Visualizing Islamic Law and Values in Semerah Padi (1956): P. Ramlee as Cinematographic Auteur

In film studies, the Auteur Theory is mainly employed to explore film directors’ signature styles in creating their mastery artifacts. Individual style of a director in filmmaking is based on his/her preferences; genre, theme, mise-en-scéne, cinematography or even casts line-up. Grounded by American auteur scholar, Andrew Sarris's idea of ‘how’ in style and techniques a director conveys ‘what’ in film storytelling, this paper looks at P. Ramlee's cinematographic style in expressing Islamic notion in his 1956 film, Semerah Padi. Qualitative content analysis was conducted on the film in order to identify P. Ramlee's cinematographic tendencies and by taking up a semiotics approach; the researcher interpreted and discussed his distinctive style as an auteur statured filmmaker.