Julian Bond, a leader and elder of the Civil Rights Movement, once described of a version of American history that he dubbed the Master Narrative. The Master Narrative teaches, among other things, that the Civil Rights Movement was short, lasting barely more than a decade from the 1950s to the 1960s, slavery was terrible and wrong but was a relic of the past whose tentacles do not reach into the present day, and that the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. was the Movement’s sole leader.[1] The greatest misconception that the Master Narrative perpetuates is that African Americans acted as a monolith with no individual motivations guiding their everyday actions. The Master Narrative strips Black Americans of their agency and portrays a simplistic and easily digested, but inaccurate, history. Films which include African American characters have similarly obscures Black stories.

The question at the heart of this week’s readings is one of agency and representation. In his chapter, “Black Spectatorship” Problems of Identification and Resistance,” professor Manthia Diawara posits that “…the black male subject always appears to lose in the competition for the symbolic position of the father or authority figure. And at the level of spectatorship, the black spectator, regardless of gender or sexuality, fails to enjoy the pleasures which are at least available to the white male heterosexual spectator positioned as the subject of the films’ discourse. Moreover, the pleasures of narrative resolution—the final tying-up of loose ends in the hermeneutic code of detection— is also an ambiguous experience for black spectators.”[2] The biographical story of Solomon Northup presented in director Steve McQueen’s 12 Years a Slave challenges the limits imposed in Daiwara’s description by centering the story of a Black man, Solomon Northup. Solomon’s outcome is dependent upon his own actions within the confines of American chattel slavery. He maximizes every opportunity he has to advance the cause of his freedom within that system. The historical facts that limited those opportunities to one or two per decade do not diminish the ways in which he resisted his bondage and fought for his freedom.

There are several moments that stand out which could illuminate how 12 Years a Slave pushes against the tradition that Diawara describes, but one in particular caught my eye. The scene begins at 0:45:29 and concludes at 0:47:37. In it, Solomon is still living at the first plantation, Mr. Ford’s, after he was sold into bondage. During this sequence, after some initial set-up, Solomon refuses to be punished for doing exactly what his supervisor, Master Tibeats, instructed. Instead, Solomon turns the tables on Tibeats and beats him, momentarily usurping the role of authority. Embarrassed by the beating he received, Tibeats retreats, only to return and seek revenge later. It is likely that, as an enslaved person, Solomon knew this was unlikely to end well for him, but he refused to suffer the indignity. The unfortunate reality of Solomon’s resistance is that his victory is temporary, and his plight gets much worse.

Regardless of what was to come, Solomon is shown to resist the everyday atrocities and indignities that accompanied life as an enslaved African American. McQueen’s choice to highlight these small acts, and other acts of resistance, is a corrective action which responds to the to the overly sterilized depiction of Black life as described by Julian Bond. This particular act of defiance placed Solomon on a path that would eventually lead to his restoration as a literal father figure and tied up the loose ends of his story that Diawara criticized. Resolution like this was certainly not the case for more than a few enslaved African Americans. Northup’s story was unique, and McQueen’s depiction captures the events vividly, but 12 Years a Slave was not without its critics.

McQueen’s direction along with the performances of Chiwetel Ejiofor as Solomon, Lupita Nyong’o as Patsey and many other black actors, worked to create fully formed and complex characters. Their motivations were clear, and their fears felt immediate and real. Their pain was evocative. Manthia Diawara’s critique of black representation and observation of black audiences has nothing to do with the realism of the characters’ pain and the audience reactions to it. His concern, instead, had to do with the lack of fullness of black representation on film and that, as a consequence, black audiences were unable to identify with characters on the screen, which resulted in a viewing experience the was not inclusive. McQueen’s choices about what to put on the screen solve that problem, but at a steep cost.

Film scholar bell hooks criticized 12 Years a Slave, “If I don’t see another Black woman naked raped and beaten as long as I live, I will be just fine because I want to see something else.” (46:00–46:21) She goes on to suggest that “seeing people doing what you want to do and doing it well, they’re good people to learn from.” (47:14-47:20)[3] Here, hooks is arguing for another form of spectatorship. To her, films that exhibit black suffering are excessive and possibly needless. She is calling for filmmakers to inspire spectatorship that is not rooted in pain, but rather one that is aspirational. This is an interesting point to ponder. Can an audience feel the weight of a character’s situation without seeing the depths of their despair?

Another film of recent vintage, Detroit, met with similar criticism because scenes depicting violence against black bodies were deployed relentlessly . hook bell’s criticism of 12 Years a Slave and the critical reception of Detroit encourage us to wrestle with whether or not spectatorship in which black audiences can identify with the characters on screen are worth the pain they might inflict. Honest history does not have to cause trauma. Has Steve McQueen caused undue distress to Black audiences with 12 Years a Slave? Has he succeeded in giving Black characters agency and has he given them fitting ends to their stories? Has he done so in a way that allows Black audiences to experience something more than Diawara’s resistant spectatorship?

[1] Hasan Kwame Jeffries, “Introduction,” in Understanding and Teaching the Civil Rights Movement, ed. Hasan Kwame Jeffries (Madison: The University of Wisconsin Press, 2019), 4–5.

[2] Manthia Diawara, ““Black Spectatorship” Problems of Identification and Resistance,” in Film Theory and Criticism, ed. Leo Braudy and Marshall Cohen (New York: Oxford University Press, 2016), 771.

