History and Criticism
Sarris' method of ranking directors in The American Cinema has been criticized as elitist and subjective. Those who do not make the cut of the Pantheon category are dismissed under categorical headings listed in the table of contents that descend as follows: The Far Side of Paradise, Fringe Benefits, Less Than Meets The Eye, Lightly Likable, Strained Seriousness, Oddities, One-Shots, and Newcomers, Subjects for Further Research, Make Way for the Clowns!, and Miscellany.
Criticism of the Auteur theory often stems from a misunderstanding of its "dogmatic" nature. Famously a revisionist, Sarris defends his original article "Notes on Auteur Theory" in The American Cinema stating: “the article was written in what I thought was a modest, tentative, experimental manner, it was certainly not intended as the last word on the subject.” He further has stated that the Auteur theory should not be considered a theory at all but rather "a collection of facts, a reminder of movies to be resurrected, of genres to be redeemed, of directors to be rediscovered."
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