SF - Benjamin

I'm going to preface this by saying that I am quite aware of the distinction between a "film" and a "movie." However, for the sake of my understanding Walter Benjamin's discussion of films in The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction, I choose to blur this distinction (as I have had more exposure to movies made for the masses than I have had to films). When Benjamin is citing the differences between a performer on stage and an actor on film, he notes that the camera, and not the performer himself, presents the performance to the public. While the camera captures the actor’s performance, I would like to add that the film projector and screen quality also make their mark on what the public views. For instance, if the projector is of poor quality, the audience’s experience of the film is going to be inferior to that of an audience who experienced the performance using a good projector. I believe that this practice of using yet another piece of technology to reproduce what has already been distorted by film even further prevents the audience from connecting one on one with the original work of art – in this case, the actor’s performance.

Benjamin notes that the editor also has influence over the manner in which an audience views a film. I am continually amazed at how movies are pieced together for commercials. A movie may be classified as a comedy, but you would never know it from viewing a single commercial. Instead, you have to see the other commercial they made for that same movie in which the funny parts are highlighted. These commercials are so varied in their targeted emotional response that if it wasn’t for the same movie title we might mistake them to be for two different movies. This editor’s technique of segmenting a movie into sound bytes and blurbs is just one means of mechanical reproduction that affects a viewer’s reaction to a work of art (again, the actor’s performance).