Abstract
This article places
some of the practical impacts of AI on screen writing in a historical context,
and draws out some the philosophical implications of the ongoing changes in the
medium of film. After offering a historical overview of discourses on screenwriting
from the French new wave through the Cinéma du Look to the digital turn,
it discusses Jean-Pierre Jeunet’s 2001 film Amélie as a pivot between
auteur cinema and generative AI. Analyses of specific scenes from the film will
form the basis for the larger claims that when narrative authority shifts
agency from auteur to machine, cinema’s deeply rooted engagement with
skeptical issues changes accordingly.
