Introduction
It is hard to disagree that the role of a director in filmmaking is of extreme importance and probably even the most significant one. Numerous talented directors have their styles and techniques, and the audience can see common traits in all their movies, which allows distinguishing the work of one director from the film of another. Just like writers create their books, directors create movies, and in 1954, an opinion was expressed that directors are also authors who add their vision to films (Andrews, 2021). This view is known as auteur theory, which is a great approach to studying movies.
Noticeably, several criteria make a director an auteur. Thus, the director needs to be technically competent, add deeper ideas and layers, a cohesive aesthetic and thematic beauty, and a distinguishable personality in their work, and allow the audience to feel a common interior meaning in their films (Goodykoontz et al., 2019). An African American filmmaker Barry Jenkins meets the criteria posed by auteur theory. In his Moonlight and If Beale Street Could Talk, the director adds his own personality and unique, recognizable style – bold colors, striking compositions and angles, and quite intimate close-ups of actors’ faces. Combining meditativeness and storytelling in his films, Jenkins takes cinema to a new level, blurs the boundaries between viewers and actors, and adds deeper meaning to already serious topics. As a result, it is possible to say that, despite his small filmography, Barry Jenkins can already be considered an auteur.
Applying the Lens of Auteur Theory
Technical Competence
One may notice that in his movies, Jenkins covers the most significant and disturbing themes but does that in an unpredictable, elegant, and ‘unlike others’ way. This section of the paper is devoted to breaking down the director’s technical competence, distinguishable personality, and interior meaning using specific examples of their work. To begin with, technical competence means making simple ‘good’ movies by playing with various styles or techniques, adding different layers, and making sure the work is unique. For example, in If Beale Street Could Talk, there is a non-linear narrative that flashes back and forth between depicting the main characters’ love and fight scenes. This uncommon structural choice allows the director to cause a sharper reaction in the audience, who constantly observe the contrast of emotions. Further, music and colors are also used brilliantly, adding the right mood, meditative aspects, and beauty to If Beale Street Could Talk and Moonlight.
Distinguishable Personality
One may agree that his work by Jenkins is recognizable, and although he has only made several films, the director managed to leave his unique signature in If Beale Street Could Talk and Moonlight. For example, he covers only the most disturbing topics like homophobia, racism, and family problems; most noticeably, the concept of people not being able to achieve even the simplest and most common happiness is met in both films (Copeland, 2018). Bold color palettes and intimate close-ups are the features that add the director’s distinguishable personality to his films.
Interior Meaning
Both Jenkins’s films are like meditations and, at the same time – a deep story of people’s tragedies and aspirations. What cannot be told in words, the audience reads in the eyes of the actors who look directly into the camera. As mentioned above, Jenkins tackles the most severe topics that disturb society and wants people to try to find answers in his films to questions like “How are we failing to pursue our simplest dreams?”, “How do the system and other people make our lives darker?”, and “How can our lives combine happiness and sorrows?”. In both his movies, Jenkins makes the characters show that, while they suffer, they never lose hope.
Barry Jenkins’s Uniqueness and Ethos
It is possible to state that the director is distinguished easily among his peers precisely due to his techniques, consistent themes, and storytelling. First of all, it is only common for several directors (with almost no one having this as their primary feature) to ask the actors to look into the camera. Jenkins uses this technique to remove the fourth wall and reach the deepest parts of viewers’ souls rather than add comedian features as other directors do. What is more, such close-ups convey more information than words can, and after watching the two films, the audience is left with more ideas and issues to reflect on. Jenkins’s movies are calm and meditative but contain numerous layers that viewers can uncover and study one by one. As for the director’s ethos, they have much to say about complex social and cultural issues. Different inequalities that Jenkins makes his characters face and overcome draw the audience’s attention to the need to solve them. This is a rather effective way to address discrimination, an unfair legal system, drugs and other addiction, bullying, and numerous other concerns.
Conclusion
To conclude, one may say that Barry Jenkins indeed meets the criteria posed by auteur theory. First, his movies If Beale Street Could Talk and Moonlight are ‘simply good,’ having deeper meanings and layers for the audience to uncover and different unique colors, music, and camera decisions. Second, the director is recognizable in his films through consistent features and themes. Third, the interior meaning of If Beale Street Could Talk and Moonlight is generally to make the viewers ask themselves complex questions and find answers to them in the films. Significant cultural and social topics covered in Jenkins’s movies make his body of work meaningful and contribute to addressing these problems.
References
Andrews, D. (2021). No start, no end: auteurism and the auteur theory. In Theorizing art cinemas (pp. 35-55). University of Texas Press.
Copeland, K. J. (2018). Moonlight, directed by Barry Jenkins. Journal of Homosexuality, 65(5), 687-689.
Goodykoontz, B., Jacobs, C. P., Meetze, J., & Pritts, N. (2019). Film: From watching to seeing (3rd ed.). Zovio.