"The world would be a better place if people just accepted that anything
 that can be done has already been done long before you got there."

-Hooper in Chasing Amy



	In TRF 235, we have discussed the concept of "film authorship" or an "auteur theory."  
Film authorship is the notion that despite the hundreds of people that work on a film, 
ultimately you are hearing one person's voice, seeing one person's vision when you watch
a film; specifically that of the film's director. If this were the case, then conceivably,
each of a director's movies would share certain elements, such as themes and other 
characteristics, despite the fact that the director is collaborating with different people
on each movie.  Often the works of directors like Welles, Hitchcock, Goddard, Truffaut, 
Eisenstein, and of late, Allen, Spielberg and Tarantino are studied in conjunction with the
film authorship theory.  In fact, there are dozens of books on these directors.   As the 
above quote suggests I am not treading on undiscovered country.  The idea of film 
authorship has always been a topic of interest for me, so I decided to apply it to a 
director who has generally been left out of the concept.  After searching my own personal 
favorites, I came to the conclusion that the works of writer/director Kevin Smith create 
a clear picture of the auteur concept. After a careful analysis of Mr. Smith's films, it 
became quite clear that they all fit the requirements for film authorship.  I intend to
show how Kevin Smith's films, Clerks, Mallrats, Chasing Amy, and Dogma, present a cohesive 
vision of him as an auteur, through examples from his own work, as well as their relation 
to the work of other famous film auteurs.  While Dogma fits with the rest of Mr. Smith's 
work, it will not be discussed in detail here because of its recent release.  Before we 
examine the big picture, let us first look at each film and the director himself.

 


	Kevin Smith was born on August 2nd, 1970 in Red Bank, NJ. (http://us.imdb.com/
Name?Smith, +Kevin+(II))  After high school he worked in a local convenience store, the 
Quick Stop Groceries, and the adjacent RST Video store.  Growing up he was a fan of John 
Hughes movies and the entire teen-angst-in-the-80s genre, as well as Star Wars and comic 
books.   (http://www.viewaskew.com/mallrats/kevmall.html) This basic biography is all you
need to know about Smith to appreciate the Askewiverse (I did not make that word up), named
after Kevin Smith's production company, View Askew.  The movies are referred to in the 
context of a cohesive universe because all are interconnected; the events and characters of
each movie bear on the others.  Of course, each stands alone as an independent work and can
be enjoyed based upon its own merits, but to get the full effect one must watch them all, 
multiple times (as I had to for this paper).  This cinematic cohesion is the first common 
ground  his films share, and thus is one example of Smith's authorship of his films.




	Smith's first film, Clerks, was made in 1994, on a shoestring budget of around 
$25,000.  Drawing from his own personal experiences as an unhappy clerk, Clerks tells the 
story of two twentysomething Jerseyites, Quick Stop employee Dante Hicks and RST Video 
clerk Randal Graves, over the course of one awful day.  The film focuses on Dante's 
dysfunctional relationships with women; his current girlfriend Veronica, and his 
ex-girlfriend and current-crush Caitlin.  His misadventures with women are combined with his
encounters with incredibly idiotic customers (Like the guy who complains because there is 
no ice for his coffee, "What do you mean?  I gotta drink this coffee HOT?!?").  The film 
was picked up for distribution by Miramax and became a huge success on video.  Smith 
parlayed Clerks' eventual video success into a contract to make his next film, Mallrats.




	Mallrats is again about the sexual exploits of two twentysomething Jerseyites, but 
this time, instead of just the protagonist having girl trouble, both hero T.S. and partner 
Brodie are on the outs with their respective girlfriends, and neither has a regular job 
like Dante.  Instead, they hang out at the local mall to forget their sorrows.  Over the 
course of a bad day (that eventually gets better) they win back their women and vanquish 
their enemies.  The film was not only a critical bomb but also a huge box office flop.  
Kevin Smith even apologized publicly for making it; though of late he has explained he was
joking (Hey, I like it).




