This paper addresses Andrew Sarris's Autheur Theory. The video below provides context written in the paper.
Pixar Studios could be categorized using Andrew Sarris’s “auteur theory” as one that practices styling situational circumstances and the emotional manipulation of ordinary subjects. Over time, this style has been repeated as it was observed to slowly decline over their years of production. In 2018, Karsten Runquist released a video essay “The Incredibles: Pixar at their Best | Video Essay” as a response to a previous video’s misguided interpretation of his stance against Pixar Studio. Runquist criticlines Sarrius's auteur theory as he observes The Incredibles demonstrating repetition and style; as well as, compliments with countering arguments of Pauline Kael’s “Circles and Squares” as he describes the film as a creative piece demonstrating uniqueness in their use of the ordinary
Runquist communicates Pixar's style being one that applies animation as a medium to tell a story of situational circumstances out of the ordinary livelihoods of objects, individuals, and ideologies. Unifying with auteur theory, it is understood that his connection refers to Andrew’s three circles of authorship placing Pixar as a stylist. This is established but also refuted as Runquist explains, “It’s seeing the lives of fish and toys; it’s awesome to see a robot with so much heart… but seeing what Pixar can do with humans, now that’s what’s interesting.” Runquist acknowledges that Pixar demonstrates style as they use the ordinary as their subjects. For the first few animated features, Pixar was known to use the repetition of the concept: “What if an object had feelings” and continued the process with the exception of Incredibles becoming one of their first experiments.
Karsten then counters their origins with this, “But where I think they truly capture your attention are the situations. Pixar didn't have everyday human perspectives prior to this. You had the perspective of toys, you had the perspective of monsters, bugs and fish. In Incredibles you have these scenes in boring office buildings, schools, suburban homes, things that typically don’t excite us and seem unchangeable…Pixar takes this dullness and makes it exciting… they show the potential for creativity and imagination in everyday lives.” This is where Runquist favors Kael’s argument as Incredibles does not “…equate mere repetition with art.” Karsten points out that despite continuing the repetition, Pixar exempts from this by manipulating humans rather than inanimate objects or fictional animals and crypts.
Karsten Runquist exhibited perspectives similar to Andrew Sarris by observing Pixar’s use of repetition with their concepts of using the ordinary and manipulating it to the extraordinary. Complimenting Pauline Kael, he observes the experiments that the incredible demonstrates using human subjects.
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