Authorship in Melting Pot

Overall, I thought Melting Pot was a great film. But I'm not going to get into the nitty-gritty details here... I just want to touch upon some issues of authorship. So Rusca directed this movie and also wrote it, but as we've discussed in class, authorship in film is a sticky subject. As we saw during the credits, which seemed to go on forever, hundreds of people went into the making of this movie (even though it was independent, low-budget, and made under some serious time constraints). Still, it seems to me that Rusca is pretty much the primary author... or is author even the appropriate term here? He definitely created the concept and oversaw its implementation, but he also mentioned that he checked with Latinos and blacks from communities in Los Angeles to confirm and fine-tune certain aspects of the screenplay. If these people helped shape the film in any way, shape, or form, does that make them secondary authors? Can a project as big as a full-length film ever have a sole author, anyway? Just some things to think about...

Personally I would still give Rusca credit for writing and directing the film, especially as a white male writing about a variety of people across racial and gender lines. His honest, objective, and sensitive consideration of characters from races other than his own really shows his talent as a writer and moviemaker.