	After the failure of Mallrats, Smith dropped back down to another tiny budget, this
time about $200,000 for Chasing Amy, the story of two twentysomething Jerseyites (noticing 
any patterns yet?) who work as comic book creators.  Protagonist Holden meets Alyssa and 
instantly falls for her, only to learn afterwards that she is a lesbian.  The movie 
follows their relationship, and its effect on the friendship between Holden and his 
partner and best friend Banky, who hates Alyssa implicitly.




	These three films, referred to among Kevin Smith fans as "The Jersey Trilogy," share
an enormous amount of material.  As an auteur Smith uses similar constructions and themes 
in all his films.  As I noted above, each film has a very comparable structures; two guys 
in their twenties, living in New Jersey, deal with sexual and social frustrations.  In 
Clerks and Chasing Amy there is also clearly defined hero/sidekick relationship 
(Dante/Randal and Holden/Banky respectively).  In each, the hero has a girlfriend, or at 
least has a significant female relationship, while the sidekick's only contact with females
is through discussions with the hero.  Randal and Banky have no girlfriends, the only girls
they talk to or about are their friends' women.  Mallrats (in which Smith attempts to 
ingratiate his own personal style and themes with that of 80's teen comedies by John Hughes)
strays from this theme by making both male characters have girlfriends who dump them on 
the same morning.  




	Clerks and Chasing Amy also share a variety of other themes.  Both Randal and Banky
look to protect their respective friends from the dangerous women they perceive as threats.
In the climax of Clerks, Randal has a conversation with Caitlin and warns her "Break his 
heart again, and I'll kill you," noting that "He was mine first."  While the idea of Randal 
being gay is not explored further, in the thematically similar climax in Chasing Amy after 
Alyssa breaks up with Holden she says to Banky "He's yours again," and the scene also 
includes Banky agreeing to sleep with Alyssa and Holden, revealing his true homosexual, 
or at least bisexual feelings.  In these scenes Smith explores the nature of platonic love 
and homosexuality between men, and as it is evident in all his movies, it provides another
example of film authorship.




	All three also feature the central males in a state of sexual confusion at the 
climax of the film that is cured by helpful advice from outside sources.  In Clerks and 
Chasing Amy the outside source is Jay and Silent Bob (characters I will discuss in full 
later).  In Clerks, Silent Bob reminds Dante just how special his girlfriend is, and in 
Chasing Amy, Bob relates a story to Holden that helps him appreciate his situation.  In 
Mallrats T.S. receives his answers from topless psychic Ivana, while Brodie comes to terms
with his love for his girlfriend after talking with comic book writer and legend Stan Lee 
(playing himself).




	Aside from similar story structures, Kevin Smith's films also feature an incredible
 number of connections between the films.  The events of one bear heavily on the others.  
For example, a scene in Clerks involves Dante and Randal attending the wake of Julie Dwyer,
one of Dante's ex-girlfriends.  In Mallrats (which actually takes place the day before 
Clerks does) we learn that Julie died of brain aneurysm after swimming seven hundred laps 
in the YMCA pool after T.S. told her that being on television makes you look really fat.  
In Clerks, Dante learns that his current girlfriend Veronica has had oral sex with 37(!) 
different guys.  By no coincidence, the name of Holden and Banky's first comic book in 
Chasing Amy is 37. 



	In addition, characters from each movie play important parts in other movies. 
Mentioning them all would take up the entire length of this paper, so here is a short list.
All three of the movies feature a Jones sister.  In Clerks, Heather Jones mocks Dante and 
leaves with Rick Derris, who is mentioned again in Mallrats as having sex with Gwen Turner 
on a pool table, and Chasing Amy as an ex who slept with Alyssa).  In Mallrats, Trisha Jones 
writes a book entitled Boregasm about the female sex drive.  And in Chasing Amy Alyssa Jones
is the object of Holden's affections.  Each sister mentions the others in their respective
movie.  Randal from Clerks and Brodie in Mallrats are cousins; they both have a disgusting 
Cousin Walter who has tried to give himself oral sex, once stuck a cat up his ass, and 
masturbated in public on an airplane.  Banky tells Alyssa that he went out with Brandi 
Svenning (from Mallrats) in high school, and that her father once beat the crap out of him 
(in line with Mr. Svenning's characterization in Mallrats).  Alyssa mentions having had sex
with Shannon Hamilton, Gwen Turner, and Caitlin Bree, all major characters in previous 
movies.  None of these connections are blatantly obvious, nor are they dwelled upon.  
However, they are put in intentionally as in jokes to the devoted Kevin Smith viewer.  When 
one watches a Kevin Smith movie, you are expected to pay attention to the fine details; it 
is similar to the way you look for Alfred Hitchcock to appear in all of his movies.  




