In other words,
ahnost our onlv cliflerence colrcerlls the rel,rtionship
betr,veen the work and its cre2ltor. I h:rve never been
sorry th:lt one of nry colleagr-res has stuck up fbr such
and such director, aithough I have not ah,vays agreed
about the qualities of the fi1nr under examilutiol).
Firrallv, I would like to add that althor-rgh it seems to
me that the politiquc des mrtetrc has led its sr.rpporters
to make :r number of mistakes, its total results have
been fertile enough to justifv thern in the lace of their
critics. It is very r:rre that tl're argr-rmerrts drau'n upon
to attack them do not make me rush to tireir
defence.
So it is lvithin these limits, lvhich, if vou like, are
those ol a .fanrily quarrel, that I u'ould like to tackle
rvhat seems to 1ne to repiesent not so much a critical
mistranslation as a critical 'false nnance of rneaning'.
My point of departure is an article by rn1' fiiencl Jean
Dornarchi on Vincente Minnelli's Lust ;for Lr/i,2 rvhich
tells the storv of V:rn Gogh. His praise u,rs very intelli-
sent and sober, br-rt it struck rne that such au article
should not have been published in a review which,
onlv one month previor-rsly, had allowed Eric Rohmer
to demolish John Huston.3 The relentless harshness of
the latter, and the indulgent admiration of the former,
can only be explained by the fact that Minnelli is one
of Dornarchi's favourites and that Fluston rs not a
Cahiers duteur. This partiality is a good thing, up to
a certain point, as it leads r-rs to stick up for a film that
illustrates certain facetsof Arnerican culture jr-rst rs
much as the personrl talent of Vitrcente Minirelli. I
could get Donr:rrchi caught up i1r a contrldiction, by
pointing or-rt to him that he ought to have sacrificed
Minnelli in favour of Renoir, since it was the shooting
of LLLst.fttr Lifc that forced the director of French Cdncdn
to sive up his own project on Van Gogh. Can Domar-
clri claim that Vdn Gtrg/r by Renoir rvould not have
^
brought nrore prestise to the polititltre des anteurs thln
-What
a filur by Minnelli? rvas needed r,vas a painter's
son, and what u'e got was a director of filmecl ballets!
But whatever the c:rse, this exaniple is only a
pretext. Many a tinre I have felt uneasy at the subtlety
of :rn argurnent, rvhich was completell, r-rnable to cam-
ouflage the nalvet6 of the assumption w-hereby, fbr
example, the intentions and the coherence of a delib-
erate and r,vell thor-rght out film are read into sorne
little 'B' leature.
And of course as soon as yoll stf,te that the fihn-
maker and his filtts are oneJ there can be no minor
t. filnrs, as the worst of therl rtr'ill always be in the irnrge
of their creator. But let's see what the facts of the
nlatter are. In order to do so. wc llluct go right back
to the beginning.
Of cor-rrse, the politique des auteurs is the application
to the cinenra of a notion that is widely accepted ilt
the individual arts. Francois Truffaut likes to quote
Giraudoux's rem:rrk: 'There .lre no l-orks, there are
ortly duteurs' - a polernical sally rvhich seenis to me
of limitecl siqnific:ince.. The opposite statenlent could
jr.rst as r,r'ell be set as a1l exanl cluestion. The
two for-
mulae, like the maxims of La Rochefoucauld and
Charnfort, rvould simply reverse their proportion of
truth and error. As for Eric Rohmer, he states (or
in art it is the atrteurs, and not the
ratlrer asserts) that
rvorks, that rernain; rnd thc progr.rlnrne\ of filrn
societies rvould seern to support this critical trLrth.
But one shoulcl lrote that Rohrner's argunlent does
lrot go nearlv as thr as Giraudoux's aphorism, for, if
 De la Politique des Auteurs 21

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Figure 2..1 Ltrst -lor Lilr'(M(lM. 1956). bv Virct'ritc Milnelh. ''r ciirector of flLrrcd br11ets." l\'oclucecl br
John Housenrlr

'.1n:ri1r, it is not nccrcss:lril,v bec:ruse of their
,rr1l irS il rvhole. There is no hck of examplc-s
. rhrt the contr:.u1 is tme. Ma,vbc- Voltaire's
i nlore inrportrnt thrn his brbliogr.lph,v, but
r lrc lr.r, bi.r'rr p111 irr pcr'.1,.', 111s it i. 1ot .o
",. Dictitttrrttrin' pltilosoplriqLic tlut counts no\\'a
:ri' Voltaire:ur rvit, :r c-ertein -st1,1c of thinkirre
--:lnq. But todav rvhere ;rre \\.c to flnd the
.. .rncl the exenrple? in his abuncl:urt :urcl atro-
-,unqs lirr thc thcatrc? Ol in the slinr volunrc
,rorics? Ancl u.hrt about Be:rumarchlis? Are
.
