Like Sir Ridley Scott.

Or Zack Snyder.

Wes Anderson is probably the most obvious of choices. To say he’s not an auteur at this point is sheer stupidity. As would be someone like Almodovar.

If you don’t think auteurs exist, you’re out of your mind.

Shane Carruth? He has two movies that are quite different in tone and style. If he directs another film and you showed it to me without telling me it is a Carruth work, I doubt I would be able to pinpoint it.

I would disagree that Bay is an auteur simply because he has themes, visual styles, and a dumb sense of humor that he likes. That those things are present in his films is merely indicative that he’s a director. My understanding of auteur theory (which I agree is dumb altogether) is that the author is shaping the film in every stage of production: writing, directing, acting, editing, and composing. At this point I think Shane Carruth is a good example of this. His films (especially Upstream Color) are very much his own creative voice. Even David Fincher doesn’t really fit the auteur roll to me; he’s just an excellent director.

The term was originally coined as an artistic concept which was applied to “quality cinema”, whatever that means. Ever since then it has expanded to include every director with a distinct style, even if his or hers body of work is not necessarily high art.

By that definition, Michael Bay is definitely an auteur. It’s weird putting him under the same category as Hitchcock or Kubrick or even PT Anderson, but the fact remains that when you see a Michael Bay film you immediately know it’s his. Let’s just call him an action auteur, just like John Woo, for example.

The auteur theory is also outdated and should be forgotten. The idea popped up at a time when directors were unknown and uniteresting to the audience. The theory was therefore introduced as a way of giving talented filmmakers some form of recognition. Obviously we’ve reached a point where the term should be put on the shelf and forgotten.

Michael Bay is an artist, he is the sort of artist Hollywood wants to create.

He also appears to incl. in everything esp. every Plot a orgy of cars, also “nice” and “tuned”, like his ladies, who at least once crash into each other. No Body Orgy so far, but Shaia in training with the mighty Auteur Lars. So there is some hope for a Non Car Body orgy.

Also he turns everything into a haze of camera Movement, where nobody knows where everything else is, and to be honest, nobody cares. Because of the cutting speed is so high, that turns into a blur.

All in all, the man creates Movies which are unique, but this is also the case every pile of “shit” I dump in the toilet, this is also unique in its consistency and form.