Midnight Delicacies:
Vulgar Auteurism

For decades, action movies were vastly ignored by film critics. Or they were merely criticized. But with the collapse of outdated categories of high and low culture and the new generation of film publicists raised on videotapes came a serious interest in this genre. It culminated a couple of years ago with the debates about the so-called vulgar auteurs. This year’s midnight section will summarize the possibilities of the approach that aims to celebrate unique genre formalists as sovereign and unfairly ignored authors. At the same time, it offers arguments against this and other critical concepts of previous decade. The section will present several well-refined and highly creative action films and pay tribute to their authors.