- ,ookinq in la ,Virc (oup(rbl('?
''.r\e. the ruthors of that pcfiod r,velc apprr-
.:-rr\cLles arvlrc- olthc rclativin'of theil u-ot'th,
.: nrllingl1-clisorvnccl their u'orks, lncl sonre-
- : not rnincl even being the subject of
: , u'lrose qr-L:r1itv the\, took xs it complinrerlt.
: . rhnost the onh thirrg that niatterecl r,r,:ls
,- rr:clf. u.hether their or.l'n ol rnother's. :urcl
it lv:rs onlr. rt tlle end of the eiqhteenth ccntury. \\.itlr
Beatrrrrarchris in fact, that the concept of the dtLturr
firallv crl'stalhzecl 1egallv, u'rth his rovalties, cluties
ancl lesponsibilities. ()f corlrse I r1n lnakilrq illlo\\-
rncc-s fbr historjc:rl :tnc'l social colrtjngelrcies, politrcel
:rnc'l moral censorship h:rs rnade anonvnritl' solnctillrcs
inevit:rlrlc and rhv:rvs e-xcr-rsable. But surclv the :rrro-
rtvnritv of the r"r:jtings of the Fr:ench Resistancc irr
1ro \\,il), lessenecl the clignitv or responsibilitv of the
r.r-r:iter. It u'es only in thc nineteelrth centlu-\, thrt
copf ine or pirrgilrisnr lelllv begen to be consicleled
l protessionrl brcacl'r that cliscl-r:rlifrcrl its petpctrittor.
The srmc is tme of printine. AlthoLrgh norvrdavs
env ok1 splash of p:rint can be vrluecl lccorditrg t,r its
nrersurenrcnts ancl the celcbritr. of tlre signrttrl:e. thc
olrjective clurlit\. of the n'ork itseliu-as firlmellv held
itr nruch hiqhel cstcenr. Proof of this is to bc for.rncl
in the clillicultr. tht'r'e is il :mthcnticatillq r 1ot of old
pictrrres. !(/irrt ellrcrqc.cl fionr :r sttiiio nright sinph-
22 Andr6 Bazin
be the work of a pupil, and we are now unable to
proue anything one way or the other. If one goes back
even further. one has to take into consideration the
anonylnous works that have come down to us as
the products not of an artist, but of an art, not of a
man, but of a socieq'.
I can see how I will be rebutted. 'We should not
objectify our ignorance or iet it crystallize into a
realiqr. A11 these works of art, the Venus de Milo as
well as the Negro mask, did in fact have tn auteur;
and the whole of modern historical science is tending
to fill in the gaps and give names to these works of
art. But did one really have to wait for such erudite
addenda before being able to admire and enjoy them?
Biographical criticism is but one of many possible
critical dimensions - people are stil1 argr-ring about the
identity of Shakespeare or Molidre.
But that's just the point! People are arguing. So
their identiry is not a matter of complete inditTerence.
The evolution of 'Western art towards greater person-
alization should definitely be considered as a step
forward, as a re{inement of culture, but only as long
as this individualization remains only a final perfec-
tion and does not claim to dejne cultrre. At this
point, we should remember that i.rrefutable common-
place we learnt at school: .qhe individual transcetids
society, but society is also and above all within hin.
So there can be no definiti.ve criticisrn of genius or
talent which does not first take into consideration the
social determinism. the historical combination of cir-
cumstances, and the technical background rvhich to a
large extent determine it. That is why the anonymiry
of a work of art is a handicap that impinges only very
slightly on our understanding of it. In any case, much
depends on the particular branch of art in question,
the style adopted, and the sociological context. Negro
art does not sr-rtTer by remaining anonynrous - although
of course it is unfortunate that we knor'v so little
about the societies that gave birth to it.
Bvt The Man Who Knew Too Much, Europa 51, and
Bigger Than. LiJe xe contemporary with the parntings
of Picasso, Matisse, and Singier! Does it follow that
one should see in them the sarne degree of indi.vidu-
alization? I for one do not think so.
