On Walter Benjamin’s “The Work of Art in the Age of Its Technological Reproducibility, and Other Writings on Media”

In his essay on how the changes in technology that have allowed art to be reproduced, when once a single work of art was unique as an original, Benjamin traces the evolution of art forms from prehistoric cave paintings to contemporary films. Benjamin is not the first to attempt to understand how technology has impacted the form and significance of art in our society. Many of his arguments and observations remind me of similar remarks made by John Berger in his book Ways of Seeing. However, he is unique from Berger in that he includes an analysis of film as a continuation of the technological progression of art from painting to photography and finally to cinema.

Overall, Benjamin seems critical of film as an art form. He argues that in putting together a film,

What is reproduced is not an artwork, and the act of reproducing it is no more such a work than in the first case. The work of art is produced only by means of montage. And each individual component of this montage is a reproduction of a process which is neither an artwork in itself nor gives rise to one through photography. (Benjamin 29-30)

In other words, Benjamin seems to be arguing that in taking many different shots of essentially the same scene and splicing them together in order to make the best possible scene is not in itself an art. He also seems to be arguing that the act of shooting all of these different scenes is also not in and of itself art. I would disagree. While I know very little about the actual filming of scenes, I do know several people who practice photography and who would argue that the very act of choosing to frame something in a scene, that is, cutting out some things in the environment to focus on others, is a conscious choice of the photographer to include and disregard certain objects or people in a shot. This conscious choice, to them, makes the photograph art. I imagine that a similar conscious choice must be made in order to film a scene for a movie. In the case of film editing, with which I have had some experience, I would argue that the act of choosing the best possible scene or moment in a scene is no different, in some sense, from a painter looking at the various colors of paints on his or her palette and choosing which ones to mix in order to capture the exact tone or mood that he or she wishes to create in the painting. The process of creating art, whether in writing or painting or editing a film, often involves making a variety of choices about which words, colors, or shots to use and put together in the best possible configuration. This process is just as applicable in creating film as it is in creating other art forms.

            Benjamin recognizes the parallels between painter and film editor, but he sees the painter as superior to the film editor. He compares them to a magician and a surgeon and explains that the magician maintains a distance between his or herself and the patient. The surgeon, however, Benjamin claims, actually penetrates the patient’s body and interferes with its workings. He concludes by writing, “Magician is to surgeon as painter is to cinematographer. The painter maintains in his work a natural distance from reality, whereas the cinematographer penetrates deeply into the tissue. The images obtained by each differ enormously. The painter’s is a total image, whereas that of the cinematographer is piecemeal” (Benjamin 35). Benjamin’s point is that the painter, in his art, is removed from reality. The cinematographer, however, takes small pieces of reality and reorganizes them to make a different version of reality.

However, Benjamin seems to be assuming that there is a correct version of reality in the outside world. I would disagree. I believe that each individual human being, because of his or her own individual backgrounds, experiences, worldviews, and socialization, has a slightly different understanding of what is “real” that differs from another person’s understanding of “reality.” A painter, I would argue, no more accurately captures reality than does a film editor. Even the most realistic still life has some imprint of the artist’s own particular worldview or version of reality that makes it estranged from the “real world” that exists outside the minds of human beings. In fact, in Ways of Seeing, Berger argues that the purpose of creating realistic still life paintings was not to accurately portray the whole of reality but instead to support the ideologies of capitalism and materialism. Painting does not portray the whole of reality any more than film does. In fact, if film is a reassembling of various pieces of reality, then it is no different than painting and is just as removed from reality. Both are presenting views of the world that are separate from “reality.” However, the film looks more like reality than the painting does and it achieves this sense of reality through interfering with reality. I agree with Benjamin that this is a reason to be critical of film, as people can sometimes forget that a film is, in fact, not reality. However, this momentary disregard for reality, this suspension of disbelief, seems to be one of the goals of art. Many painters, writers, and filmmakers would probably be pleased if their audiences, for a moment, forgot the “real” world around them and accepted their fictional world as reality. Art, in all its forms, can have an escapist function.  

            Benjamin is not only critical of film as an art form but is also critical of the actor’s role in film. He seems to see acting before a camera, as opposed to acting before a live audience, as alienating to the actor. As I was reading, I wondered what he would think of television shows that were filmed before a live audience, in which the actors are acting not only for the camera but also for people. These kinds of shows combine both aspects of film and theater and could possibly be a sort of compromise between the alienation that Benjamin argues film actors feel and the aura that actors in live theater experience. Benjamin quotes from Pirandello,

“The film actor feels as if exiled. Exiled not only from the stage but form his own person. With a vague unease, he sense an inexplicable void, stemming from the fact that his body has lost its substance, that he has been volatilized, stripped of his reality, his life, his voice, the noises he makes when moving about, and has been turned into a mute image that flickers for a moment on the screen, then vanishes into silence…” (Benjamin 31) 

Pirandello, Benjamin notes, was specifically an actor in the age of silent films. However, he generalizes this alienation that Pirandello feels to all actors, even in the age of sound film. This seems an unfair generalization to make, as there are actors who enjoy performing before a camera and do not feel as though it inhibits their acting or art in any way.

