Identifying a film author from among all the filmmakers who have produced films within the last century remains as challenging today as it did when the idea of film authorship first surfaced in the 1950s. The qualifications for the title of film author, or auteur, despite decades of debate and attempted clarification, are as blurred for the modern critic as they were back in the days of the original Cahiers du Cinema articles. The gamut of merited directors has ranged from the unknown, faceless many of classical Hollywood to the irrepressible personalities of Orson Welles, Alfred Hitchcock and Steven Spielberg.

Originally the French critics who initiated the auteur conversation aimed to identify and highlight the unrecognized talents of Hollywood directors who transcended their routine assignments to produce a body of work somehow marked with their own distinctive styles. The first directors to receive the attention of the Cahiers du Cinema critics were directors like Howard Hawks, John Ford and Alfred Hitchcock. Eventually the list expanded to include the likes of Charlie Chaplin, Frank Capra, Samuel Fuller and Douglas Sirk, among at least a dozen other since-then recognizable names.

These filmmakers were praised for making art out of what would otherwise have been pure pulp entertainment. Assigned scripts, given a predetermined cast of actors and told to shoot their films in a set number of days and within a strict budget, these directors were praised for breaking through the formula to make their films a true art form. Most often lacking final cut rights, the ability for these directors to produce any sort of signature style drew the attention of the Cahiers du Cinema and eventually the whole of film society.

While the term 'auteur' was originally reserved for directors who did not have complete control over their films, the idea was quickly used to describe other loftier filmmakers. European directors like Fellini, Bergman and Truffaut, whose works were so distinctive and controlled from start to finish, were soon recognized as auteurs as well. Becoming recognized as an auteur quickly became as an important as having your work dubbed art instead of pulp. Creating and maintaining a recognizable style became the defining characteristic and goal for any would-be auteur director.

The visionary directors and the cult of personality trend did not end with directors alone however. Eventually other people involved in the filmmaking process were dubbed auteurs as well. Movie stars like Gene Kelly, Fred Astaire, Katherine Hepburn and Bette Davis were soon viewed as star auteurs. Furthermore, producers, movie studios, screenwriters, cinematographers and composers, among other film talents, were also admitted to the auteur circle. A distinctive and recognizable style, vision or even gimmick was enough to qualify as an auteur at this point.

At the same time, film schools started gaining popularity and an entirely new breed of auteurs were given birth. No longer making success a prerequisete, B movie directors like Ed Wood Jr. and Ida Lupino gained their own cult followings as auteurs. Independent and underground artists like Maya Deren, Kenneth Anger, Bruce Conner and Andy Warhol were also being recognized. Eventually, a crop of freshly schooled filmmakers began making names for themselves as well, most notably with directors like David Lynch, Francis Ford Coppola, Steven Speilberg and Martin Scorsese.

While the original auteur directors did not set out to take credit for their personal stylistic and thematic elements, being dubbed an 'auteur' soon became the career goal for any respectable director. In modern Hollywood filmmaking, the director's reputation can sell a film almost as successfully as its stars. Effectively, this repurposement of the auteur understanding, which was originally a theoretical and artistically motivated concept, now serves to support the financial gains of the film industry itself. Ironically, the Cahiers du Cinema’s aim in identifying the first auteurs was to rescue them from this same world of profit-focused filmmaking.

Beyond retracing the author debate historically, it is perhaps best to simply examine two known film authors and contemplate how they achieved their auteur status. For purposes of historical and theoretical diversity, Ed Wood Jr. and Tim Burton seem optimal choices for consideration. Ed Wood Jr., officially voted the worst director of all time, has been elevated to auteur status through his reputation for making terribly bad films. Tim Burton, on the other hand, is a modern marvel who has managed to turn the Hollywood system to his advantage, producing both large-scale blockbusters as well as smaller, more artistic films with clearly personal motivations. As Michel Foucault explains in his essay "What is an author?," the identity of the author "is functional in that it serves as a means of classification." Curiously, the point at which these two auteurs and classifications intersect is in Tim Burton's 1994 film "Ed Wood," a homage by Burton to the notorious "Worst Director of All Time," Ed Wood, where the themes, styles and personalities of both directors collide in one production.

