Andrew Sarris (1928 – 2012)
“At this late date I am prepared to concede that auteurism is and always has been more a tendency than a theory, more a mystique than a methodology, more an editorial policy than an aesthetic procedure. The cinema is a deep, dark mystery that we auteurists are attempting to solve, and, what is infinitely more difficult, to report our findings in readable prose. The cinema is a labyrinth with a treacherous relation to reality. I suppose that the difference between auteurism and Allen Smithee-worship is the difference between knowing all the questions before finding the answers, and knowing all the answers before formulating the questions.”
More on Sarris: Ebert, Emerson, Brody, Powell, Kenny, and Levy.
