The film philosopher and historian Thomas Elsaesser played a key part in the development of the academic study of film. Elsaesser was based for much of his career in the UK, at the University of East Anglia, and latterly at the University of Amsterdam. Like Wollen, Elsaesser engaged with both classical Hollywood and European cinema, and with questions of film authorship. In his study of the 1925 science fiction classic Metropolis, Elsaesser situates the film as an example of ‘UFA style’ – its technical complexity and attention to detail not attributable solely to the vision of director Fritz Lang, but the result of a collaboration “between set designers, cameramen, art directors and countless other, highly skilled specialists” employed by the film studio, UFA.
In his contribution to Alfred Hitchcock: Centenary Essays, Elsaesser explores what he terms the ‘dandyism’ of Hitchcock’s unique persona, a quality that also informed his filmmaking style. Elsaesser suggests that Hitchcock’s life and art alike represent “a determined protest, the triumph of artifice over accident, a kind of daily victory over chance, in the name of a spirituality dedicating itself to making life imitate art.”
In a contemporary globalised cinema landscape, is the concept of the director-as-author still valid? In this chapter from his Limina Award-winning book European Cinema and Contintental Philosophy, Elsaesser outlines some of the defining features and industrial forces shaping 21st century authorship.
Homepage banner image: Akira (Photo by BANDAI VISUAL/AKIRA COMMITTEE CO LTD/Ronald Grant Archive/Mary Evans)
Homepage Wollen image: Peter Wollen (second left) at the Eisenstein Museum in Moscow in 1984 with, left to right: Peter Sainsbury, then Head of BFI Production; Naum Kleiman, curator of the Eisenstein Museum; the film-maker Sally Potter, and interpreter Bella Epstein. Photo © Ian Christie
Homepage Elsaesser image: BUSAN, SOUTH KOREA - OCTOBER 09: Jury Thomas Elsaesser attends a Flash Forward Jury Press Conference at the Grand Hotel during the 15th Pusan International Film Festival (PIFF) on October 9, 2010 in Busan, South Korea. The biggest film festival in Asia showcases 306 films from 67 countries and runs from October 7-15. (Photo by Chung Sung-Jun/Getty Images)