Edward D. Wood Jr. began making films in the 1950s through pure brute force. Battling the Hollywood system, Wood financed his own productions by scamming financial support through whatever means necessary, usually by misrepresenting his films to producers or church groups or anyone else who would foolishly part with their money. His films ranged from the pseudo-documentary transvestite film Glen or Glenda (1953) to the B-movie horror film Bride of the Monster (1953) to the science fiction debacle of Plan 9 From Outer Space (1958). Filmmaking on a ludicrously restricted budget, Wood produced his films by maintaining a steady repertoire of infamously untalented repeat actors and technicians throughout most of his films. As a result, Wood's films carry recognizable faces as well as familiar filming techniques. In addition, cutting costs required a minimal number of retakes so frequently the scenes Wood captured for his films were first takes and were noticeably plagued with errors and omissions. The goofiness was heightened by Wood's visual style which often included interjecting shots of lighting during dramatic events and using discontinuous film stock footage that would serve to fit in for matching shots of his studio scenes. In the end, the goal of Ed Wood's filmmaking was to get the film made more than to make art or achieve any level of perfection or realism.

Despite his unsuccessful films, Wood has managed to find more fame after his death than during his life. As an oddly characterized auteur, Ed Wood's popularity came about as a result of promoters in the 1980s dubbing him the Worst Director of All Time. Achieving auteur status on the merits of terrible filmmaking, however, proves problematic even for the biggest proponents of the auteur theory. Andrew Sarris in his "Notes on the auteur theory in 1962" noted that "the first premise of the auteur theory is the technical competence of a director as a criterion of value." It seems in Ed Wood’s case that his lack of competence has awarded him auteur status, even above and beyond the level of recognition of more technically-saavy but yet unknown directors.

Tim Burton, on the other hand, has been noted as a supremely competent director ever since his breakout film Pee-wee's Big Adventure in 1985. Burton then quickly followed up with two more hits, Beetlejuice in 1988 and the blockbuster Batman in 1989. He followed Batman with Edward Scissorhands and then Batman Returns, a darker take on his first Batman picture. Following the spectacular performance of Batman and the combined success of his other films, Burton gained unprecedented power in Hollywood for a director with such an unusual level of originality and adventurousness to his work. Having proved himself to be a profitable director, Burton then began taking greater liberties in film subjects than most other Hollywood directors would dare. In 1994 he directed Ed Wood, a loving tribute to the life and work of the legendary Worst Director of All Time, Edward D. Wood, Jr. Despite being a box-office disaster, Ed Wood got Burton some of the best reviews of his career.

Following his Ed Wood movie, Burton released another box-office disaster, Mars Attacks! (1996), a comic-book styled film about the invasion of Earth by a group of silly Martians set on destroying every tourist spot imaginable in their quest for intergalactic domination. Burton’s Mars Attacks! stands up perfecly as a level of comparison to Ed Wood's similarly ill-regarded space-invaders film Plan 9 from Outer Space (1958). In retrospect, clearly some irony exists in recognizing that both Hollywood's most unfavored original director, Ed Wood, and Hollywood's most favored original director, Tim Burton, deviated from their earlier thematic focuses during what marks the height of their careers to adventure into foolishly risky alien invasion films. How their authorial reputations stood up to their decisions to make these alien pictures is also interesting to consider, especially in light of the auteur theory and their significance as recognized auteurs.

Ed Wood's Plan 9 From Outer Space, officially hailed as the Worst Movie Ever Made by the Worst Director of All Time, is premised on the idea that aliens land and intend to conquer Earth by resurrecting zombie corpses from a California cemetery. Beyond this blatantly silly plot line, the film essentially serves as Ed Wood's last Bela Lugosi film, immortalizing the final two days of footage Wood captured of Lugosi before his unexpected death. Despite Lugosi’s death, Wood continued making the film with Lugosi as the star by resurrecting his presence with a taller, younger actor who plays out the remaining scenes in the film while holding a cape in front of his face. Alongside the faux Lugosi are Wood's other recognizable film personalities, Tor Johnson, Vampira, Paul Marco and other familiar Wood faces.

Using classical Hollywood style one-liners to entice audiences, Plan 9 From Outer Space invites viewers with the catchline "Can your heart stand the shocking facts about Graverobbers from Outer Space?" The film essentially is concocted by Wood’s decision to toss in some flying saucers, zombies and cardboard tombstones. The idea that these aliens are going to animate an army of corpses to march on the capitals of the world is heightened in ridiculousness as they barely resurrect only three zombies through the course of the film. To the rescue comes a relatively brainless airline pilot who lives near the cemetery and is determined to rescue his equally mindless wife from the low-budget alien terrors. At the end of the it all, Ed Wood begs asks "Can you prove it *didn't* happen?"