If you will excuse yet another commonplace, the
cinema is an art which is both popular and industriai.
These conditions, which are necessary to its existence,
in no way constitute a collection of hindrances - no
more than in architecture - they rather represent a
group of positive and negative circurnst.rnces which
have to be reckoned with. And this is especialiy true
of the American cinerna, which the theoreticians of
the politique des auteurs admire so much. What makes
Hollywood so much better than anything else in the
world is not only the quality of certain directors, but
also the vitality and, in a certain sense, the excellence
of a traclition. Holl1'wood's superiority is only inci-
dentally technical; it iies much more in what one
might call the American cinenratic genius, sornething
which should be analysed, then defined, by a socio-
logical approach to its production. The American
cinema has been ab1e, in an extraordinarily competent
way, to show American socieq, just as it wanted to see
itsele but not at all passively, as a si.mple act of satisfac-
tion and escape, but dynamically, i.e. by participrting
with the nleans at its disposal in the building of this
society. What is so admirable in the American cincma
is thatit cannot help being spontaneous. Although the
fruit of fi-ee enterprise and capitalism - and irarbour-
ing their active or still only virtual defects - it is in a
way the truest and most realistic cinema of all because
it does not shri.nk from depicting even the contradic-
tions of that sociefy. Domarchi himself, who has
demonstrated the point very clearly in a penetrating
and well-documented analysis,a exempts me from
developing this argument.
But it follows that every director is swept along by
this power{ul surge; naturally his artistic course has to
be plotted according to the currents - it is not as if
he were saiiing as his fancy took him on the calm
waters of a Lake.
In fact it is not even true of the most individual
artistic disciplines that genius is free and always self-
dependent. And what is genius an).way if not a certain
combination of unquestionably personal talents, a gift
frorn the fairies, and a nloment in history? Genius is
an H-bomb. The fission of uranium triggcrs off the
fusion of hydrogen pulp. But a sun cannot be born
from the disintegration of an individual aione unless
this disintegration has repercussions on the art that
surrounds it. W'hence the paradox of Rimbaud's life.
His poetic flash in the pan suddenly died out and a
Rimbaud the adventurer became more and more
distant like a star, stil1 glowing but heading towards
extinction. Probably Rimbaud did not change at all.
There was simply nothing left to feed the flames that
 De la Politique des Auteurs
n: :-jlced the whole of literature to ashes. Generally,
:::r: ::r.. ihn1 of this combustion in the cycles of great
;r -. :,.uallv greater than the lifespan of a man.r Liter-
,r**:: ! srep is measured in centunes. It will be said that
r::::s-:utlbreshadows that which comes after it. This is
:--- only dialectically. For one could also say that
:' ::-, rge has the geniuses it needs in order to define,
-::-:rre and transcend itself. Consequently, Voltaire
r * ; horrible plal'wright when he thought he was
1..;:::.:'s successor and a story-teller of genius when
t. *:rJe the parable a vehicle for the ideas which were
t:':-: ro shatter the eighteenth century.
-i;td even without having to use as examples the
L-r:.: :ailures which had their causes almost entirely in
;:,. 'ociology of art, creative psychology alone could
:.;s;.-; .rccount for a lot of patchiness even in the best
;rr-:-rri. Notre-Dame-de-Pais is pretty slight compared
n'.-.:- Lt Ltgende des siicles, Salammb6 does not come
,rs :o J[adame Bouary, or Corydon to Le Journal des
There is no point in quibbling about
'..trilr::-',!ont1.ayet1rs.
::-= eramples, there will always be others to suit
:' ::-ione's taste. Surely one can accept the perma-
r:-:r of talent without confusing it with some kind
: r .ristic infallibility or immumry against making
r:-.:-.lkes, which could only be divine attributeil But
-:,:"i- as Sartre has already pointed out, is not an artist!
fr .:- one to attribute to creative man, in the face of
;a :.r-chologrcal probability, an unflagging richness
:i :rxpiration, one would have to admit that this
ir.:iarion always comes up against a whole complex
:t :anicular circumstances which make the result,
,r :ie cinema, a thousand times more chancy than in
;;iilng or in lireraturc.
nnversely, there is no reason why there shouid not
t:i!r - and sometimes there do - flashes in the pan
-: rhe work of other-wise mediocre film-makers.
r-ults of a forlunate combination of circumstances
-- ,,r'hich there is a precarious moment of balance
:.r\ een talent and milieu, these fleeting brilliancies
:: not prove all that much about personal creati.ve
:;dities ; they. are -not; howeveq intrinsic ally inferior
:r orhers and probably would not seem so if the
- rapid maladjustment between the film-maker and
=ncs had not begun by reading the signature at
--:: bottonr of the painting.
