Well, I just discovered this thread and both enjoyed the discussion and wish I’d been around to take part in it.
Bobby, I think you are too harsh on the auteurists. Through the “director-as-artist” theory they imparted two vital components to film criticism and appreciation: a romanticism and a formalism. On the one hand, they were able to fuse the intense pleasure of watching a movie with an appreciation of its virtues, in a way few film critics had in the past, and they directly tied cinema’s artistic and entertainment values together in a way many previous writers had been unwilling or unable to. On the other hand, they directed our attention to what’s on screen, to the meaty essence of the film – diverting criticism (perhaps only temporarily) from its penchant for literary analysis, and making us look nose-to-nose at film as its own medium.
The spirit of auteurism provided a vital tonic for the system, and I think it’s fair to say it played a huge part in kicking off a golden age of cinema lasting from the 50s to the 70s. While it is certainly flawed, I think it’s done much less harm to film appreciation than the rigid, humorless pseudo-scientific, heavily politicized approach that took hold around the 80s and has dominated academic film culture ever since, dragging it further and further from the vital juice of the mainstream. That’s certainly something that Truffaut could not be accused of, for all his other flaws.
And yes, the “certain tendency” polemic is almost startlingly reactionary, its politique d’auteurs almost an afterthought! I’m glad Kehr brings this up, as it’s something that surprised me when I finally read the famous essay and haven’t heard mentioned much. Godard too fell to the right but I think this was because the French left of the time was a bit stale and dogmatic (the Communists in France, as opposed to the U.S., were very “official”, a part of the establishment so to speak): when the flashier new left of the 60s arrived, obviously he got on board (though that ultimately became pretty dogmatic, too).
