I don't think most of the "anti-auteurist" posts here make any real
argument in terms of art. Cary Grant might be a wonderful personality
and a very smart man, but he does not have the revolutionary
sensitivity that any great artist such as George Cukor, or Brahms, or
D.H. Lawrence has.

For me it's not Cary Grant or any scriptwriter who posits any real
challenge to auteurism, it's somebody else. In his "Walden: Diaries,
Notes & Sketches" Jonas Mekas goes to visit Brakhage at his home in
Colorado. We watch the Brakhage family, with Jonas Mekas at his best,
capturing an idyllic beauty, and warmth. Then, very close to the end
of the episode, there is a shot that's about 10-15 seconds long, where
Jonas Mekas is not behind the camera but in front of it. And it's
Brakhage shooting him, then turning the camera upwards toward the sun,
if I remember it correctly. Now, there are lots of shots by other
people in Jonas Mekas' films but when it's Brakhage who has the camera
in hand, it is very easily felt (since there is an almost contrasting
sensitivity *there*), and it could even be said that it's stronger
than most other shots in "Walden".

Who can say that the only auteur of the feeling created at that moment
is Jonas Mekas? I don't think anybody can.

But then, that shot is so well integrated into the film, and it flows
so well with the rhythm of the rest, that it does not cause a
disruption. Instead, it becomes a new window of possibility offered by
the film, and it is put in a context (since there always is a context)
by Jonas Mekas. He probably isn't the only person who allows a shot of
Brakhage in his/her film, but he is the person who does it best, from
what I have seen. The reason why the shot works so well proves more
about Mekas than it does about Brakhage.

Yoel