THEORIZING

Regarding critic Andrew Sarris and the auteur theory he propounds (Film Clips, by Robert W. Welkos, June 30):

Let’s lay this hoary controversy to rest, shall we? Not all film directors are auteurs. But the real good ones are that from the get-go. Welles, Ford, Hitchcock, Alan Rudolph, Coppola, Spike Lee, Kurosawa, Woody Allen, the Coen brothers qualify and others do not. The issue is not whether directors are auteurs but which directors are auteurs.

Hardly any of this summer’s crop of films, either released or pending, show the stamp of individuality that appears in every frame of an auteur’s work. That is the criterion.

Ingmar Bergman, auteur. Andrew Bergman, director.

G.E. NORDELL

Culver City

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The point of the French critics, and their English and American adherents, was that normal rules of literary analysis do not apply to a medium that is collaborative and created in a corporate culture. These critics found that there was more consistency in the quality of the work by certain directors than writers and, more important, that they could identify recurring relationships, imagery and themes in these directors’ works.

The argument still remains valid, not as a battle in the imagined war between writers and directors, but as a way of looking at the comparative contributions writers and directors make to the finished film.

AARON LIPSTADT

Los Angeles

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In Sarris’ entry on “Night of the Hunter” director Charles Laughton in “The American Cinema,” he writes:

“Moral: Directors, not writers, are the ultimate auteurs of the cinema, at least of cinema that has any visual meaning and merit.”

The auteur theory is really not so much a theory as it is a policy.

LEONARD MACALUSO

Van Nuys

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Sarris’ absolute-classic remark: “ ‘The Big Sleep,’ for example, is just as good as ‘The Best Years of Our Lives.’ Yet, it would have been insane to say that in 1946.”

It’s equally insane to say that in 1996.

DAVID R. MOSS

Los Angeles