"Disappear" The Author

Within the context of mass culture production, this research takes teleplay screenwriter as the research object, and discusses the existence and fading of author’s function in art production. Chapter One generalizes the role and function of author by sorting the author theories in tranditional art theories. Chapter Two focuses on teleplay screenwriter who is regarded as the “author”. First, the general characteristics of screenwriter are elaborated from the perspective of author theory; Second, the particularities of screenwriter as producer are analyzed from the perspective of contemporary culture production; Last, screenwriter’s tranditional creation way(individual creation way) and collective creation in mass culture production are discussed and compared. Screenwirter’ s roles and functions in different creation forms are investigated, and the process of collective creation is generally described, which signifies that teleplay writing cannot be accomplished by individuals; Chapter Three places the teleplay creation in the whole process of teleplay production. The screenwriter’s author role is intervened by other production procedures. In this chapter, through practical creation experience, how the screenwriter’s author role elimated is discussed. By describing and discussing the relationship between writer and other production elements, the following results are found: writing is only one step in the whole creation process, and in the whole process of creation, all the steps are both independent and intervened, therefore, the screenwriter’s author role is blured. According to the production phenomenon of teleplay and the characteristics of comtemproray culture production, Chapter Four proposes the postmordenity of mass culture production. In postmodern environment, the author’s characteristics of mass culture production is analyzed and how the author’s role elimited is also elaborated.