Authors of the Image: Cinematographers Gabriel Figueroa and Gregg Toland

Abstract

IN ACCEPTING THE MEXICAN NATIONAL AWARD for Science and Art in 1971, cinematographer Gabriel Figueroa spoke of great privilege of translating world through camera, of penetrating the heart of reality to explore questions of human soul, of telling stories, evoking history, and making history.1 This sweeping sentiment reflects one of fundamental tenets in study of national cinemas: idea that filmmakers take tensions, conflicts, idealsessentially entire culture- of their historical moment and distill it into sounds and images that reflect a particular understanding of their time and place. Much of study of moving image is, in fact, predicated on basic assumption that images (in film, television, or even video games) both reflect and create a society's set of dominant values, as well as reveal contradictions and fissures inherent in those values. It is surprising, therefore, that questions of authorship are so important to field. To understand individuals responsible for constructing this feedback loop of moving image and society, these interpreters and inscribers of culture, is to understand more deeply meanings, messages, and greater significance of any cinematic work. For field of studies, issue of authorship has always been particularly complex, largely as a result of complex nature of production itself. One particular approach, auteur theory, which argues that films should reflect an individual director's creative vision, has been so essential to development of discipline that, until recently, it has all but eclipsed other critical models for explaining authorial attribution.2 Without question, centrality of auteur theory to field makes a certain amount of sense. Just as English has its writers and poets, and art history has its painters, sculptors, and architects, figure of director might seem to be corresponding creative figure for medium of film. Not surprisingly, emergence of auteur theory in 1960s coincided with rise of studies as an academic discipline, for notion of director as auteur allowed to be studied as an art form in its own right (as product of a singularly inspired creator) and positioned it as a field worthy of scholarly engagement (with issue of film style emerging as a focus of analysis). The main critique of auteur theory has been that, clearly, director is necessarily primary creative force on a (e.g., Allen and Gomery 88).3 In almost all instances, he or she collaborates with an array of artists in both production and conception of work and is further subject to limitations of industry norms and standards. The stylistic patterns that auteurist approach has been so useful in pointing out can therefore be more accurately attributed to multiple authors, working within distinct industrial and technological parameters, all of whose unique aesthetic visions contribute to final cinematic product. Amore precise paradigm of authorship thus would have to take into account contribution made by myriad artists who, in conjunction with director, contribute to a film's overall style.4 Robert Carringer, in his book 7?7e Making of Citizen Kane, argues for this type of collaborative, industrial-based approach to analysis by detailing specific contributions that each of primary artists made to final version of Welles's film. He notes that Welles, being an amateur in most filmmaking matters, relied on cinematographer Gregg Toland, screenwriter Herman Mankiewicz, and art director Perry Ferguson for their expertise and their vision. For this reason, Carringer claims Citizen Kane to be not only Hollywood's greatest film, but . . . also . . . Hollywood's single most successful instance of collaboration (x), thus representing a kind of ultimate vindication of auteur premise (ix). …