Virginia Wright Wexman - Hollywoods Artists: The Directors Guild of America and the Construction of Authorship (Film and Culture)

It is a question of describing the gradual emergence of the entire set of social conditions which make possible the character of the artist as a producer of the fetish which is the work of art.

Pierre Bourdieu

There can be no definitive critique of genius or talent that doesnt first take into consideration the social determinism, the historical combination of circumstances, and the technological background which to a large extent determine it.

Andr Bazin

I, for one, am sure that the super-author of pictures will in the not too distant future rise like a colossus in our midst.

Jesse L. Lasky

Today, the stock of Hollywood directors is high. Some observers see the trend as a long-overdue recognition of film artists whose shaping hand has, in the past, often been unjustly ignored by a philistine public and a mendacious corporate industry. A more economically oriented line of thought looks to the breakup of the old studio system and the rise of the independent film movement in the 1970s and 1980s as the key to unlocking the power of directorial talent. Other commentators see Hollywoods growing emphasis on marketing as a gift to directors, whose names are now routinely used to help sell the films they helm. The new knowledge that film critics and scholars have produced, most notably the focus on directors championed by auteurists, has played a role as well. In addition, directors have been given a boost by a growing film festival culture that promotes the names of favored cineastes. But another factor is rarely mentioned in discussions of the prominence of Hollywood directors in todays public realm: the active role played by their institutional base, the Directors Guild of America (DGA).

The preeminent place Hollywood directors occupy both in the film industry and in the public mind was not predetermined; it was enabled by trends within the culture at large and, as this book demonstrates, it was fought for by the DGA, through its creative rights program. From the moment of the Guilds foundingand even beforecreative rights have been a central preoccupation of Hollywood directors, driving an agenda that has enjoyed remarkable success over the years. Its goal is to make directors into artists.

From the time a dozen major directors founded it in 1935, the DGA has grown to become a many-faceted organization with more than 1,500 members, including assistant directors and unit managers as well as directors. It is the smallest of the three major talent groups in Hollywood (the actors and writers are the other two). Yet, by the turn of the millennium, references to the DGA in the Hollywood trade press routinely included the adjective powerful. The Guild draws its strength from several sources. Like the actors, the directors can force a work stoppage. Moreover, the managerial aspects of directors jobs on the set and their role as liaisons between the artisans who create movies and the business interests that finance them give DGA members a strategic advantage over the writers, actors, and below-the-line participants.