About a week ago my friend Paul reported on his walking vacation in Iceland. Paul happens to be in his late 80s and hasn't lost his knack for physics or interesting words and phrases. He sent photos and noting some beautiful displays of the lux septentrionalis. In the 45 or so years I've known him I've picked up a fair amount of Latin, Greek and German. He bears direct responsibility for some of the phrases I use.. cheating in a way as I'm not fluent in these languages.1 Auteur is a particularly interesting word, so let's dwell on it.
Recognizing creation of a book is easy. Usually there are one or two authors get the credit even though editors, proof readers, printers and more were involved. It's similar in scientific papers - at least until you get to collaborations of a half dozen or more. Music is created by a composer, but orchestral performances are jointly credited to the composer and a conductor. It's the complexity of something - when more than a few creative people are involved, that the term auteur seems appropriate. I'd nominate James Murray of the Oxford English Dictionary as one of the first auteurs of a series of books - he went far beyond what normal editors do.
The term auteur is usually associated with film. Even in the thirties one hundred people might be involved in making a film and more than a handful - actors for example - may have had centrally important roles. Here the equivalent of the creation of the film is usually given to the director. A director may not know how operate a camera, the intricate lighting or be able to perform on stage. What they bring is vision and the ability to communicate it.
Alfred Hitchcock wanted control over every scene of the movie. He had to work it out ahead of time and communicate it so he repurposed Walt Disney's invention of story boarding to acted film. Hayao Miyazaki draws or corrects a lead frame of each animation segment of his films and spends a large amount of time with composer Joe Hisaishi to get the music right. His style is dictatorial, but animators regard him as the best - an auteur among animation auteurs. Pixar has a handful of internally grown auteurs who have seen remarkable success. Wes Anderson is so good that name actors fall over themselves to get parts before seeing scripts. It's an impressive group.
In spending time with an animation house as well as having worked on some large scale physics experiments, I see a common thread. There needs to be a vision. There may be, and probably is, someone in the organization for each of the speciality skills who is better at their skill than the auteur. The problem is having everyone do their best with limited knowledge of the rest causes project to drift from the goal. It's the sort of thing David Epstein talks about in Range. Someone has to have vision and taste and that's a special skill that requires development.
It can apply to business. Steve Jobs comes to mind and there are certainly others at various levels. An interesting question is at what point does a project get big enough that an auteur is necessary and how does that vary by project type? Many of you can come up with interesting examples.
Since sport is something of a mirror, one can think of great coaches as auteurs. It's certainly true in team sports like football, soccer, indoor volleyball, etc. Great coaches have developed a sense of the game and the taste in how it should be played. Certainly they need a group of good players, but not necessarily all need to be, or even should be, great. Finding a combination to execute the vision is the important piece.
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1 Here's a non-alphabetical list of some that come to mind:
Danish (I know three Danes well)
klap lige hesten "pat the horse" means shut up
det blæser en halv pelican "it's blowing half a pelikan" means it's very windy
ingen ko på isen "no cow on the ice" means whatever the problem is, it's no big deal
så er den ged barberet "the goat is shaved" means the problem has been fixed, or the work is done
gå som katten om den varme grød "walk as the cat around the hot porridge" means some is avoiding the problem
det regner skomagerdrenge "it's raining shoemaker's apprentices" means the rain is very heavy
hygge a special coziness - what you might find on a snowy evening with good friends, food and a fire.
Italian
commuovere to be moved by a story to the point of tears
Greek
meraki throwing yourself into something complete with passion, creativity and love. This is how Paul approaches physics.
Tagalog
kilig the feeling of butterflies in your stomach as it romance or discovery
Malay
pisan zapra the time it takes to eat a banana - about two minutes
Swedish
fika gathering to talk and take a break from ordinary routines. Coffee must be involved.
resfeber the beating of a traveler's heart at the beginning of a journey. A anxiety with anticipation.
Welsh
hiraeth a homesickness for the time and place to which you can't return
Japanese
komorebi the sunlight filtering through leaves on the trees
boketto gazing into the distance without thinking about anything
wabi-sabi finding beauty in imperfections, an acceptance of the cycle of life
German
kummerspeck 'grief bacon' the weight you gain from emotional overeating
freudenfreude finding joy in the success of others
Yiddish and Yinglish
shlimazel someone who seems to only have bad luck
(this part of the list is long .. mostly from friends on Long Island and NYC. Leo Rosten's The Joys of Yiddish is a wonderful resource)
Bantu
ubuntu 'I find my worth in you and you find your worth in me' human kindness
French
flâneur a person who lounges or strolls around in a seemingly aimless way. Often seen as an aloof observer of urban society
sirop de poteau 'pole syrup' imitation or very low quality maple syrup that must have been harvested from telephone poles.
auteur a person of influence or artistic control - often associated with filmmaking.
I'll stop here..
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