'Well, what is true of iiterature is even truer of
--re cinema, to the extent that this art, the last to
--rrfire or to the scene, accelerates and multiplies the
=",olutionary factors that are common to all the others.
23
In fifty years the cinema, which started with the
crudest forms of spectacle (primitive but not inferior),
has had to cover the same ground as the play or the
'Within
novel and is often on the same level as they are.
this same period, its technical development has
been of a kind that cannot compare with that of any
traditional art within a comparable period (except
perhaps architecture, another industrial art). Under
such conditions, it is hardly surprising that the genius
will burn himself out ten times as fast, and that a
director who su{lers no loss of ability may cease to be
swept along by the wave. This was the case with Stro-
heim, Abel Gance and Orson 'Welles. 'We are now
beginning to see things in enough perspective to
notice a curious phenomenon: a film-maker can,
within his own lifetime, be refloated by the following
wave. This is true of Abel Gance or Stroheim, whose
modernity is all the more apparent nowadays. I am
fully aware that this only goes to prove their qualiry
of auteur, but their eclipse still cannot be entirely
explained away by the contradictions of capitalism or
the stupidity of producers. If one keeps a sense of
proportion, one sees that the same thing has happened
to men of genius in the cinema as would have hap-
pened to a 1-20-year-o1d Racine writing Racinian
'Wou1d
plays in the rniddle of the eighteenth century.
his tragedies have been better than Voltaire's? The
answer is by no means clear-cut; but I bet they would
not have been.
One can justifiably point to Chaplin, Renoir or
Clair. But each of them was endowed with further
grfts that havelittle to do with genius and which were
precisely the ones that enabled them to adapt them-
selves to the predicament of fi1m production. Of
course, the case of Chaplin was unique since, as both
auteur a:nd producer, he has been able to be both the
cinema and its evolution.
It follows, then, according to the most basic iaws
of the psychology of creation, that, as the objective
factors of genius are much more likely to modify
themselvesin the cinema than in any other art, a
the cinema can occur, and this can abruptly a{fect the
qualiqt of his films as a result. Of course I adnrire
Confidential Report, and I can see the same qualities in
it as I see tn Citizen Kane. Brt Citizen Kaae opened
up a new era of American cinema, and Confidential
Report is a film of only secondary importance.
24
Andr6 Bazin

';:l:,l:ga:'

(}regg 'I olrlrd irr c"rri--rrr K'rric (RKO' 19+1) Procltrcetl' clircctcd'
Figure 2.2 l)cep {bcrrs crrrtliltogrrp}rv bv
rncl r:o s,rittcrl br Orson Wclles

u,ill be a priori a supcrior flhr becruse

But let's I n1oll1ent o1l this :lsscrtiol] - lt nlay'
P:11,lse
cousiclerc'c1
it is more pet'sonrl lttd because Wellcs's persorralrfi-
I feel. allou. us to qct to lhe hc'art of the nr]ttcr' I
c:rn on1,v have iriltllred as he grelv oldcr'
think thrt not ol]1v would thc sllpPofiers oi the poli-
As hr as this qnestion is concernc'd, I crt'r onlY ag;ree
ttqtte Llcs ar'ilcrrrr relirse to aqre e thx Oonfide trtial Rcport
r,vith nrv ,voilng flrebr:auds u'hetr thev strte that age
as
is an inleriol flhl to Citi:ur l{nrc:5 they u'oult'l be
such canrtot diurinisl-r the taleut of a filnr-luker' and
lrror:c eaqer to claim the contrltl, and I c:ul r'rtelll
see
leact violentlY to tl-r:rt critical prcjuclice u'hich consist:
horv tlrey lr-ould go rbout it. As Confidtt'ttirzl Rcporr it
in findjns the u'orks of a ,voutrg 01' lll:ltllre
Welles's sixth film, olle c:111 assulllc that :r cerrritr
ah.r-avs
fihn-maker sr:perior to thc filnrs of rn old tnan- It has
:ullolllrt of proeress hrs alreaclv been nrade Not onlv -llrc Co/rr
beerr said that lhrrrsicrrr l'crdoux \v:ts 1lot up to
.liJ tlre U .ll, . ,r; 1'r.r3 h.tr c tttorc r'rpt t icttr'c of (larro-s'sc d'or'
Rrr.rlr; pe ople havc' criticizecl J}t' Rlrcr ancl
himself arrcl of his lrt tl'ran rn 1941, but horvc'vcr great
