Does the Auteur Need the Experience?

Late January of 2021, the world was excited to see the beloved Zendaya and John David Washington in a black and white film that looked as though it would bring back some aspects that most movie-lovers cherish in old films, including less cringey characters, fewer locations, and, of course, that it was shot on film. Malcolm and Marie is essentially about a filmmaker, Malcolm, and his partner, Marie, returning home from his successful movie premiere. Tension between the couple soon leads to conflict surrounding who the film was actually about, since it related so much to Marie’s life. The story considers a lot of issues that happen in Black American communities so it was quite confusing when the credits started rolling and revealed that Malcolm and Marie was written and directed by Euphoria’s creator, Sam Levinson, an American white male.

It’s almost obvious that whenever you watch a narrative film about childhood or a relationship, and do a little bit of research on the filmmaker, that the film somewhat projects the experiences of the person who made it. Think, for example, of Greta Gerwig and Lady Bird or Michel Gondry and Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. These films are both spectacular because of their authenticity. Although most of our storytelling is based on imagination, what makes a film great is its ability to convince the audience to actually believe it and immerse themselves in the story. We all love Euphoria but is it authentic? Because I’m 17 and I haven’t done a quarter of the things they do in that series. It’s the colors and the music and Hunter Schafer that distract from it being an unrealistic version of our own reality. And there’s nothing wrong with that, other than the series convincing us that there is an environment out there that behaves in this same manner. 

Sam Levinson is not the only auteur/filmmaker that does this. There are many other masters of disguising realism in film such as Will Gluck on Easy A (a male director on a film about a high school girl spreading gossip to give herself a new identity at school) and Jon M. Chu on In The Heights (an Asian-American director on a story based in a Domican neighborhood). Both films are good, but, in my opinion, are missing an aspect that makes me want to learn more about the characters.

You might be saying that the filmmakers and storytellers do not need to be able to relate to the plot itself since there are many fantasy, war, and period films that are so foreign to our society yet still seem very convincing. Every narrative has an underlying theme that is general and relatable, for instance, Guillermo Del Toro’s The Shape of Water. Toro has never fallen in love with a fish (or so we assume), but he may know how hard it is to find love in this world when you feel like nothing you say will ever matter. Similarly, Niki Caro, who directed the live-action version of Mulan has never had to pretend to be a man in the Chinese Army, but she probably read the book and watched the animation a million times as a child.

So the question is, since there is always an underlying theme in storytelling, does the maker of the film have to have gone through very similar experiences to the characters in order for the story to be good or can the auteur learn second-hand from research? In my opinion, the auteur should have experience because it gives the filmmaker a purpose and motivation for telling their story. It makes the film more personal since it connects to the maker in a deeper way. It shows that they know what they are talking about, and they understand what it is like to be in their characters’ shoes.

Without Sam Levinson stepping out of his comfort zone, we wouldn’t have had the show that has helped many teens with issues in adulting and maintaining healthy relationships (romantic and with their own bodies), and we wouldn’t have seen probably one of the most intense romance dramas of this year. However, we must always realize that we cannot compare our lives with something as mystical as an unrealistic movie or TV show, instead we should take the advice from the message that the auteur is trying to communicate.