I was absent for this week’s class so I decided to focus on the assigned readings for my seminar summary this week. This week’s concept that the readings focused on dealt with ‘auteur theory’ in film criticism. Auteur Theory is an interesting notion as it deals with the idea that the director of the film, who has entire control over the visual and sound components of the film can use their creative license, much like a writer or a painter to express the film in the exact way they would like to portray it.

The film that acted as the vehicle for the discussion this week was Psycho (1960) which was directed by Alfred Hitchcock. Alfred Hitchcock, who is a veteran in auteur theory, has directed several movies such as To Catch a Thief and Birds which have similar thematic qualities and recurring ideas expressed through mise-en-scene. This is typical of ‘auteur theory’ as it allows the director to express their own artistic flourish or cinematic identity as a director. For example, in Psycho and To Catch a Thief , Hitchcock uses his Heroines who are typically blonde and beautiful to display animalistic qualities once they are in danger – these are not always made manifest through violence but can be made prevalent through other crimes e.g. Grace Kelly in To Catch a Thief  is a cat burgler.

Hitchcock’s cinematic style became iconic and he became a master of his own kind of horror, usually littering his films with bouts of dark humor and suspense in order to create his own identity as an auteur.