The Reception of Auteurs: Data Mining Reviews of Wes Anderson’s Films

Abstract Auteur theory remains a popular qualitative approach to the evaluation of films. However, film reviewers who take an auteurist stance are frequently condemned for their subjective judgments and arbitrary evaluations. In this study we analyse multiple reviews of a well-established auteur to mitigate the arbitrary tastes of individual reviewers. By collecting a total of 485 film reviews comprising 362,058 words and by employing several straightforward data mining techniques, we develop a quantitative approach that establishes a consensus of opinion on auteurs. We outline a bespoke piece of software developed at Oxford Brookes University, called MoFish, that collects reviews from the aggregation website RottenTomatoes.com , and we use the popular web-based platforms Voyant Tools, AntConc, and LIWC (Linguistic Inquiry and Word Count) to automate the data mining of those reviews to identify a consensus of opinion. By analysing several hundred contemporary reviews of Wes Anderson’s films The Royal Tenenbaums (2001), The Grand Budapest Hotel (2014), and The French Dispatch (2021), we demonstrate how data-driven methods minimise subjectivism and produce new and distinct knowledge of Wes Anderson’s reputation as an auteur. More generally, we emphasise how these methods identify large-scale patterns in the reception of films.