object to be photographed and by way of the purpose he has in mind. Although the
 final result may reflect something of his personality, this does not play the same
 role as is played by that of the painter [or the writer]. All the arts are based on the
 presence of man, only photography derives an advantage from his absence. (13)

This position overturns the assumptions of the auteur theory. Rather than focus on the

creativity of an individual director, Bazin emphasized "the impassive lens" of the camera,

capable of re-presenting reality "in all its virginal purity to [his] attention and

consequently to [his] love" ("Ontology" 15). Even though the photographer made the

choice of object to be photographed, it was the mechanical process of photography that

triumphed. For Bazin, then, the automatism of the cinematic apparatus was more

important than the genius of this or that auteur.

 That is not to say that Bazin did not value individual directors, especially those

working within the studio system. After all, he inaugurated the Cahiers critics'

enthusiasm for popular cinema through the work of Hollywood directors, an enthusiasm

that directly led to the articulation of the politique des auteurs. As Colin MacCabe has

argued, "If Bazin presented them with Welles and Rossellini, then the young critics [at

Cahiers] would present their master with Hitchcock, Wyler and Hawks" (152). But these

directors, Welles especially, energized Bazin to turn to an appreciation of the studio

system. "For all film-lovers who had reached the age of cinematic reason by 1946,"

Bazin remarked, "the name of Orson Welles is identified with the enthusiasm of

rediscovering the American cinema" (Orson Welles 33). For Bazin, American cinema

seemed to have gone through a renaissance during the war years. "[S]till more," he

argued, Welles "epitomized the conviction, shared by every young critic at the time, of

being present at a rebirth and a revolution in the art of Hollywood" (Orson Welles 33).

But for Bazin, the rebirth of that cinema, which ultimately led to the development of his