Auteur theory and Director Pa. Ranjith: Deconstructing the Reality

Abstract

Film is one of the mediums which reflect the directors’ ideology. A film director through her/his film conveys the opinion and ideology to the target audience. In comparison to other media, film has gained popularity throughout history and has evolved over time. Director is the pioneer for illustrating how films can deconstruct the reality of society in various fields. The director sets his/her plot to build and convey directors’ own ideology in the natural setting. The researcher has used descriptive content analysis to analyze the selected films of director Pa. Ranjith to analyze the qualitative data. As the theoretical framework of this study, the researcher uses the Auteur Theory, which examines the control of the author over his/her media productions. This research mainly focuses on finding out how director Pa. Ranjith deconstructs the reality through his films based on auteur theory. The hypothesis of this research is that director Pa. Ranjith uses many strategies and techniques to convey his idea to the audience. Through directors’ films, the audience can find out how the director brings the idea to the target audience using real issues like caste, religion, nationality, etc through Auteur theory. Pa. Ranjith’s selection of theme, plot, characterization and language differentiates him from other Tamil directors. Auteur theory helps to discern Pa. Ranjith’s ideology about issues he has chosen. Pa. Ranjith’s films which reflect Tamil society and Tamil culture create awareness and expectation of reality for people who become victimized by the social structure, culture and tradition including the caste and class statutes, and challenges of so called lower caste people for survival in Tamil society.