to obtain in Hol1-vrvoocl sa,vingthe-v triss the good old clays of La F.igfu drt.itrr'
w:rs the lreedonr he t'rtas able
Eri. R.rl-tlrl"r has founcl all excellent a1ls\\ier to this:
Citizcn Krttlc crntlot he11' rcnrrining to r ccrlrin extellt
the 'The historv of art offers no exalllple' as f:rr as I kuon"
an I\KO procluct. The fllm rvould never have seen
the co-operrrtion of sonre sr'rper-b of au ar-rthetttic senius rvho has qonc throuqh r pcrioti
light of da-v r'vithout
technicians anci thcir: just as adnrir:rble technic:rl appa-
of true cleciine at tl're end of his carcer; this shoult:'
encollt:irge us rather to detect, benc:ith r'r'h:rt seenrs tc
ratus. (iregg Toland, to nientioll onlY olle' was lllore
be c1r;nrsy or balcl, thc tmces of that desirc' lol simplic
than a little responsible lor the fln:i1 rcsr-rlt C)n the
it]" that chamctct:izes the "1ast ttt:lttner" of p:rintels sucl-
otlrer lrancl. Con-fitlcntial Rcporr is cornpletelv tht: r'r'ork
as Titian. Rembr:rndt, Mrtisse or Bontlrrcl, colllposer:
of Welles. Urltil it can be proved to the col)tr'in-' it
 De la Politique des Auteurs
.uch as Beethoven and Stravinsky ' (Cdhiers 8,
Renoir Am6ricain'). What kind of absurd discriruina-
--on has decided that film-makers alone are victims of
, 'enility that other artists are protected from? There
-io remain the exceptional cases of dotage, but they are
::ruch rarer than is sometimes supposed. When
l.rr-rdelaire was paralysed and unable to utter anything
:ler than his 'cr6 nom', was he any less Baudelairean?
lobert Mallet te11s us how Vai6ry Lar-baud, Joyce's
:=rslator into French, struggLing against paralysis after
,. rlrw years of irrunobility and silence, had managed
:- build up for himseif a vocabulary of twenty simple
' :rds. With these, he was still able to bring out some
::,:nordinarily shrewd literary judgments. In fact, the
--,'.,,' exceptions one could mention only go to prove
,:= rrle- A great talent matures but does not grow old.'
-:l:re is no reason why this 1aw of artistic psychology
: -,uld not also be valid for the cinema. Criticism that
,, :ased irnplicitly on the hypothesis of seniliry cannot
: '-j rvater. It is rather the opposite postulate that
-::rt to be stated: we should say that when we think
i : J;ln discern a decline it is our own critical sense
.---.,: is at fault, since an impoveris,hment of inspir.rtion
r - \-ery unlikely phenonrenon. From this point of
,-..'. . the bias of the politiqte des auteurs is very fruitful,
;-: I rvill stick up for them against the nalvet6, the
, '''hness even, of the pre;udices they are fighting.
3ut. always remembering this, one has nevertheless
'r.r r--.-ept that certain indisputable 'greats' have sufrered
;m: :;Lipse or a loss of their powers. I think what I
1r,:, . already said in this article nlay point to the reason
$'r ::iis. The drama does not reside in the growing old
[r- ::]3n but in that of the cinema: those who do not
iir;- ;. how to grow old ruith it will be overtaken by
rtr: .-. olution. This is why it has been possible for there
il :-lve been a series of failures leading to compiete
;n-;,.rophe without it being nrcessJry to suppose that
im,: :.nius of yesterday has become an imbecile. Once
':r. it is simply a question of the appearance of a
'ts
':-*:: berrveen the subjective inspiration of the creator
,m::he objective situation of the cinema, and this is
m ---: rhe politique des auteurs refuses to see . To its sup-
r.r:r: ConJldential Repon is a more important fihn
yt-:- Citizen /(are because they.lustifiably see more of
-,',-:.:r'Weiles in it. In other words, all they want to
ru-.:n: in the equation auteur p\us subject : work is the
6,11 1 ,.- 11-|1i1. the subject is reduced to zero. Some of
tLrL
'::: l-ili pretend to grant me that, r11 things being
25
ec1ua1 as far as the auteLu'$ concerned, a good subject
is naturally better than a bad one, br-rt the more out-
spoken and foolhardy among them will admit that it
very much looks as if they prefer smali 'B' films, where
the banality of the scenario leaves lnore room for the
personal contribution of the author.