[3] “bell hooks + Chirlane McCray: Critical Thinking at The New School,” YouTube, accessed October 17th, 2020. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G16x0k0fNWU

[4] “Is Detroit’s Violence Gratuitous?” The New Republic, accessed October 18th, 2020, https://newrepublic.com/article/144246/detroits-violence-gratuitous

In her article, “Circles and Squares,” film critic Pauline Kael offers a biting rebuke of auteur theory as employed by Andrew Sarris. Kael’s central complaint about auteur theory is that it requires critics to devote themselves to an interpretation of film that is too formulaic and results in limited understanding of the work before them. Sarris believes that film directors are the true authors, or auteurs, of cinema and that understanding their contributions to the artform can only be ascertained after studying many samples of their work over a long period. Kael rejects this approach to film criticism by dissecting Sarris’ model of understanding directors and their art.

It may be easiest to start where Kael and Sarris agree. Kael and Sarris both believed—Pauline Kael passed away in 2001; Andrew Sarris in 2012—that directors were central to the success of a film and both critics seemed to genuinely love the cinema. These critics, particularly Kael, were also unreserved in voicing their disappointment when directors fell short of their expectations. So, it is not surprising that they approached their work with particular zeal.

Sarris’ describes auteur theory visually. He challenges his readers to think of concentric circles, each of which contains one of the theory’s key concepts. The first of these requires an evaluation of a director’s technical skills. It is here that the assessment of the filmmaker’s oeuvre can begin. Kael is most generous to this evaluative tactic because she believes technical competence is important. Her issue, though, lies in how it is applied in auteur theory. Because auteur theory requires a wholistic viewing of a director’s entire career, the methods of the first circle do not allow for the peaks and valleys of a director’s career. She does not believe skills are static or improve on an uninterrupted climb. Also noteworthy is the influence of studios. Because Sarris is writing in an American or English context, the studio system often pressed on a director in which issues of budget and schedule had the potential to cause breakdowns in the artistic integrity of directors, especially when the project they were working on may not have been one they were passionate about but had to complete because of contractual obligations. Directors, it must not be forgotten, were employees. In that context, it is understandable every film a director produced might not be appropriate to include in a decade’s long evaluation.

Auteur theory’s second theoretical principle revolves around the idea of personality. Artists certainly include aspects of their personality in their work, but it is also possible for artists to rebel against themselves. Sarris indicates that auteurs’ work should contain connective tissue. Camerawork, acting choices, and lighting can all be hallmarks of a director’s style and auteur theory posits that this style should be recognizable from one film to the next. Unsurprisingly, Kael rejects this notion. Her words are quite instructive, “…but that the distinguishability of personality should in itself be a criterion of value completely confuses normal judgement. The smell of a skunk is more distinguishable than the perfume of a rose; does that make it better?” To be fair to Sarris, he does admit that auteur theory is rather ill-defined. It may work better in a French or German cinematic world in which profit and studio preference do not influence art, or at least influence it to a lesser degree. Nevertheless, Kael’s point remains—an auteur cannot be deemed as such just because their work is easily recognizable.

The notion contained in the final circle, which Kael unmercifully thrashes, is that “interior meaning” is exposed because directors pit their personality against the material they have been given to film. This is, in Kael’s estimation, a recipe for disaster. Why on earth would a director fight the material they have been given? Why not just walk away? Kael believes that directors do their best work and produce the best films when the material and the personality of the director work in concert.

How, then, can we judge a film like Shadow of a Doubt and the career of Alfred Hitchcock? Using only one film we cannot assess Hitchcock’s greatness over a long career. In the case of Shadow of a Doubt, though, we might as well speculate as to which of Hitchcock’s techniques could define him using the template of auteur theory. We could also try to deduce what are some aspects of his personality by examining the choices he made when making Shadow of a Doubt.

The technical choices Hitchcock makes in Shadow of a Doubt serve his thematic preferences. One themes evident throughout Shadow of a Doubt is contrast. When both Charlies are introduced, they are lying in contemplative postures on their backs in bed. To set up a contrast there must be similarities and these mirrored settings do that. The contrast in the characters is set up in the arrangement of the shots and the mise-en-scéne of the scenes. When we meet uncle Charlie, although it is daytime, he is cast in shadow and there is a darkness to the setting. His conversation with the landlady reveals that he is concerned with stealth and self-preservation. Hitchcock frames this introduction with Charlie’s head to the right and his feet to the left. When we meet young Charlie, it is also daytime, but the lighting is much brighter. Her conversation reveals that she is concerned for her family and specifically her mother. Hitchcock’s use of contrast in these scenes conditions the spectator to believe certain things about the characters. The rest of the film is dedicated to either confirming these beliefs or casting them into doubt.

If the director’s personality is crucial to understanding their work through the lens of auteur theory, then signs of Hitchcock’s personality are revealed in Shadow of a Doubt. Although Hitchcock is known for suspense, this film includes playful moments. Young Charlie’s sister Ann is a mischievous child. When we first meet her, she is caught lying about being able to find a pencil to take down a message. Later, she exclaims that she never makes up anything because all of her information comes from her books, which are all true. She also plays the sidewalk hopping game, “Step on a crack and you’ll break your mother’s back.” In a relatively short distance, she breaks her mother’s back three times. Ann is not a representative of childhood innocence. Instead, she is a representation of youthful rebellion. But this is shown in playful and harmless ways. Is this an aspect of Hitchcock’s personality? Does he see himself as an innocent rebel? Are there other aspects of Hitchcock’s personality worthy of discussion?

Pauline Kael believes that auteur theory is too cute by half. It is an answer in search of a problem. Is she right? Does the practice of auteur theory work when analyzing the careers and films of classical Hollywood and the studio system? Is auteur theory too formulaic and does it limit the ability of critics to judge films on their own? Why does auteur theory elicit such strong feelings?