What Comes After the Authors Death?

The text is a translation of one of the chapters of the book 'Le cinema d'auteur, une vieille lune?' in which its author - René Prédal - considers the current status of the so-called 'auteur' cinema. Drawing on two key texts by Roland Barthes and Michel Foucault who challenged the author concept with reference to literature, he notes that their observations may be also applied to a filmic 'auteur'. According to him, 'the death of the author' - proclaimed in the 1960s - may be pronounced in the case of a 'Romantic' author, but what remains is the author of the second or third type - the transmitting instance or a stylistic figure that will replace the subject. Discussing how the definition of 'auteur' cinema evolved (including contributions of feminist theories, gender and cultural studies to this evolution) and evaluating what in cinema is widely referred to as the policy of authors, Prédal comes to the conclusion that 'auteur' cinema does exist, incorporating the category of the author as understood by the cinéphile and the professional.