A further look at intertextuality and auteurism

Intertexuality can be thought of as a never-ending onion; onions have many layers, and so does intertextuality. For example, if you peeled away the layers of a film, underneath you would find layer after layer of other experiences and influences. If you peel back one layer, you will find the scriptwriter. If we peel back their layers, we would find things like other scripts they had written and read and how those have influenced their writing. If the script has been adapted from a story, you will find the author's layer. Peel back their's and you will reveal all their past writings, experiences and things they have read. And so it goes on, in what seems to never end - thus the term 'never-ending onion'!


Julia Kristeva was a French theorist who first coined the term intertexuality in the late 1960s. Intertexuality indicates that a text is not self-contained but is produced from other texts and that there can never be a definitive reading of a text - there will be many interpretations, depending on the reader. In the 'Death of the author' by Barthes, he said that a text is a "tissue of quotations drawn from innumerable centres of culture".






Auteurism suggests that a director is the primary and most important creator of a text (even though the text will be processed and added to by numerous other individuals, the auteur's creative voice is said to still shine through). A director who is a considered an auteur is seen to have something instantly recognisable about their work which allows you to know it was produced by them. For example Alfred Hitchcock used particular framing and editing techniques throughout his films and make cameo appearances - if you saw these techniques in a film, you would instantly know it was 'a Hitchcock'.


Another well respected auteur is Spanish director Pedro Almodovar. An example of one of his 'instantly recognisable qualities' would be his strong interest in female narrative and tendency to use particular actors. He makes no apologies for the fact that he is an intertextual director and openly acknowledges he is a big fan of Hitchcock in his films. Pedro Almodovar is an example of an auteur who is proud to layer his work with the influence of others.


This is a brief, graphic outline of the development of auteur theory through three phases, from Cinema Studies: The Key Concepts by Susan Hayward.

Obviously our piece will be intertextual, as you cannot avoid this. We will not directly reference any other text, but our creation will be shaped by our own experiences of texts from the same genre. For our piece, Joe and I could consider paying homage to Pedro Almodovar by using his technique of pulling the subject into the foreground.