Draft 2 PhD Introduction - ResearchSpace@Auckland

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commitment to the project. Once again, therefore, the issue of authorship is an
extremely complex one. Ward’s collaborators made crucial contributions, yet it was the
director’s ability to attract and inspire them that made such results possible. Again,
practical problems distorted the film (like “noise” interfering with the auteur’s intended
“signal”), but such problems arose precisely because of the director’s unusual demands
and ambitions. Thus, even the very aspects of the film that reflected the resistance of
the so-called real world to Ward’s over-ambitious vision were, in a sense, coloured by
that vision, and (in his commitment to dream logic) could to some extent be
accommodated within that vision, at least to the eyes of a sympathetic viewer. Hence,
The Navigator remains very much “a Vincent Ward film” – although an auteurist
approach based solely on the end result, ignoring the practical struggles and
compromises involved in making the film, would be a two-dimensional simplification.
What the project demonstrated, however, was the danger inherent in Ward’s style of
direction that his high ambitions, in conflict with budget pressures, could – in less
fortunate circumstances – result in a serious loss of control. In other words, a Romantic
approach to filmmaking (using that term in its most serious sense as a visionary,
individualistic aesthetic) exists uneasily in the medium of film which involves strong
elements of the pragmatic, the social, and the commercial. This is not to question
Ward’s professionalism – by now, he had mastered many of the practical skills of
filmmaking and sincerely valued the abilities of his collaborators – but his values and
ambitions could not always be lined up with those of the industry environment in which
films are made.
The Navigator represented a new peak of achievement for Ward in its scope, richness of
texture and imaginative power and strengthened his status as an auteur on the
international scene. It also represented for the director a geographical move away from
New Zealand, to Australia and eventually to the USA, where he was to be based for the
later part of his career. The films made after The Navigator were made in quite
different production contexts and had much larger budgets, and this resulted in some
loss of control for Ward as an auteur, involving the pressure to make more commercial
films with a stronger storyline and upbeat ending. The first of these was Map of the
Human Heart, which, like The Navigator, belonged to a recognisable genre (epic
romance) and displayed some features of the art film in its strong authorial vision and
its emphasis on visual aspects. Other similarities to The Navigator included the