Of cor-rrse I will be challenged on the very concept
of auteur. I admit that the equation I just used was
artificial,.just as much so, in fact, as the distinction one
leanrt at school betr'veen form and content. To benefit
fronr the politique des auteurs one first has to be worthy
of it, and as it happens this schooi of criticisnr claims
to distirrguish between tr:ue auteurs and directors, even
talented ones: Nicholas Ray is an auteut, Fluston is
supposed to be only a director; lJresson and Rossellini
are auteurs, Cl6ment is only a sreat director, and so
on. 3o this conception of the author is not conrpatible
with the autettr/stbject distinction, because it is of
greater irrrportance to find out if a director is wothy
of entering the select 55roup of duteurs tha't it is to
judge how well he has used his material. To a certain
extent at least, the auteur is.r sr-rbject to himsell what-
ever the scenario, he always tells the same story, or, in
case the word 'story' is confusing, let's say he has the
same attitude and passes the sanre n'roral judgments on
the action and on the characters. Jacques Rivette has
said that duteur is someone who speaks in the first
^n
person. It's a good definition; let's adopt it.
The politiqtLe des auteurs consists, in short, of choos-
ing the personal factor in xrtistic creation as e standard
of reGrence, and then assuming that it continues and
even progresses from one film to the next. It is rec-
ognized that there do exist ceftain important films of
qualrry that escape this test, but these will system.rti-
cally be considered inferior to those in which the
personal stamp of the auteur, however run-of-the-mi11
the scenario, can be perceived even minutely.
It is far from being rny intention to deny
the positive attitude and methodological qualities
of this bias. First of all, it has the great merit of treat-
ing the cinema as an adult art and of reacting rgainst
the impressionistic relativism that still reigns over the
majority ol fihn reviews. I adrnit that the explicit or
admitted pretension of a critic to reconsider the pro
duction of a fil-m-maker with every new fihn in tl-re
Iieht of his judgment has sornething presumptuous
about it that recalls Ubu. I am also quite r,villing to
admit that if one is human one cannot help doine
 26 Andr6 Bazin
this, and, short of g;iving up the whole idea of actua\
criticizing, one might as well take as a starting point
the feel.ings, pleasant or unpleasant, one feels person-
ally when in contact with a film. Okay, but only on
condition that these first impressions are kept in their
proper place. We have to take them into considetetion,
but we should lrot use them as a basis. In other words,
every critical act should consist of referring the film
in question to a scale of values, but this referetrce is
not merely a matter of intellisence; the sureness of
one's judgment arises also, or perhaps even first of all
(in the chronological of the word), from a
sense
general irnpression experienced during a film. I feel
there are two symlnetrical heresies, rvhich are (n)
objectively applying to a film a critical all-purpose
yardstick, and (b) considering it sulficient simply to
state one's pleasure or disgust. The first denies the role
of taste, the second presupposes the superioriq' of the
critic's taste over that of the author. Coldness . . . or
presumption!
-What
I like about the politique des dutetn's is that it
reacts alainst the impressionist approach while retain-
ing the best of it. In fact the scale of vaLues it proposes
is not ideologcal. Its starting-point is an apprecietion
largely composed of taste and sensibility: it l.ras to
discern the contribution of the arli.st rs such, quite
ap:rrt fi-onr the qualities of the subject or the tech-
nique: i..e. the man behind the style. Ilut once one has
made this distinction, this kind of criticism is doorned
to beg the question, for it rssumes at the start of its
analysis that the fi1m is autonratically good as it has
been made by an auteur..And so the 1'ardstick applied
to the film is the aesthetic portrait of the filn-r-maker
deduced from his previous films. This is all right so
long as there has been no mistake abqut promoting
this film-maker to the status of auteur. Fot it is objec-
tively speaking safer to tlust irr the genius of the artist
! tl-ran one's own critical intelligence; And this is
in
wlrere the pol.itique des duteurs falls in line with the
system of 'critici.sm by beaury'; in other words, when
gne is dealing with a genius, it is always a good
method to presuppose that a supposed rveakness in r
work of art is nothing other than a beauty that one
has not yet rnanaged to understand. But as I have
shown, this rnethod had its limitations even in tradi-
tionally individualistic arts such as literature, and all
the rnore so in the ci.nema rvhere the sociologicai and
historical cross-cllrrents are countless. By giving such
importance to 'B' films, the politique des auteurs recog-
nizes and confimrs this dependence a contrario.