	Of course, no mention of the repeating characters in Kevin Smith's films could be 
complete without a mention of Jay and Silent Bob, who appear in supporting roles in all of
his movies.  In Clerks they are outside the Quick Stop all day selling drugs, in Mallrats 
they help Brodie and T.S. trash the game show, and in Chasing Amy they provide the basis 
for Holden and Banky's Bluntman and Chronic comic book.  The duo is Kevin Smith's equivalent
to C3PO and R2-D2 from Star Wars.  Jay is the loudmouth coward who is nevertheless an ally 
or at least sympathizer to each film's protagonist, and Silent Bob is the silent (and 
appropriately named) sidekick who tags along and keeps Jay out of trouble.  Silent Bob never
speaks, except on few rare occasions, instead communicating through exaggerated gestures 
(a la R2-D2's beeping).  They are, like all of Kevin Smith's characters, obsessed with sex, 
and fearful of their own latent homosexuality (in Dogma Jay introduces Silent Bob as 
his "hetero life-mate" and has been known to remark "I hate guys!  I love women!" as loud as he
can).  




	Film authorship also implies that all of director's films look and sound the same, 
and this is also the case for the Smith's films.  Smith's direction style is very simple, 
point the camera and several of the actors and have them say their dialogue.  The simple 
direction and photography, by David Klein, work; the viewer is never distracted from Smith's
brilliant dialogue by flashy camerawork.  Smith also uses a small stable of actors to 
portray all of his characters, just as many other famous auteurs did.  Hitchcock used the 
same leading men in women over and over again in his films (James Stewart, Cary Grant, and 
Grace Kelly), and the same goes for Tarantino's work (Tim Roth, Harvey Keitel, and Samuel L. 
Jackson).  Just as Woody Allen appears in almost all his movies, and is often chasing after
either Mia Farrow or Diane Keaton, most of the people in Kevin Smith's films have appeared 
in more than one of his movie.  Brian O'Halloran, who portrays Dante, has subsequently 
played smaller supporting roles in the three other films. Jason Lee and Ben Affleck have 
each appeared in three of Smith's films, each time as different characters.  And of course 
Jay and Silent Bob are in each film, as portrayed by Jason Mewes and Kevin Smith himself.




	The actual dialogue in of Smith's movies shares several elements that contribute to 
the film authorship theory.  Conversations in a View Askew movie are always intelligent no
matter how intellectually devoid a character may seem on the surface.  Often this stretches 
credibility, but Smith continues on nevertheless.  For example, in one scene in Mallrats, 
Brodie thinks the word "callow" is a compliment.  In the next, he correctly uses the word 
"monosyllabically" in a sentence.  I have heard some people say that they like Kevin Smith's
movies because they show how people of that age talk, but I would have to disagree.  
Examples like the one above show that the characters in the Askewiverse are gifted with 
above average intelligence for their station in life.  Although conversely, Smith could also 
be noting how so many intelligent people of his generation are wasting their talents working
in convenience stores or not working at all because of a lack of economic and social 
ambition.  Nevertheless, good or bad, Smith's characters all talk the same, big vocabularies 
laced with enormous amount of curse words. These filthy (yet intellectual) discussions 
almost always focus on two subjects; sex and pop culture.




