ABSTRACT
Chapter 3 focuses on questions of authorship in the cinema. It introduces and explains the auteur theory and emphasizes the importance of American genre films to its articulation. The discussion demonstrates how an auteur's personal vision may be established in the context of genre but also acknowledges the changing idea of the author when concepts of ideology are emphasized. By contrast, in art cinema, which itself may be considered a genre, the director is assumed to be the auteur. Several important auteurs of the studio era are highlighted, and the more recent rise of black and women auteurs is also discussed.
