The Velvet Light Trap

Gurney, David.
Film and Authorship (review)
The Velvet Light Trap - Number 57, Spring 2006, pp. 101-104

University of Texas Press

David Gurney - Film and Authorship (review) - The Velvet Light Trap 57 The Velvet Light Trap 57 (2006) 101-104 Wexman, Virginia Wright, ed. Film and Authorship. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers UP, 2003. 270 pages, $22.00 paper. Click for larger view Figure 1 In film studies the concept of the author has experienced various degrees of acceptance, ranging from full incorporation to vehement repudiation. As a result, whether lauding or denying thepresence of the film author, questions of authorship are inextricably woven into the fabric of film studies. Now that the topic is viewed more affably than it has been in the past, it is truly apropos that Film and Authorship, an anthology of essays working with the idea of authorship in film, has been assembled by editor Virginia Wright Wexman. Acting as both a recapitulation and revaluation of topic, this collection works as an introduction to the debates while focusing on the assertion of the viability of the author as a framework within which to better understand film. Wexman's introduction sets the stage rather nicely by offering an overview of the topic without getting mired in minutiae. Examining such a seminal strand of film theory could be rather intimidating, but Wexman gives the reader a succinct grounding in the history of approaches to authorship in film. Appropriately, she begins with an excavation of the construction of authorial prominence, which is rooted in "the Romantic notion of the creative genius...