Another point is that as the criteria of the politique
des anteurs are very difEcuit to formulate the whole
thing becornes highly hazardous. It is significant that
our finest writers on Cahiers have been practising it
for three or four years now and have yet to produce
the rnain corpus of its theory. Nor is one parti.cularlv
like1y to forget how Rivette suggested we should
admire Hawks: 'The evidence on the screeu is proof
of Hawks's genius: you only have to watch' Monkel'
BtLsiness to know that it is a brilliant film. Some peopie
refuse to adrnit this, however; they refuse to be satis-
fied by proof. There can't be any other reason whv
they don't recognize rt . . ."' You can see the danger: an
aesthetic personality cr.rlt.
But that is not tl're main point, at least to the extent
that the politique des auteurs is practised by people of
taste who know how to watch their step. It is its
negative si.de that seems the most serious to me. It is
unfortunate to praise a film that in no way deserves
it, but the dangers are less far-reaching than when a
worthwhile fi1m is rejected because its director has
made nothing good up to that point. I am not denying
that the charnpions of the politique des auteurs discover
or encourage a br-rdding talent when they get the
chance. But they do systematicaily look down on
anything in a fiirn that comes frorn a common fund
and which can sonletimes be entirely admirable, jr-rst
as it can be utteriy detestable. Thus, a certain kind of
popular American culture lies at the basis of Minnelli's
Lust for Ltfe, but another nlore spontaneous kind of
culture is also the principle of American comedy, the
'Western, and the gangster film. And its influence here
is beneficial, for it is this that gives these cinernatic
genres their vigour and richness, resulting as they do
from an artistic evollltion that has rlways been in
wondefuliy close harmony with its pr'rblic. And so
'Western
one can read a review tn Cahiers of a bv
Anthony Mann (and God knows I like Anthony
-Westerns!)7
Mann's if it were not above all a-Western,
as
i.e. a n'hole collection of conventions in the script.
the acting, and the direction. I know very well that
in a filrn magazine one rnay be permitted to skip such
rnundane details; but they should at least be i.mplied.
whereas what in fact happens is that their existence is
glossed over rather sheepishly, as though they were a
rather ridiculous necessity that it would be incongru-
 De la Politjque des Auteurs 27

&.t.i.

Figure 2.3 FIol'rr d Hrl ks's .1lorrAly 111-'i171-L-i (Trve nricth ( lenttLr r. Fox. I 952): Authorsllp .rs rcltle vident
gr'nius. l)rodrlced bl Sol C. Siegel

.:1lrio11. In :rnr, case, the,v u'ill krok clou.n on,
- -W'estcrn
,-lrlrLlcsccnclinglv, m-v bv l clirector
.-.rr \-et approved, evel) if it is :rs Iot-tnc1 atrd
,i rlt egg. Wcll, r'r'het is Sialccoar/r if trot atr
'W'esteru
...iirl in rvhich the art of Forcl cou-
'-'-r of nising charactcrs :uld sitllrtions to f,1l
- -'Leqr:ee of perfcction;f :incl lvhile slttirrq orl
,..r'ship Committee I have seen sorue :rdnri-
I ::ii1'ns, ilrorc or less :tnonviltor-ts atrd off the
.,;k. but displaylrg :i r,vonclcltul knou,ledge of
::rrions of the genr:e arrcl respecting the sry1c-
.--:r1ril1g to cnd.
