Transnational auteurism: Tom Tykwer's and Krzysztof Kieślowski's Heaven (2002) between political engagement and Romantic anti-capitalism

Abstract

ABSTRACTTaking the example of Heaven (2002), a US—German---Italian—French---British production directed by Tom Tykwer and co-written by Krzysztof Kieślowski, I suggest a rereading of auteurism in the new, transnational context. Following recent academic perspectives on auteurism, I approach the stylistic and thematic idiosyncrasies of Heaven as discursive constructs rather than in terms of the director's self-expression. Consequently, I see Heaven as an eclectic product of two national auteurist discourses: the Autorenkino of the New German Cinema period and the Polish Cinema of Moral Concern. I investigate how the national auteurist idiosyncrasies are transformed in the new, transnational context, focusing in particular on the notion of engaged film-making. In response to the transnational market's need for cross-cultural intelligibility, engaged film-making increasingly disconnects from specific social, political and historical contexts and becomes universalistic, Utopian and idealistic, evoking the controversial legacy of Romantic anti-capitalism, as discussed by Georg Lukács.