The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction | Analysis - I | Walter Benjamin - “The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction”

The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction | Analysis - I | Walter Benjamin - “The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction”

This essay has been much quoted and admired for its innovative and perceptive discussions of the new art of film. It is worth remarking that in Benjamin's time, sound film was still in its infancy. Although producers and studios had aspired to wed motion pictures and sound for decades, the conversion to sound in the film industry crucially depended on innovative technology. When the conversion was inaugurated by the landmark film The Jazz Singer, released by Warner Bros. in 1927, the transition to sound was speedy, occurring in little more than a year and netting the film studios huge increases in profits. Technical problems persisted, but most difficulties were resolved by 1933. Dubbing, in which images and sound are printed on separate pieces of film to allow independent editing and manipulation, became the order of the day. This process, also known as postsynchronization, seems to have been used for the first time in 1929, in the musical Hallelujah. The introduction of sound had profound impacts on the motion picture industry, leading, for example, to Hollywood studios' employment of hundreds of novelists, playwrights, and editors to fulfill the need for dialogue scripts. It also led to the creation of new cinematic genres and subgenres, such as crime epics, gangster films, prison films, historical biographies, and newspaper films.

Benjamin deserves credit for quickly recognizing the monumental significance of sound film, not only as it contrasted with stage acting, but also in its essential characteristics as compared to the long sweep of past epochs in the arts. He places film at the culmination of ever-expanding "reproducibility" and then speculates on the social and aesthetic significance of this trajectory. For Benjamin the art of the film, like the figure of the urban flâneur, is a quintessential feature of "the modern."

Benjamin's concise but detailed comparison of stage acting to screen acting has also contributed to the popularity of this essay. In modern times, more than a century after the beginnings of film, it is instructive to consider cases of crossover between stage and screen acting. But it is still largely true that the two crafts call on different talents and abilities, as Benjamin notes, and that many actors specialize in either stage or screen performances, but not both.

In Section 3 of the essay, Benjamin comments on the concept of "aura," which he also includes in the slightly later essay entitled "On Some Motifs in Baudelaire" (see especially Section 11). According to Benjamin, the aura symbolizes the authority of a work of art, along with its authenticity and its claim to reverence. As an inevitable effect of mechanical reproducibility, however, the aura of an artwork diminishes or disappears altogether, since there is no "authentic" original.

Benjamin's progression of arts—lithography, photography, and film—forms a logical part in his argument. It is somewhat curious, however, that he does not mention the phonograph or recorded music. Invented by Thomas Edison in 1877, the phonograph is also a technological advance that made it possible to reproduce performances on any and all occasions. The phonograph also alters the relationship between a musical work of art and its audience. Instead of listening to a live performance of a Mozart symphony in a concert hall, for example, a listener can enjoy a recording as a solitary individual. A single listener can hear the same recording dozens of times. No longer is there a shared experience with other listeners.

In Section 10 Benjamin makes the prescient point that the relationship "between author and public is about to lose its basic character." This prediction resonates with Benjamin's remarks in "The Storyteller" that authentic storytelling is in decline. It would be interesting to speculate on how he might treat this topic in the internet age nearly a century later, when virtually anyone may be their own editor and publisher.

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Introduction and Historical Information

Background

Summary - I

Summary - II

Summary - III

Analysis - I

Analysis - II

Quotes

Character List

Themes 

Walter Benjamin and Important Artists and Artworks

Essay Questions:

 

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