It occurs to me that building a blog around the careers of two directors could be seen as a tacit acceptance of auteur theory, of the idea that the director is in a sense, the author of the film, its principle creative force. Of course, film is an inherently collaborative artform. Even a renaissance man like Franco, who has been known to write, direct, score and operate the camera, could not work in isolation. Films are made by groups of people.

They are also made, in most cases, as commercial propositions. They are financed by people who hope to see a return on their investment, in most cases. One doesn’t need to dig too deeply into the filmographies of our principles to find examples of producers requesting specific content to increase a film’s saleability, sometimes in specific territories.

The producer’s role often extends beyond even that, to hiring a director to helm a particular project, and this nudges us towards my point. If we accept the Franco and Rollin are (were) auteurs – that their films bear their mark, either in content, execution or both – are they always auteurs, in all circumstances? Should we treat Rollin’s pornographic films – which were made pseudonymously in order to pay the bills – with the same seriousness as his core filmography, whatever that may be? It’s difficult. Franco made numerous films pseudonymously, as a hired gun, in genres for which he had disdain. Do we ignore those?

In the general sense, as a fan and a cinephile, minor works are of interest, regardless of the production history and / or circumstances in which they were made. In practical terms, well, that may be a different story. It was never my intention to cover every Franco film – how could I – but on some level I had intended to cover every Rollin. I think it’s more likely I’ll take my lead from Virgins & Vampires – indirectly from Rollin himself – which means I will not be covering the Michel Gentil films but I will look at Phantasms.