Introduction

The introduction addresses the emergence of the concept of the auteur, starting in France with the young critics who would form the nucleus of the New Wave. It quotes Alexandre Astruc&s;s influential essay on the “camera pen,” the notion that a filmmaker writes with the camera as does a traditional author. Andrew Sarris brings the idea of the auteur to the United States, talking about the concentric circles of creativity: technical proficiency, a definable personality present in film after film, and “interior meaning,” or “vision.”