	As this paper has already explained in length, the members of the Askewiverse are 
obsessed with sex.  Perhaps obsessed is putting it mildly; they are engrossed, absorbed, 
and consumed by it.  They do not just chase sex, but discuss it in graphic detail for all 
the world to hear.  One trademark of the Trilogy is Smith's knack for inventing new sexual 
terms to describe truly bizarre behavior.  In Clerks he coined the term "snowballing" to 
describe a rather disgusting oral sex fetish; in Mallrats he invents "spooning" as way of 
describing a couple's sleeping positions.  Among the stranger sexual acts seen or mentioned 
in Smith's films, people have had sex with strangers, dead people, themselves in public, and
with animals.  Randal admires the salaries of "jiz-moppers" the poor people who have to 
clean "nudie booths" after a viewer is finished.  One women's job is to "manually 
masturbate caged animals for genetic research," and she is proud of it!  Bizarre sexual 
activity is par for the course in a View Askew Production, and it is an expected feature in 
all of Smith's films.




	When the characters in Smith's films are not discussing sex they are likely 
discussing pop culture, specifically Star Wars movies and comic books.  They talk not just 
about liking a movie or that comic book, but the sociopolitical implications of pop culture
that are rarely examined.  Randal and Dante spend an entire scene discussing the 
ramifications of Luke's destruction of the second Death Star in Return of the Jedi.  Since 
it was still under construction at the time of its explosion, it was likely still being 
built, and since the Empire simply did not have the manpower to complete a job of such
magnitude alone, there must have been independent contractors working on the Death Star.  
Randal feels these contractors were innocents unfairly caught up in someone else's politics.
In Chasing Amy Hooper X derides the "Holy Trilogy" for portraying a universe in which 
whites keep the blacks down.  In his eyes, Luke Skywalker, "Nazi poster boy" decides to 
infringe on Darth Vader's ("Baddest brother in the galaxy") "hood" by getting together a 
whole "clan" of other white guys to defeat him.  And in the (again!) morally corrupt Return
of the Jedi, "Nubian god" Vader is revealed to be a nasty old white guy, suggesting that 
inside, all black people just want to be white.  These characters may be nitpicking, but 
the result is absolutely hysterical.  And I haven't even begun to describe situations in 
which Smith's two obsessions collide (like the time when Brodie asks Stan Lee if the Thing's
"dork is made out of orange rock like the rest of him?").




	To a casual observer, Clerks, Mallrats, and Chasing Amy may seem  like little more 
than teen gross-out comedies.  But their relatively simple structures and stores belie some
significant social commentary that manages to be witty and insightful at the same time. 
Together, all of Kevin Smith's movies create a message about the men and women of his 
generation.  Caught in dead-end jobs or no jobs at all, they have nothing but time to 
observe the inconsistencies and insane complications of our society.  Along with their 
uniform message, the Jersey Trilogy all share the similar cast, the visual styles, and 
topics for discussion.  In other words, they form a cohesive conception of Kevin Smith's 
view (askew) of our world, as seen by a regular guy from New Jersey.  This the personal 
vision of the director that is at the very heart of the film authorship theory, as I 
described it at the start of this paper.   Not only are all these movies done by the same 
person, and share many similarities, but they teach the audience the same thing.  Life 
sucks, but one should not give up, but rather keep at it until you succeed.  As Silent Bob 
puts it (after Yoda) "Do or do not-there is no try."

					Bibliography

Chasing Amy.  Dir. Kevin Smith.  Perf. Ben Affleck, Joey Lauren Adams, and Jason Lee.  Miramax, 1997.

Clerks.  Dir. Kevin Smith.  Perf. Brian O'Halloran, Jeff Anderson.  Miramax, 1994.

Dogma.  Dir.  Kevin Smith.  Perf. Linda Fiorentino, Ben Affleck, Matt Damon, and Chris Rock.  Lions Gate Films, 1999.

Internet Movie Database.  http://us.imdb.com/ Name?Smith,+Kevin+(II). Retrieved from the World Wide Web: November 21, 1999.

Mallrats.  Dir.  Kevin Smith.  Perf.  Jason Lee, Jeremy London.  Universal, 1996.

Smith, Kevin. Mallrats: A Reflection.  Retrieved November 20th, 1999 from the World Wide Web: 
	http://www.viewaskew.com/mallrats/kevmall.html