Auteurship and the Avant-Garde

The Auteur theory suggest that great film directors are artists in their own right on the same page as great novelists. (It is associated with French critic Andre Bazin and writers for cahiers du cinema in 1950s). It suggests that films made by a true auteur display thematic consistency and artistic development through time, for example Hitchcock.

Truffaut - A tendency in 'French Cinema' 1954, it attacks french tradition in which the director is seen as simply adding images to pre-existing literacy scenarios. ( a non cultural industry, individual and unpredictable).

"An auteurist director was recognised as having a unique signatory across a canon of work, that holds an aesthetic and thematic terrain, and offers a coherent view of the discourses fundamental to its understanding and art"
- Quote from Paul Wells, Animation Genre and Authorship - Page 72

Auteur theory in animation notes
Animation echoes and imitates large scale film production and can also offer the possibility for a film maker to operate almost entirely alone. (Arguably it is the most auteurist of film practices)
Collaborations require cohesive intervention of an authorial presence however few animators lauded as auteur's in relation to feature length animations. So merged within a corporate identity such as Disney.

Disney is a key figure in the animation world through the creation of its animations and is seen as a epitome of the American Dream.
With arrival of Mickey Mouse, Disney withdrew from animating to organise the establishment. Disney Studio's is an ideal of overall ownership and vision but it is at the expense of the lack of recognition of the actual animators; the animators work not being seen through the constant animation style of Disney.
Disney began to retell fairy tales and other stories which belonged to someone else, such as Alice in Wonderland originally created by Lewis Carroll, the original author is lost and all focus on Disney.
A few more examples of this can be seen in the Disney films, Little Mermaid, Winnie the Pooh and Pinocchio.

The Avant-Garde, a french term derived from a selection of an army that marched into battle ahead of the main body of troops. Both the English and the French use this to describe pioneering and innovating trends in the arts, especially in visual arts and music.