Europe 1936.
"The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction."
Author: Walter Benjamin.
The last pages of the essay are the darkest. They begin with chapter XIV.
Here Benjamin starts with thoughts on dadaism and architecture.
But at the same time in these few columns he develops a theory of film.
Characteristic for dadaism was the attempt
Concerning the works of art dadaism aims at the
Directly after that: an inconspicuous and cryptic sentence.
It already anticipates the key point, which is totally incomprehensible at this early point.
This mode of diversion is represented by film;
contrary to painting:
Just before (in that cryptic sentence) Benjamin had spoken about immersion and diversion.
Now he apparently reconsiders the same point using the terms contemplation and distraction.
[Music]
Tactile... touching, related to the sense of touch.
We are now already on the last page before the afterword.
On the tactile side there is no counterpart to contemplation.
Its function mode is habit.
This tactile dimension - and thats the baffling explosiveness of the text – now becomes significant for human history.
Again and again I read in Benjamin texts that his concern is materialistic aesthetics.
And in a letter he characterises his essay on the reproduction of the work of art, that it
"closely links the history of modes of reproduction with the masses."
Materialism and mass. Materialism and Benjamin.
An idiosnycratic relationship.
Master of observation and recorder of singularities.
"He insisted on looking so close at all things, that they became alien. And as alienated they revealed their secret."
Materialism and film.
So film as an instrument of materialistic presentation...
... but back to the mass.
In the pre-television age, in cinemas, film meant collective reception.
In his essay Benjamin writes about Chaplin, but isn’t he instead thinking about the soviet film all the time?
Isn’t this also a point that separates him from Adorno?
On the other hand, it nearly seems as if something is driving Benjamin beyond his analysis.
And maybe exactly this characterises him as a marxist of the early twentieth century.
Already Marx - and later especially György Lukács - tends to set something outside of his analysis, which isn’t supported by it.
Yes, maybe that’s how to understand Benjamins insisting on the fundamental progressiveness of the form film.
Adorno – at that time already in England – seems to have noticed this.
In a letter to him he criticised Benjamins position as
"blind faith in the self- mightiness of the proletariat in the historic process. A proletariat that itself is bourgeoisly produced."
From the perspective of our time it seems as if Adorno was right with his opinion.
He confronted Benjamin’s hope in the form of film with content analyses of american televison series and films.
And with his theory of culture industry.
But doesn’t this point of view cover many important things?
Therefor: Defending Walter Benjamin against his devotees.
From our perspective it's hard to imagine how groundbreaking film was seen in the time of its appearance.
For Benjamin isn't film a completely new possibility to look on society?
That's exactly what the terms tactile, shock, distraction, habit are pointing to.
In practice Sergei Eisenstein worked on the same topic.
Today his montages sometimes appear crude
crude and the idea to bring new insights to the audience with them seems naïve, if not even dangerous.
And still – film always claims to be a unique form
form and to be able to show and produce something that no other form of art can do.
Benjamin got that point. And so did Sergei Eisenstein.
For Eisenstein the theory of film is defined trough montage.
For Benjamin the crucial elements are
shock,
tactility,
distraction,
and habit.
Both develop an emphatic theory of film.
The reception of films is a tactile one.
It's relation to the audience is different to that of paintings or in theatre.
Compare how you look at a painting and how at a film;
what a painting shows and what a photography.
Or a theatre play or a film.
What they can show.
The film theory of Eisenstein and Benjamin is a theory of society.
Every film wants to change society.
But how does society change?
Not trough the conventional documentary film.
The conventional documentary film sees itself as a painting.
It aims at alertness, immersion, concentration.
