"Autrice" Studies: Women Film Directors

Of course, the politique des auteurs is the
application to the cinema of a notion that is
widely accepted in the individual arts. -André
Bazin, 1957


Coined as an expression in English by critic
Andrew Sarris in the 1960s, "Auteur Theory" and
auteur studies have been alternately defended,
qualified or reviled in cinema studies. Sarris
based his term on the "politique des auteurs" that
emerged from the writings of French film theorists
Alexandre Astruc, André Bazin and filmmaker
Francois Truffaut in the 1950s and which
foregrounded the centrality of the
director-as-auteur in defining a film's visual
style and thematic concerns. At that time, both
American and French auteurist approaches were
largely analyses by male critics and theorists
about male directors working in Euro-American
cinematic traditions.

In this course on Autrice Studies we playfully
deploy the feminine version of the French term
'auteur' to interrogate auteur theory in the
context of women artists and directors. Here we
will examine how and why cinema studies from the
1970s on challenged an auteurist approach - from
genre-based, psychoanalytic/feminist and
ideological perspectives. At the same time as we
interrogate whether a version of "autrice" studies
can be useful for exploring the work of women
filmmakers and moving image artists today, we will
consider whether or how gender is an important
aspect of such study. Is there, as some have
claimed, a feminine or feminist "écriture" that
extends to visual work? Or does such an approach
simply perpetuate reductive binaries and have
limited strategic value?

As part of our theoretical interrogation, we will
select two or three women artists of different
generations (for example Chantal Akerman, Shirin
Neshat, or Ja'Tovia Gary) to do an in-depth study
of their work and the (auteurist or not) critical
analyses written about them. The last third of
the semester will consist of students doing
in-depth research on a filmmaker or moving image
artist of their choosing. Possibilities abound,
including feature, documentary and experimental
filmmakers such as Andrea Arnold, Kathryn Bigelow,
Catherine Breillat, Jane Campion, Claire Denis,
Cheryl Dunye, Ava Duvernay, Kitty Green, Lucretia
Martel, Nina Menkes, Sally Potter, Kelly
Reichardt, Trinh T. Minh-ha, Athina Rachel
Tsangari, Li Yu. Final projects will be an
article or video essay that can be submitted to a
journal.