A film has one name on the poster and about two hundred authors
Auteur theory was a useful corrective in 1954 and has since hardened into a habit. It gave critics a way to argue that popular films had artistic intent, and it did that by locating the intent in one person. Seventy years later the argument has won so completely that most film writing cannot describe a movie without organising it around a director.
Sometimes that is accurate. Plenty of films are shaped decisively by one person, and pretending otherwise is its own distortion. But it is a claim that should be earned each time rather than assumed — and the assumption does real work, because it determines whose name gets remembered, who gets hired again, and whose contribution is filed as a technical achievement rather than an authorial one.
Story Parts takes films apart and asks who actually made the thing you remember. Sometimes the answer is the director. Often it is a cinematographer, an editor, a designer, or a twenty-two-year-old running an effects shop.
WHO
Clark Gholamipour is a [role] based in [city]. He writes about how films get made and who gets credited for making them, and teaches [subject] at [institution].
Previously at [publication]. Work has appeared in [publication], [publication], and [publication].
METHOD
Every piece starts from the credits rather than from the film. Production histories, ASC and Cinema Audio Society interviews, DGA and WGA arbitration records where they are public, and trade reporting from the period of production rather than the period of release.
Where a claim rests on one person’s account of events, the piece says so. Where the record is contested, the piece says that too. Corrections are welcome, and are noted on the piece rather than quietly fixed.
IMAGES
Stills and posters appear here for the purpose of criticism and commentary. Each is credited to its distributor and rights holder. If you hold rights to an image used here and would like it removed or the credit corrected, get in touch and it will be handled the same day.