1896 - 1966
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Walter Benjamin (1892-1940)
The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical
Reproduction
VII
The nineteenth-century dispute as to the artistic
value of painting versus photography today seems devious and confused.
This does not diminish its importance, however; if anything, it underlines
it. The dispute was in fact the symptom of a historical transformation
the universal impact of which was not realized by either of the rivals.
When the age of mechanical reproduction separated art from its basis in
cult, the semblance of its autonomy disappeared forever. The resulting
change in the function of art transcended the perspective of the century;
for a long time it even escaped that of the twentieth century, which experienced
the development of the film. Earlier much futile thought had been devoted
to the question of whether photography is an art. The primary question
- whether the very invention of photography had not transformed the entire
nature of art - was not raised. Soon the film theoreticians asked the same
ill-considered question with regard to the film. But the difficulties which
photography caused traditional aesthetics were mere child's play as compared
to those raised by the film. Whence the insensitive and forced character
of early theories of the film. Abel Gance, for instance, compares the film
with hieroglyphs: 'Here, by a remarkable regression, we have come back
to the level of expression of the Egyptians... Pictorial language has not
yet matured because our eyes have not yet adjusted to it. There is as yet
insufficient respect for, insufficient cult of, what it expresses.' Or,
in the words of Séverin-Mars: 'What art has been granted a dream
more poetical and more real at the same time! Approached in this fashion
the film might represent an incomparable means of expression. Only the
most high-minded persons, in the most perfect and mysterious moments of
their lives, should be allowed to enter its ambience.' Alexandre Arnoux
concludes his fantasy about the silent film with the question: 'Do not
all the bold descriptions we have given amount to the definition of prayer?'
It is instructive to note how their desire to class the film among the
'arts' forces these theoreticians to read ritual elements into it - with
a striking lack of discretion. Yet when these speculations were published,
films like L'Opinion Publique and The Gold Rush had already
appeared. This, however, did not keep Abel Gance from adducing hieroglyphs
for purposes of comparison, nor Séverin-Mars from speaking of the
film as one might speak of paintings by Fra Angelico. Characteristically,
even today ultrareactionary authors give the film a similar contextual
significance - if not an outright sacred one, then at least a supernatural
one. Commenting on Max Reinhardt's film version of A Midsummer Night's
Dream, Werfel states that undoubtedly it was the sterile copying of
the exterior world with its streets, interiors, railroad stations, restaurants,
motorcars, and beaches which until now had obstructed the elevation of
the film to the realm of art. 'The film has not yet realized its true meaning,
its real possibilities... these consist in its unique faculty to express
by natural means and with incomparable persuasiveness all that is fairylike,
marvellous, supernatural.' |
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