Approaching 'cognitively' to the 'author' problem basically means to pose
primarily a problem of the 'recognition' of the author behind the film.
This is basically not one problem but a host of problems.
First, we normally assume (and this is a default assumption) that films are
made and offered by someone (by some people, who, by default, have
particular personality) - let me call it an intentional assumption
(discussed by philosophy of art, and of film).
Second, we, as viewers, needn't go beyond this quite general, and generally
fuzzy, assumption. Most of us, most of the time, do not care nor try to
identify the 'filmmaking' person/persons behind a feature film or
documentary, or music video, or particular commercial... caught on, say, TV.
Even if we try, we are not able to do it in most cases because it is not
obvious. Namely, in most cases of interpersonal, face to face communications
we deal directly with the person that delivers a text, but in the cases of
the texts delivered via a record (film strip, film projection; book; musical
recordings etc) there is no person who do a delivery of a film, that makes
film in front of us. We may identify a 'maker of a film' only
circumstantially.
One source of 'circumstantial indices' is particular structuring of a film,
and that was brought up in the discussion so far. The problem of author
theory (especially the line that practiced an 'immanent' approach) is to
discern those structural features in a film that can be treated as 'director's
touch', his 'personal style' distinct from all other personal styles, and
from non-personal features of the film. It is not only an analytic job, but
a comparative too.
Another source of circumstantial indices are - the information we got about
the process of making the film, about the distribution of relative
production and creative responsibilities for the whole film. Such
information is in many cases quite available today. Knowledge about 'making
of' particular film can immensely help (sensitize) the 'structural',
'immanent' approach (cf. N. Carroll's position on the role of intention in
interpreting artworks).
Another problem is the 'acknowledgment' of the authorial authority behind
the film. This is a socio-cultural problem, but closely knit with the
cognitive one - namely in a situation where we do not need to recognize a
particular individuality (or group of individuality) as 'the author' of the
film, one can ask what are historical and cultural circumstances in which
audience member (critics and theoreticians among them) are led to make of
the identification of an 'author' a culturally (and personally,
experientially) an important task. (A lot about this one can find in
Bordwell's 'Making Meaning').
But there is another side of it. In a situation in which the identification
of an author becomes cultural imperative, even some filmmakers try hard to
'identify themselves' to the audience by 'searching' for 'their own style',
and implanting a lot of 'personal traces' into their films. So, for
so-called 'author's films' the recognition problem is also to trace her/his
'personal marks' (usually particular stylishness) in a number of her/his
films. So, the cultural side has also its cognitive implications (those Mike
identified as 'cognitive', though they are not more cognitive then the
first, basically structural, in many cases 'unconscious', 'automatic' ones).
Now, since all this is concerned with a detection of individuality it is an
individual interpretive job with a particular film (particular films) to see
which structural features on what levels (intra-shot level, editing
conjoining level, sequence construction level, global narrative level...)
are 'authorially' indicative, are 'personal marks' of the posited 'author'.
The cognitive theory can just offer general distinctions on some of the
necessary levels of analysis, but cannot identify features that would be
universally 'responsible' for any authorial individuality. That is the job
of very particular interpretation.
Be careful not to mix the job of a (cognitive) theory with that of an
interpretation (possibly cognitively led with the question - 'How do I
recognise, say, Antonioni's film as 'Antonioni').
Hrvoje
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