..:,,ricr11,v, the supportels of the polltiqttc
-t:rile the American cinenr:r. rvherc the restric-
:roclnction are l'reavier thrn anyr,vhere elsc. It
:-r- that it is the colllrtn u'here the qreiltest
. rossibilities arc offered to thc director. But
: ,:-rrcs r-rot canccl out the otl'rer. I do hor.vever
-,: fi'eeclonr is grerter il Ho1lvlr.ood than it is
--:. as long as one klorl.s hor,v to cletect its
nranitestrtions, ancl I u'ill qo so lal as to sil,v thirt the
tradition of genres is :r brse of opentious for cre.Ltivc
treeclom. The Anrerican cincm:r is :r classical art. bul
r,vhv not thcn :rc|nirc in it u.l-rat is most aclnrrnblc.
i.e. not only the t:r1ent of this or th:rt film rlaker.
but the genius of the systenr, the richrress of its cvcr-
visorous tlaclition, :rnd its fertilit\' \\rhelr it comes into
colrtilcrt rvith nerv elerrents - as has bec-n provecl. if
proof there neecl be. in sr-rch fllnrs as An Antcrit,ut trt
Paris, Tht' Scuctt Yt:,tt'Ia-lr ancl Bri-s Sny. Tnte, Loq.rn is
luckv error.rqh to be consjdered xt ttrrtutr, or :rt lcrst a
bnciding dt.rttur. Brt then when Pim.ic or Br.r,t Sti? qs1
des good revieri's the praise does not llo to whrt seelrls
to n1c to bc' the essentiill point, i.e. thc soci:rl truth.
rvhich of course is not offered as a qoal that suiilces
in itself but is intesratecl into a stvle of cincnrrtic
r]:ufatiolr jLlst as Pre-\\rar Arnerica $ras ilrtegr:itec1 i1]to
American comec]v.
To conclr:cle '. the pol.ititltrt' clcs nutt'urs seenls to nre
to holcl ancl defencl an essential clitical trutl-r t1-rrt the
 Andre Bazin
28
should be com-
other arts' precisely quite apart fi'om its polernical value'
cinema neecls rlore than the by othei approaches :lt
cinematic
creation is more uncer- if.-."r.a to'oa frlm its qualin'
because an act of true artistic f,h.no-"non which will restore
,"" ""1 ""terabie in the cinema than elsewhere' But This does not mean one has to denr
;;';I;aart'
him back the
,rr-"".f.rrt".practiceleadstoanotherdanger:thepraise of its tn" ."t" of the auteur' but simply give
;.*;;i;; of the frlm to the benefit of auteurs cat), tt"t*"t"" *tthoot which
the flotrn duteur remains
why mediocre
ouTurr. t lrave tried to show but what
Auteur' yes' oJ?
films' and how' con- but a haiting concept'
i.r'r..ta.nr, nrake admirable Translated bY Peter Grahatn
;:'*tt, .-, ;;;i;;" fall victim to an equa\ accidental
,,.rt*, fO.i that this useful and frllitful approach'

Notes

()inema:The1950s- Neo'Redlisnt'Hollytuoorl,N'crtr4,,ale(Lontlotr:
et la politique des
Eric Rohner, 'Les Lecteurs des
CcJrlcr-r
Routledge, 1985)' 23' Mar
*,."t1, Caltiers 63, October 1956' pp'
5'1-8' 'G6nie de Horvard Hawks" c'a|ier:c
vi'nce nt" c)ahicr s
(r8' F ebruary 1957' J;;;;;'"it.,t.,
T*;;;";;.t'i.'Momieur 1953, PP. 16-23'
(on Mann's T'he Mtn
ou. -[{-(,
oolt.*IJn"t"r, at iii.u o-t"' 'Beaut6 d'un western' pp 33-6'
'Lego' d'un 6chec: i propos de Moby Dtck" 1956'
23-8-
f*^ in*nir), Cahier S5'Januaw iVestern" Cahiers54' Christmas
Clahiss 67,January 1957' PP Cf Art1r6 Bazin,'Evolution du
r"' a'* u p1aie" cahier's 63' october 1e56' in Arrdt6
il;j;;t''li' ;;til. ;,;.-rt"tto "' 'Evolutio' of the wester.'
I/oi 2' rcpnnted rn llill Nrchols led )'
oo. 18-21t. (on Conlrd-ential i*r",' Wr" is Cinema?
(Berkeley: lJnivcrsiq of C'rlif"mi'r
Press'
u.u t-"*er, 'une Fable du XXe
sidcle'
fii
""'*1,i, cldh]:A'.*.t'-' i*,irt rrrO '\{crhods
i"u*'61 ,Ju1v 1e56' pP '17-40; tf (ed)' Cdhiers tlu :1976 8s).
;;; il'"r', in Afpendir t it j"' Hillitr
Auteurs and Authorship
A Film Reader

Edited by Barry Keith Grant

1D Ftilrffit;
O 2008 b,v Blackrvell Pubhshine
Eclitorial content ancl organization O 2008 bv Barry l{eith Clrant

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