            For instance, in his memoir Kiss Me Like a Stranger, actor Gene Wilder, who has performed both on stage and in films, describes his experience as an actor in both mediums. Nowhere in his memoir does Wilder describe feeling any sort of alienation while performing in front of a camera. In fact, he expresses a preference for acting in films. In one section of his book, he describes moments in which he has been acting and the persona of the character he is portraying has completely overtaken him. He was, in these moments, no longer the individual Gene Wilder but instead literally felt as though he was Willy Loman in Arthur Miller’s Death of a Salesman or Leo Bloom in The Producers. His ability to leave himself behind and completely take on the personality of the character he was portraying had nothing to do with whether he was performing in front of other people or the camera. Nowhere does he describe a feeling of losing an essential quality of the art of acting because he is acting in front of a camera.

Some of the differences between Pirandello and Wilder’s experiences may come from their allegiance to diverse schools of acting. As an actor, Wilder writes that his goal was always to leave himself behind and immerse himself in the character he was portraying. In fact, in order to achieve this goal, he writes that he often had to forget about his audience completely and focus on the emotions and motivations of his character. His goal, as an actor, had nothing to do with surrounding himself with a certain aura. However, if cultivating this sort of aura was Pirandello’s goal as an actor, then he would most likely lose many important aspects of the art of acting by performing in front of a camera as opposed to a live audience. Benjamin notes that, “in the case of film, the fact that the actor represents someone else before the audience matters much less than the fact that he represents himself before the apparatus” (Benjamin 31). Wilder’s experience as an actor would contradict this statement, as Wilder seems to believe that the skill of an actor to take on the persona of his or her character is irrelevant to the type of audience for whom he performs. Benjamin seems to generalize Pirandello’s experience of film acting to all actors, which seems unfair, as it disregards the experiences of actors, like Wilder, who are not affected by the nature of their audience.

While I disagree with Benjamin on some of his points, overall, I like the fact that he traces the functions and meanings of art throughout changes in technology. He recognizes art as political and relates the political nature of art to the changes in technology used to produce art. He also discusses the effects that these changes in the reproducibility of art have on the masses and their understanding of art and what art is and how it functions in society. However, in my mind, he places too much emphasis on alienation. The nature of art is changing, yes, and it is changing through its ability to be produced and reproduced, but this does not seem to necessarily lead to alienation. Some might argue that this process actually makes art more democratic, as it can be distributed to larger groups of people and is no longer merely the property of those who can afford it or afford to see it. Art’s ability to be made and reproduced by almost anyone also allows for a greater opportunity for discourse between various ideologies of artists and can provide more people with a voice and a means of expression. While I certainly think that Benjamin’s criticism is not unfounded and that one should be critical of art, I would not take a stance quite as pessimistic as his.  

Works Cited

Benjamin, Walter. The Work of Art in the Age of Its Technological Reproducibility, and Other Writings on Media. Cambridge: Belknap Press, 2008.

Of Hamsters and Elderberries…and Nietzsche

According to Nietzsche (so far as I understand him), language is nothing more than an arbitrary collection of metaphors that equate one thing to another. Whoever happens to convince everyone else to share their metaphors is the person who creates “truth.”

But what about art forms that attempt to break down those metaphors? Specifically, I’m thinking of absurdism. Instead of presenting us with the usual and expected, absurdism attempts to shock us out of complacency by presenting us with an event or an action that is completely out of the ordinary. It is given no explanation or rationale. It simply is. The audience must then make sense or it or accept that there is no sense to be made and deal with this unprecedented and inexplicable occurrence.

Of course, absurdism doesn’t always have to be just strange. It can also be humorous. The British acting group Monty Python often used absurdism for comic ends, and while their bizarre sketches often served to shake up audiences, they also made people laugh.  Perhaps they didn’t intend to make people question exactly why we all buy into the same definitions of experiences or who exactly is doing the defining and why, but they might have, just for a moment, defied any common or expected definitions. What do you make of two people flying into a diner in which they are surrounded by singing Vikings and can only order Spam? For a second, you’re not sure what to think.

Ironically, this form that is meant to break down metaphors also builds metaphors of its own. Maybe the first time someone watched a group of “silly English kuh-niggets” trot up to a castle while banging coconuts together while being taunted by a Frenchman who declares, “Your mother was a hamster and your father smelt of elderberries!”, he or she was baffled. However, now that Monty Python has something of a cult following, many of their nonsensical phrases have taken on new meaning, even if sometimes that meaning only is, “I know that reference. I’m a Monty Python fan too!”

I can go up to many of my friends and say, “Your mother was a hamster…” and receive the reply, “… and your father smelt of elderberries!” The phrase, once so nonsensical, has taken on a lot of meanings for my friends and me. It reminds us of the times we’ve watched Monty Python and the Holy Grail together. It brings to mind our shared sense of humor. It also recalls one of the moments in which we first bonded as friends. It is attempting to equate all of these experiences with language, even though, as Nietzsche would point out, we are creating an equality where there really is none.

So, in attempting to disrupt the connection that we create between language and experience, Monty Python’s absurdism has actually created a metaphor of its own. In attempting to undermine the way we view experience and language, has it undermined itself? What would Nietzsche say about that?

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