Prior to beginning work on this assignment, read Chapter 8 of Film: From Watching to Seeing, as well as your instructor’s guidance and lecture materials, and Chapter 7 from Film Genre Reader IV. The ENG225 Research Guide in the Ashford University Library will be particularly helpful in locating required sources. This assignment is your opportunity to apply the auteur theory to the work of one selected director. To do that, you will watch at least two feature-length films by the same director as the basis for your analysis and argument.

Note: You should watch any chosen film twice—once to ensure that you have grasped the storytelling and once to take more specific notes on aspects of the film you wish to discuss. You may choose any appropriate director, but be sure to consider the three criteria of auteur theory before making your selection. Reflect on the film you chose in your Week 2 written assignment and look ahead to the Week 5 Final Paper guidelines to ensure that you choose a film for this assignment that will work with the requirements on the Week 5 Final Paper. You may opt to write about the same film in your Week 2 written assignment and Week 5 Final Paper, and applicable pieces of this assignment can be used to write both. If you do this, you should reflect on and revise this assignment based on the instructor’s feedback before you incorporate it into any future writing assignments.

Your paper should be organized around a thesis statement that focuses on how your chosen director and his/her films meet the criteria posed by auteur theory and advance the possibilities of storytelling through the medium of film. Review the Week 3 Sample Outline, which provides a clear guide for developing a solid analysis as well as insight on composition.

In your paper,

• Explain auteur theory.
  • Describe, using Chapter 8 of the text as a reference, the criteria for what makes a director an auteur.
• Identify a director who meets the criteria posed by auteur theory
  • Summarize briefly the ways in which this director meets those criteria using examples from at least two of the director’s films.
• Apply the lens of auteur theory in breaking down the director’s technical competence, distinguishable personality, and interior meaning using specific examples of his/her work (e.g., particular scenes or plot components).
• Analyze the specific ways in which filmmaking techniques, consistent themes, and storytelling distinguish your chosen director as an auteur among his/her peers.

The Directors and Auteur Theory paper

• Must be 900 to 1200 words in length and formatted according to APA style as outlined in the Ashford Writing Center’s APA Style (Links to an external site.) resource.
• Must include a separate title page with the following:
  • Title of paper
  • Student’s name
  • Course name and number
  • Instructor’s name
  • Date submitted

For further assistance with the formatting and the title page, refer to APA Formatting for Word 2013 (Links to an external site.).

• Must utilize academic voice. See the Academic Voice (Links to an external site.) resource for additional guidance.
• Must include an introduction and conclusion paragraph. Your introduction paragraph needs to end with a clear thesis statement that indicates the purpose of your paper.
  • For assistance on writing Introductions & Conclusions (Links to an external site.) as well as Writing a Thesis Statement (Links to an external site.), refer to the Ashford Writing Center resources.

• Must use at least two scholarly sources in addition to the course text.
  • The Scholarly, Peer-Reviewed, and Other Credible Sources (Links to an external site.) table offers additional guidance on appropriate source types. If you have questions about whether a specific source is appropriate for this assignment, please contact your instructor. Your instructor has the final say about the appropriateness of a specific source for a particular assignment.
  • To assist you in completing the research required for this assignment, view this Ashford University Library Quick ‘n’ Dirty (Links to an external site.) tutorial, which introduces the Ashford University Library and the research process, and provides some library search tips.

• Must document any information used from sources in APA style as outlined in the Ashford Writing Center’s Citing Within Your Paper (Links to an external site.) guide.
• Must include a separate references page that is formatted according to APA style as outlined in the Ashford Writing Center. See the Formatting Your References List (Links to an external site.) resource in the Ashford Writing Center for specifications.