Alexander Astruc's writings on La Camera-Stylo revolved around emerging a new future for the cinema through which the medium of the film obtained properly its particular foundation to establish a new structure for representing the film art as wholeness as Astruc states in his writing: " The cinema is quite simply becoming a means of expression, just as all other arts have been before it, and in particular painting and the novel " (Astruc, 17). From his point of view, this age is called camera-stylo as he continues in the same writing: " That is why I would like to call this new age of cinema the age of camerastyolo (Camera-pen)" (Astruc 18). According to his theoretical approach to explain his hypothesis, the term of camera-stylo is the metaphor which emphasizes on the functionality of the camera an artistic tool to write an idea. This flexible use of 'camera as the pen' can express satisfactorily the authorial demands of an artist in his creating of the stylistic aesthetic.
The idea of expressing thought by using the cinematic language is Astruc's obsession to consider the whole historical attempt of the intellectuals, filmmakers and film theoreticians to liberate the cinematic images from the domination of the concrete and the static form of the movements. This idea gives birth to the new cinematic vehicle of thought as Astruc states in his writing:
"From today onwards, it will be possible for the cinema to produce works which are equivalent, in their profundity and meaning, to the novels of Falkner and Malraux, to the essays of Sartre and camus" (Astruc,20). This of course implies the manifestation of the Auteur Theory for the intellectuals of French Nouvelle Vague such as Trauffaut defining a specific domain for cinema which is no longer a means of filmmaking for contemporary era as Astruc expresse his idea in his writing: " Direction is no longer a means of illustrating or presenting a scene but a true act of writing. The film-maker/author writes with his camera as a writer writes with his pen" (Astruc,22).
Of course, the similarity between Truffaut's article about adaptation in cinema with Astruc's recognized manifest of camera-stylo refers to the originality in the concept of the authorial domination on the text. This similarity explains the overcome of the cinematic adaptation with regard to the invented mise-en scene on the faithfulness to the 'Tradition of Quality" respected and followed by the most distasted French directors in the period as Truffaut explains in his article:
"Well, for these abject characters, who deliver these abject lines-I know a handful of men in France who would be INCAPABLE of conceiving them, several cineastes whose world-view is at least valuable as that Aurench and Bost, Siguard and Jeanson. I mean Jean Renoir, Robert Bresson, Jean Cocteau, Jaques Becker, Abel Gance, Max Ophuls, Jacques Tati, Roger Leenhardt; these are, nevertheless, French cineastes and it happens -curious coincidence-that they are auteurs who often write their dialogue and some of them themselves invent the stories they direct" (Truffaut, 223).
Truffaut's essay on underestimating the artistic auteur cinema has a function of fidelity to Andre Bazin's article on adaptation: "La Stylistique de Robert Bresson". It seems that there is an absolute comparison between Astruc's 'writing of the story by the camera' and Truffaut's profound theoretical analysis on the cinematic adaptation: "Talent, to be sure, is not a function of fidelity, but I consider an adaptation of value only when written by a man of the cinema" (Truffaut, 229) or " The fundamental problem of cinema is how to express thought" (Astruc, 20). Truffaut's rejection to "Traditional of Quality" goes far away that he denies it in his radical approach to the "Politique des auteur": " Well-I do not believe in the peaceful coexistence of the 'Tradition of Quality" and an "auteur's cinema""(Truffaut, 234). For both Truffaut and Astruc the cinematic translation of a literary work is a complex phenomenon to be achieved. The distinction between the filmmakers who make the equivalent scenes for the literary text and the auteur directors matters only on the logical relationship between their fidelity to the text and their creative stylistic approach to invent a cinematic language which can be possibly considered as a radical departure from faithfulness to the spirit of the adapted work.
For the intellectuals of the French Nouvelle Vague, such as Astruc and Truffaut, the politics of auteur precisely establish director's cinematic vision through 20th century as the proper substitution for author's writing style of the 19th century. The leitmotif of their article which remains consistently as the richness of the texts is their persistence to celebrate the discovery and the exploration of the existence of one individual as the auteur. That individual dominates on the whole process of filmmaking. He creates his stylistic aesthetic to represent the text as his own raison d'etre. He creates an analytical and dialectical dialogue between his metaphoric succession of the images in relationship with the interior structure of the text with the mind of spectator.
Perhaps, the director's endeavor to achieve the requires artistic revolution in his style appears to be the only reason to reinvent a language for his own purpose.
His intention to offer a significant and unique expression of the cinematic events and consequences based upon the systematic use of techniques standardizes the duty of the cinema which is not obviously the imitation of the reality. The final result for cinema is the creating of its own reality within the dramatic time and space.
Astruc, Alexander. Naissance d'une Nouvelle Avant-garde: La Camera-Stylo L'Ecran Francaise. Mars, 30. 1948.
Truffaut, Francois. Une Vertaine Tendance du Cinema Francais Cahier du Cinema:No.31. January, 1954.
By: Morad Sadeghi
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