It seems the charm of Plan 9 From Outer Space as well as of Ed Wood’s films in general comes from how incredibly awful it truly is. Claiming to be based on sworn testimony and employing many of Wood's classic tropes, like the unexplained lightning enhanced dramatics, the illogical timeline and the noticeably flawed takes, Plan 9 From Outer Space doesn't even attempt to be taken seriously. Or does it? That is the essential question asked of Ed Wood films and contributes most viably to his auteur status. Did Ed Wood actually believe his films were good or did he understand how naively created they truly were?

Equally as foolish as Plan 9 From Outer Space is the premise to Tim Burton's Mars Attacks! aliens have once again decided to come take over the planet Earth for no other reason, apparently, than to keep themselves amused between science experiments on their spaceships. Actually inspired by a collection of bubble gum trading cards from the 1950s, Mars Attacks! turns back the clock and conceptualizes the humor involved in little green men bowling over the Easter Isle statues and destroying every larger-than life cultural icon imaginable. The cast of characters left to defend the planet against the Martian invaders is as ludicrous as the idea of the invasion itself. The heroes, all fighting the aliens from the land of kitsch that is Las Vegas, include a reporter and his girlfriend (Michael J. Fox and Sarah Jessica Parker), a top scientist (Pierce Brosnan), the president and his wife (Jack Nicholson and Glenn Close), a Kansas boy (Lukas Haas) and his grandmother, a new-age, twelve-stepper (Annette Bening), Pam Grier in some random role and Tom Jones himself. Filled with camp and this unbelievable repertoire of Hollywood big-name stars, Mars Attacks! seems to stand in as Burton's interpretation of what Plan 9 From Outer Space could have been if there had actually been a budget and some respect made available for Wood back in the 1950s.

Contemplating the roles these two films have taken on in history and in the biographies of their director’s careers illuminates the significance of each. For Ed Wood, whose reputation is built upon making the worst films of all time, the terrible Plan 9 From Outer Space becomes the epitome of his filmmaking style. On the flip side, Mars Attacks!, one of the least successful and least regarded films of Tim Burton’s career, constantly remains overlooked and has left his reputation relatively unscathed. When contemplating Burton’s repetoire of work, Mars Attacks! is not one of the films to receive any focus. Instead, his better recieved blockbusters, like Batman and Edward Scissorhands, continue to receive attention. As a great modern director, Burton’s reputation intentionally overlooks this disappointment of a film. For Ed Wood, however, his entire career can be focused almost exclusively around his Plan 9 From Outer Space film.

Beyond the scope of these two films, however, the question of authorial personality as debated between these two auteur directors is best considered in light of Tim Burton’s film Ed Wood. The crux of the auteur theory evolves from the understanding that "the auteur [is] the artist whose personality was 'written' in the film." (Caughie, Introduction to Theories of Authorship) Tim Burton, while clearly the director and driving force behind Ed Wood (the movie), conceptualizes every part of his film from the earlier director’s actual films footage and visions. The schlock nature of Ed Wood's career is highlighted in the film but Tim Burton meticulously recreates each scene with his own production staff rather than relying on any original Wood footage. Allowing Burton full credit for the auteur concepts of Ed Wood seems illegitimate since it is the auteur concepts and status of Ed Wood that is on parade. Yet, Ed Wood is not the filmmaker. Our best vision of Wood, in fact, comes from Burton's recognizable direction of the irrepressible Johnny Depp in the role of Ed Wood. In a film that is an irrefutable homage by one director to another, the big question becomes Who is the author and who is the auteur?

Looking to Roland Barthes and his essay "The death of the author" it is clearly possible that the auteur theory, while interesting and still viable, does have its misgivings. According to Barthes "a text is made of multiple writings." In the case of Ed Wood, this is clearly evident. Without Ed Wood, the director, there would be no call for the film. Yet, without the profitability of Tim Burton’s auteur identity, there would also most likely have been no Ed Wood film. At the same time, the screenwriter and other contributors to the film inherently play some role in the styles and personalities conveyed. The author of the film, in not only Ed Wood, but in almost any Hollywood production, cannot therefore wholly be filed down to one name or signature. It is at this impasse that the auteur theory lies. It’s viability as a concept is at odds with its methods of production. While there is a discernable voice in a collection of films, that enunciation could not have been made possible without many contributors.