hmm

When I first started reading Benjamin’s text, I kept thinking to myself, “but I am not sure that this would apply today.” Does the ability to have films shown in your own home, and photographs on display in the foyer really detract from the aura/authenticity/tradition of these pieces? Are these merely the words of a man caught in the clutches of a nostalgia for a simpler time, when mass production on the eve of WWII and the Shoah did not seem so menacing?

Viewed from this perspective, I can only try to sympathise with Benjamin, a Jewish German exile living in Paris at the time the text was written (Benjamin later kills himself in Spain, having convinced himself that his arrest and return to the Nazis was imminent ---see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walter_Benjamin).

If as Benjamin claims, this is all a question of perspective, it is understandable that the

philosopher feels this way. In regards to film in the thirties, there were quite a few propaganda films coming out which no doubt tainted  Benjamin’s view of the media. I am thinking of course of Triumph des Willens, the Nazi propaganda film focusing on the Nuremburg Congress and rallies – here is the full movie via Youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GcFuHGHfYwE

While I agree much “authenticity” or “aura” has been lost in the constant dribble that is reality TV and Hollywood blockbusters, there are many films that I think retain a certain uniqueness (indie movies I would argue ….), that are in their own right works of art (this seems to be Benjamin’s main gripe: filming and the filmed product are not works of art; the apparatus detracts from the uniqueness of the expression and “beautiful semblance”). Art has become such a staple in our artistic repertoire – our perspectives have changed so much, thanks as Benjamin does underscore to this change in technology that allowed for film. What I disagree with is the dismissal of the merits of film – do I misread how pejorative this text seems? Moreover, with changes in technology, many of us can now watch films alone and as such do not become part of that “mass reaction” (36) mentioned in chapter XV (not anymore than we can all talk about a book or painting – art is a shared experience, no? Or am I a product of this new perspective?). Surely technology has allowed art to expand its horizons, giving us new ways to articulate a certain authenticity or aura, representative no less of a tradition? Can film not have its own tradition and an aura, a here and now, of its own built up thanks to technology over the last century? – the technology is here now and I believe that while Benjamin is right it has proven to be a great bane in the twentieth century, it has also been a great boon also. The question is how to use the tools, this machine we have in a constructive way to expand art and better articulate if possible that elusive sense of authenticity Benjamin feels was lost in art on the eve of WWII.