Compare how far your chosen films reflect their auteur signature features of their filmmakers. (40)
An auteur is a director whose style is easily recognisable and unique to them, for example directors Riddley Scott and Orson Welles both have a distinct style to film making and ways they convey messages through the films.
Orson welles film the lady from shanghai shows many ways that he is and auteur. Welles quite often uses very theatrical elements such as mirrors and smoke in his films , this is evident in the ‘house of mirrors ’ where it consisted of fast cut scenes and dutch angles which gave a very tense and dazed idea of a gun fight. Film noir was very big in the 1940s this widely influenced welles in his characters, the main character being the classic troubled anti hero common in the noir genre and the leading lady played by rita Hayworth is the femme fatale also common in the noir genre who tempts the main character in to an affair with her leading to his eventual down fall.
Welles uses these characters in his unique style to make both a personal statement and a larger social one , a sequence where this is clear is the house of mirrors sequence which is fast paced and quick cut editing a visual representation of welles style. There are many shots within this sequence where characters faces overlap one another at various transparencies , one shot which shows the relationship between Elsa ( femme fatale) an her husband Arthur , they are seen in a stand off and Elsa’s face is transparent taking up the same amount of screen as her husbands figure showing the fight of power between them shows he has physical dominanc but she has mental dominance over him, the lighting only covers half of her face and body and his so the mirrors are practically invisible which really shows the tension between the characters. Even without this context there is a message conveyed to the audience along the lines of getting married to a woman is nothing but trouble , this is a huge auteur characteristic as during the filming of this Welles and heyworth we’re going through divorce and auteurs are known for personal messages from real life events going on during the filming of their films.

Scott’s style is very similar to Welles as he is widely influenced by the noir genre, tho he focuses more on the movement of the film than the iconography of the genre through lighiting ,sound,setting and at times literal movement. He creates a personal message through weather as most of his films contain harsh weather containing mostly of rain this is indulgences by his child hood as he lived in the north of England where it rains the weather and dark lighting could also represent sadness at the time as while filming his brother passed away.. Scott’s film blade runner contains much more personal message as well as social message about the apocalyptic future. Much like Welles Scott’s characters are typical of the film noir genre: a troubled protagonist this time a retired blade runner and also a femme fatale in this case being controversial as she in a way is also the villain.
The message that Scott wanted to put across was seen in the fight scene between Roy and deckard in this scene Scott uses his trademark beams of light coming through steam and industrial elements such as fans hover cars and once more rain to make the scene come to life with the vast movement. This film really concludes the message of the entire film as it is about life and death as Roy is trying to expand his life as his body is becoming out of date but he has failed and when he knows he is going to die a dove flies showing he has died and is free he also chooses to save decade before he dies to remain connected to life again creating a personal message as Scott’s brother has just died and he could not save him so he is portraying something he wished he could do.