The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction

Benjamin, Walter. (15 July 1892—27 September 1940)
Written in 1936, first published in English in 1968 in Illuminations (pp. 217-252), New York: Schocken Books.
Retrieved on March 27, 2009 from http://www.marxists.org/reference/subject/philosophy/works/ge/benjamin.htm

Against Fascism, Benjamin finds a seed of politicization in art, in particular, film. While art appreciation was practiced personally as in a worship of cult, Benjamin states that masses appreciate art in forms of exhibition in the age of mechanical reproduction and articulates this change by saying "mechanical reproduction emancipates the work of art form its parasitical dependence on ritual...Instead of being based on ritual, it begins to be based on another practice--politics" (Part IV).

In parallel with mass appreciation in film as an art form, Benjamin gazes at the blurred distinction between author and public as seen newsreels and in particular, the cinema movement in Russia, where ordinary people were filmed and reality was established on the contrary to the Western capitalistic exploitation of the film.

In his argument that mechanical reproduction of art changes the reaction of the masses toward art, Benjamin stresses the power of film that turns the ordinary into the unconventional in the following:

"By close-ups of the things around us, by focusing on hidden details of familiar objects, by exploring common place milieus under the ingenious guidance of the camera, the film, on the one hand, extends our comprehension of the necessities which rule our lives; on the other hand, it manages to assure us of an immense and unexpected field of action. Our taverns and our metropolitan streets, our offices and furnished rooms, our railroad stations and our factories appeared to have us locked up hopelessly. Then came the film and burst this prison-world asunder by the dynamite of the tenth of a second, so that now, in the midst of its far-flung ruins and debris, we calmly and adventurously go traveling...The act of reaching for a lighter or a spoon is familiar routine, yet we hardly know what really goes on between hand and metal, not to mention how this fluctuates with our moods. Here the camera intervenes with the resources of its lowerings and liftings, its interruptions and isolations, it extensions and accelerations, its enlargements and reductions" (Part XIV).

In his response to distracted audience of film, Benjamin argues that films with their shock effects--constant moving images that requires reviewers' heightened sense--put the public in the position of the critic, however, the public is an absent-minded examiner at first. By this Benjamin means that the film has a high potential to mobilize the masses but the achievement of the mobilization is not automatic.