Where does the trope of the tortured genius film director originate?
July 27, 2017 9:04 AM Subscribe
I'm looking for the earliest examples of this particular trope, along with any theories as to why and how it originates and how it relates more broadly to other stereotypes of the anguished creative genius. Google has turned up nothing much for me so far, so I'm turning to you, hive mind. Please hope me...
Can you be a little more specific about what you're looking for?
I'm a film historian, but have never come across a "theory" of this phenomenon or its origins. And I don't think it has anything to do with film per se; the arts of all kinds have always attracted people with intense, volatile temperaments: Mozart, Caravaggio, etc.
I can give you some earlyish examples, though:
Erich Von Stroheim
Orson Welles
Joseph Cornell
Maybe you could clarify your research question a but.
posted by Dr. Wu at 9:12 AM on July 27, 2017 [1 favorite]
I'm a film historian, but have never come across a "theory" of this phenomenon or its origins. And I don't think it has anything to do with film per se; the arts of all kinds have always attracted people with intense, volatile temperaments: Mozart, Caravaggio, etc.
I can give you some earlyish examples, though:
Erich Von Stroheim
Orson Welles
Joseph Cornell
Maybe you could clarify your research question a but.
posted by Dr. Wu at 9:12 AM on July 27, 2017 [1 favorite]
Response by poster: I suppose by theories I am intending more to encourage speculation rather than looking for actual 'Theory' with a capital T. I guess I'm looking for actual early examples of directors who could be seen as fulfilling that trope and also examples of where it first comes to light as a trope or cliche (either in movies or elsewhere) that satirises that kind of auteur without referencing anyone specifically.
In short, I think I'm asking when and how and why does this notion first become a recognizable bit of cultural shorthand?
(Mods - I promise not to threadsit - just responding to a request for clarification of the question).
posted by Chairboy at 9:20 AM on July 27, 2017
In short, I think I'm asking when and how and why does this notion first become a recognizable bit of cultural shorthand?
(Mods - I promise not to threadsit - just responding to a request for clarification of the question).
posted by Chairboy at 9:20 AM on July 27, 2017
Your question is more about human psychology and/or the historical trajectory of film criticism, so maybe you will find your answers in researching those fields.
posted by Dr. Wu at 9:21 AM on July 27, 2017
posted by Dr. Wu at 9:21 AM on July 27, 2017
8½
posted by 1970s Antihero at 9:29 AM on July 27, 2017 [3 favorites]
posted by 1970s Antihero at 9:29 AM on July 27, 2017 [3 favorites]
Off hand, I think Dr.Wu is probably on target with Von Stroheim as the earliest semi-commonly known "match" for the idea. His career was one of either tremendous devotion to the art of film, or of bizarre ideals depending on who one might consult, with some serious difficulties in completing works as he wished, an 8 hour version of Greed the most famous example, and in even finding much work directing at all later given his alleged penchant for unreasonable perfectionism. That he was also an actor of striking and somewhat sinister/aristocratic look made him all the more notable and fit his image as a control freak.
Von Stroheim was perhaps not broadly known in the largest sense, but known well enough to be used as a figure of some parody. Cecil B. DeMille was better known as a director and also parodied, but definitely not so much for being a tortured soul, more a hammy egomaniac of sorts, which is where some other popular satirical concepts of a director seem to have come from.
There were plenty of taskmaster directors early on, demanding extensive reshoots of scenes to get what they wanted, some directors who didn't care much at all about that part of the job and would take the first thing shot, others who moved into the job from acting and so on. Chaplin was obviously incredibly famous, noted as an important artist early on, but not really parodied much as tortured to my knowledge, though he was later condemned for his political views.
The tortured soul element, such as it exists to my knowledge, is one largely of the director seeing movies as "Art" while the studio, and in the satires usually the audience, sees them only as entertainment. The idea then is often used as a way to sort of gently mock the "European" attitude towards films or plays in contrast to Hollywood's pure entertainment ideology they sought to spread.
This isn't limited to directors, it was also used in showing "high art" types like ballerinas or danseurs, opera singers, painters, or any high fallutin' arty type the average joe might not cotton to. Directors were only one part of it, and film directors likely less notable than stage directors as fitting the trope early on as movies were competing with, and stealing from, the stage almost from their start. So I'm not sure film directors are central to the concept really, more just a general attitude towards art versus entertainment perhaps.
posted by gusottertrout at 9:46 AM on July 27, 2017 [3 favorites]
Von Stroheim was perhaps not broadly known in the largest sense, but known well enough to be used as a figure of some parody. Cecil B. DeMille was better known as a director and also parodied, but definitely not so much for being a tortured soul, more a hammy egomaniac of sorts, which is where some other popular satirical concepts of a director seem to have come from.
There were plenty of taskmaster directors early on, demanding extensive reshoots of scenes to get what they wanted, some directors who didn't care much at all about that part of the job and would take the first thing shot, others who moved into the job from acting and so on. Chaplin was obviously incredibly famous, noted as an important artist early on, but not really parodied much as tortured to my knowledge, though he was later condemned for his political views.
The tortured soul element, such as it exists to my knowledge, is one largely of the director seeing movies as "Art" while the studio, and in the satires usually the audience, sees them only as entertainment. The idea then is often used as a way to sort of gently mock the "European" attitude towards films or plays in contrast to Hollywood's pure entertainment ideology they sought to spread.
