Films always have a story to tell, but whose story is it? As its credits show, a film is born out of a collaboration of many different skills and talents. However, films are also largely attributed to its director. The auteur theory would say this is rightly so, but what about all the other people that contributed to the filmmaking process? There is a contradiction, then, between the auteur theory and the origins of film as a collaborative art.

 Hollywood Ending: Film as a Collaborative Art

                 A large number of people from different fields of expertise come together for the making of a film. Here, “individual skill becomes absorbed in group effort” (Kolker, 1999). This group effort is what characterizes film as a collaborative art, where “collaboration is the core of cinematic creativity” (Kolker, 1999), and the creativity of each person influences and contributes to the making of a film. As Woody Allen’s Hollywood Ending shows, such collaboration calls for a great deal of communication.

                Perhaps the most important piece of communication takes place between the cinematographer and the director, where they most share their respective visions for the film in order to come up with the film they –together with the studio’s big bosses—want to create.

                In Allen’s Hollywood Ending, the cinematographer and the director could not communicate with one another. The cinematographer was a Chinese man who needed the help of an interpreter who unfortunately, had studied business and not film. Since the interpreter’s understanding of what would be important to the two creative minds was limited, the cinematographer’s creativity then, could have been lost somewhere in the translation. The director, on the other hand, was psychosomatically blind, so he could not even see if things were turning out the way he wanted them to in his mind. He had no way of expressing his vision for the film because he literally didn’t have the means to do so. Thus, the film flopped partly because of the lack of communication between the cinematographer and the director, both important people in the creative process.

                The director is an important figure in the filmmaking process not just because of his creativity, but also because he serves as the link between the studio and the film itself. The communication that happens between him and the film’s producer boils down to just this: the producer believes “he knows ‘what the public wants’” (Kolker, 1999), and the director must conform to what the producer says in order to give the public the film they want.

                The relationship between director and producer is the contradiction between the industrial nature of film and what is known as the auteur theory, where “the director is the controlling force in the structure of a film” (Kolker, 1999). The auteur theory seems to disregard the presence of the producer as a controlling force which, in reality, he is. A line in Hollywood Ending affirms this in saying that the producer Hal likes to hire and fire, having the power to choose the film’s director: with much reluctance, he took a chance on Val. Val is given power over the film as well, but it is always subject to the wishes of the big bosses in New York. Thus, as the director conforms to the studio’s demands, he contradicts the very theory that regards him as the driving force of the film.

Wong Kar Wai’s Chung King Express and Fallen Angels: Film and the Auteur Theory

                It is not uncommon for films to be identified by their directors. As their movies are governed by a certain style and technique –as well as certain themes and philosophies—viewers learn to identify these elements and expect the director’s next film to be just like its predecessor, only different. In the words of Jean Renoir, “a director really makes just one film in the course of his career” (Kolker, 1999).

                Wong Kar Wai is one director who personifies the auteur theory. Both Chung King Express and Fallen Angels bring the viewer into the world of Hong Kong, a place that does not have any concrete roots and suffers from an identity crisis. But more than introduce their viewers to Hong Kong as a locale, both films depict the loves and lives of individuals lost in the frenetic pace of Hong Kong life. Thus, they juxtapose Hong Kong’s identity crisis as a nation with the image of lost, confused characters living in this place that is just as confused as they are.

In both films, “the exchange of goods and services serves as the basis of all relationships, instead of emotional connection” (Leong, 1998). Chung King Express shows how Badge 663 unknowingly benefits from the relationship with Faye as she breaks into his apartment everyday to clean it and fix it up even if she gets nothing in return. Fallen Angels parallels this with the mutual relationship between the assassin and his agent: she fixes everything he needs and all he has to do is show up and gun people down, while he fulfills all her sexual fantasies even in his absence. In none of these instances does a relationship form out of love at first sight or anything other than economics. Thus, this exchange of goods and services proves to be the binding force between individuals, where only one person, no matter how absent he or she is, can fulfill the other person’s needs and desires.

Instead of being a force that can bring people together, love is instead directed to someone absent from the film, making the characters blind to the love that other people in the film have to offer. In Chung King Express, Badge 663 does not notice the changes Faye has done in his apartment because he is too consumed by the fact that his stewardess-girlfriend has left him, and Badge 223 is too preoccupied by thoughts of his ex-girlfriend May that, by the time he frees himself of these thoughts, all the other girls he had once known are already engaged or married. Similarly, in Fallen Angels, Charlie does not see how Mute 223 is falling in love with her because she’s too preoccupied with finding the woman who stole her ex-boyfriend Johnny. Thus, as someone is always pining away over a significant other who has left him or her, loss and unrequited love is also a constant theme in both films.

                A certain desire to be more Western is also evident: Chung King Express has Faye dancing to “California Dreamin”, while Fallen Angels has the character of Karen Mok donning a blond wig so that she will always be remembered. This reflects the way Hong Kong people have been influenced by the West. However, the characters return to their roots despite this desire, and this has two opposite outcomes: in Chung King Express, Faye returns to Hong Kong after her stint as a stewardess, ultimately returning to a love waiting for her; in Fallen Angels, the assassin leaves Karen Mok’s character and returns to his former life, only to meet his death in an ambush.

                Although both films also tackle the lack of communication between its characters, this theme is portrayed in a different light. Fallen Angels shows the dark side of the coin: because of a lack of verbal communication, Mute 223 forces unlucky passers-by to become his customers who end up doing things they don’t want to do. And although the assassin’s operations largely revolve around communication with his agent, there isn’t enough to transcend the professional relationship they have. Lack of communication on a more personal level thus makes it easier for him to leave her, and for her to set him up for the ambush.

                Chung King Express, in contrast, shows how a lack of communication can bring a certain amount of freedom to a person. As Faye is unable to reach Badge 663 on a verbal level, she decides to break into his apartment and takes the liberty of making subtle changes that eventually become more obvious. Because communication has not attached any strings between the two of them, she is free to do whatever she wants, whenever she wants.

                These themes –confused individuals and their lives in Hong Kong, economics as the basis of relationships, unrequited love and loss, a desire to be more Western, and lack of communication—recur as a pattern in Wong Kar Wai’s films. This recurrence supports the auteur theory, in which the most important element of being an auteur is expressed: “a consistent view of the world, a coherent set of attitudes and ideas” (Kolker, 1999). Because of these themes, Chung King Express and Fallen Angels “breed[s] familiarity on a personal level” (Kolker, 1999), and become more than just Hong Kong films: they become films by Wong Kar Wai, a single auteur, an individual that –whether the audience sees it or not—still ultimately belongs to the collaborative structure of film.