John Smith, The Girl Chewing Gum, 1976
"If the film is ultimately a parody that undercuts the mythology of the classic auteur’s independence and absolute creative control, then part of the narrative interest of Smith’s film is connected with what I take to be the auteur-character implicitly beginning to recognize that his directorial power is based upon fragile artifice. Nearly two-thirds into the film, the auteur’s commands lose their previous instantaneous response and a temporal lag opens up. Instead of taking the form of directorial instructions, the power of which are demonstrated by their immediate enactment, the voice becomes one of almost wild prediction which find verification of sorts moments later."
-- Matthew Bowman, "Want, Want, Want: John Smith’s The Girl Chewing Gum, or, The Disintegration of the Auteur," 2011
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