This isn't limited to directors, it was also used in showing "high art" types like ballerinas or danseurs, opera singers, painters, or any high fallutin' arty type the average joe might not cotton to. Directors were only one part of it, and film directors likely less notable than stage directors as fitting the trope early on as movies were competing with, and stealing from, the stage almost from their start. So I'm not sure film directors are central to the concept really, more just a general attitude towards art versus entertainment perhaps.
posted by gusottertrout at 9:46 AM on July 27, 2017 [3 favorites]
I'd say it goes back earlier, to Cecil B. DeMille and D.W. Griffith. Their early epics where where the phase "cast of thousands" originated. Both of 'em nearly bankrupted their producers more than once, filming grand historical epic that went way over buget, but both were incredibly innovative in terms of creating and adapting filiming techniques and advancing cinema as an art form.
posted by Diablevert at 9:49 AM on July 27, 2017 [1 favorite]
posted by Diablevert at 9:49 AM on July 27, 2017 [1 favorite]
I'm actually not as aware of this "trope" as being a trope; I'm more familiar with directors being sort of pretentiously artistic meticulous pedants than being "tortured geniuses". Somehow, though I have a feeling that we're thinking about the same thing but just using different words to describe it.
That said, definitely seconding Von Stroheim for that, and suggesting D. W. Griffith as well. He did some amazing things with his work - I'm watching my way through the "1001 movies to see before you die", and the leap forward in quality from the work before his to his own work is mind-blowing. But - he often was using that talent in some priggish, biased, overly-politicized ways; it felt like he couldn't ever just make a movie for its own sake, he had to include some kind of commentary in the intertitles that talked about how the story on the screen related to Our Human Condition or some such.
Griffith and Von Stroheim also liked to blow exorbitant amounts of money on the sets and props and costumes for the sake of vermisillitude; Griffith constructed a huge set representing ancient Babylon for his Intolerance, and Von Stroheim played a Russian ex-con in one of his films and insisted that the table in one dinner scene be furnished with real caviar, even though no one actually ate from it.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 9:55 AM on July 27, 2017 [2 favorites]
That said, definitely seconding Von Stroheim for that, and suggesting D. W. Griffith as well. He did some amazing things with his work - I'm watching my way through the "1001 movies to see before you die", and the leap forward in quality from the work before his to his own work is mind-blowing. But - he often was using that talent in some priggish, biased, overly-politicized ways; it felt like he couldn't ever just make a movie for its own sake, he had to include some kind of commentary in the intertitles that talked about how the story on the screen related to Our Human Condition or some such.
Griffith and Von Stroheim also liked to blow exorbitant amounts of money on the sets and props and costumes for the sake of vermisillitude; Griffith constructed a huge set representing ancient Babylon for his Intolerance, and Von Stroheim played a Russian ex-con in one of his films and insisted that the table in one dinner scene be furnished with real caviar, even though no one actually ate from it.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 9:55 AM on July 27, 2017 [2 favorites]
I suppose, upon further thought, that if you do have in mind some more specific references from later in movie history, it would likely be Ingmar Bergman that served as spark for some later references. The fifties brought a flood of foreign titles to the US, well, flood compared to the drought during WWII anyway, and Bergman's films in someway were perhaps most notable for their radical difference from Hollywood norms, and in ways that made "tortured souls" seem perhaps an apt description of those being dramatized and by extension then Bergman himself. It wouldn't be limited solely to him, as many of the films from Europe that found some notice here were often about less than cheery subjects due to the aftermath of the war, but Bergman was one of the directors whose name came to represent that certain kind of introspective cinema, which wasn't to everyone's delight.
posted by gusottertrout at 10:06 AM on July 27, 2017 [1 favorite]
posted by gusottertrout at 10:06 AM on July 27, 2017 [1 favorite]
Slightly off topic, but you could take a look at Margot & Rudolf Wittkower's Born Under Saturn, which traces the broader idea of "the artist as tortured genius" back to the Renaissance.
posted by Bromius at 10:16 AM on July 27, 2017 [3 favorites]
posted by Bromius at 10:16 AM on July 27, 2017 [3 favorites]
It might be worth mentioning that von Stroheim played a character more or less based on himself in Sunset Boulevard, to the point where the silent film footage William Holden and Gloria Swanson watch is of Swanson herself in a movie actually directed by von Stroheim (outtakes from Queen Kelly, if memory serves me correctly). Elsewhere, Cecil B. DeMille has a cameo as himself, and the "waxworks" Swanson's character plays bridge with are real former silent stars Buster Keaton, Anna Q. Nilsson, and H. B. Warner.
posted by Gelatin at 10:21 AM on July 27, 2017 [2 favorites]
posted by Gelatin at 10:21 AM on July 27, 2017 [2 favorites]
Don't see that this is limited to films. Try The Enraged Musician by Hogarth, 1741.
posted by JimN2TAW at 10:47 AM on July 27, 2017 [1 favorite]
posted by JimN2TAW at 10:47 AM on July 27, 2017 [1 favorite]
Others have mentioned Stroheim and Griffith as real life examples. Intolerance (1916) was Griffith's ridiculously expensive response to the critics who called Birth of a Nation racist (it is).
Unfortunately, early examples of movies about movies from the silent days have been lost. The two earliest tortured genius directors that I can think of are from King Kong (1933, tricks everyone into going to Skull Island) and Sullivan's Travels (1941, he wants to make Art).
posted by betweenthebars at 1:33 PM on July 27, 2017 [1 favorite]
Unfortunately, early examples of movies about movies from the silent days have been lost. The two earliest tortured genius directors that I can think of are from King Kong (1933, tricks everyone into going to Skull Island) and Sullivan's Travels (1941, he wants to make Art).
posted by betweenthebars at 1:33 PM on July 27, 2017 [1 favorite]
Response by poster: Thanks everyone - this has been really helpful. I'm tempted to mark almost everything as 'Best Answer'!
posted by Chairboy at 2:08 AM on July 28, 2017
posted by Chairboy at 2:08 AM on July 28, 2017
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posted by Alterscape at 9:08 AM on July 27, 2017 [1 favorite]