Are all creative works about their creators?

“Even if I set out to make a film about a fillet of sole, it would be about me.”
Federico Fellini

Are all creative works about their creators?  Is any movie, even the most ‘commercial’ movie, about its director at some level?  About each creative who contributes their perspective through their art?

John Collee’s Foxtel address re-printed on the Screen Hub newsletter yesterday finds the idea of the wildly imaginative Fellini picked up and applied to writing of a much more utilitarian nature:

“Looking back now its interesting how the fiction you write becomes a record of your ideas and preoccupations at that time.  Simon Hoggart , the British newspaper columnist, once remarked to me that all writers are essentially writing abut themselves, and that this is true of news journalism, company reports, celebrity interviews. If you read between the lines, the author of the piece is always just looking at themselves, through some kind of prism.  Interesting idea, makes you read newspapers differently, and it’s certainly true of novels…”

Just one of the many questions and discussions that form part of the Graduate Certificate in Screen Culture at AFTRS.