Film and photography: From mass production to work of art

From Walter Benjamin’s critique “The work of Art in the Age of Its Technological Reproducibility”, the author speculates on the development of photography and film techniques while judging their credibility to be called “art” by making antithesis and juxtaposition with traditional art forms and lithography. By the quote “The whole sphere of authenticity eludes technological-and of course not only technological- reproduction”, (p21) the mass reproducibility and mass dissemination of film is defining the new landscape of the concept of authenticity, which no longer represents uniqueness, but as a unique mental reception for every audience, any moments, any situations. To me, technology enables the change of filming and consequently changing humanity’s mode in perceiving art. It follows that the aura, as Benjamin mentions in paragraph IV, creates distinct identities and elements in a film just like the use of imageries in narrative literature.

“Nowadays, the uniqueness of the work of art is identical to its embeddedness in the context of tradition (p34)”, and what modern films differ from paintings, sculptures, architecture or music is its ability to use coherent, cohesive, cooperating sets to give unparallel expression to the fairylike, the marvelous or the supernatural. Being differentiated into sophisticated filming process and film categories, film, as I believe, can naturally merge the elegant motions of the filming object while retaining the subtle changes of reality and humanity. Even though the film industry might have the leak such as the authority corruption, capitalist exploitation or star/non-star hierarchy on its road to art, its limitation and virtual distances can not ultimately restrict the desire of cameraman to emancipate one’s repertoire, driven by imagination and dreams.

Similar to any great inventions in history, the film and cinema cannot be themselves without the aid of technology.  Unveiling the nature of the film, it becomes art and turns into aesthetical sense when it balances human beings and the apparatus Benjamin here offers inspiring and exhilarant descriptions in details “With the close-up, space expands; with slow motion, the movement is extended. Enlargement not merely clarifies what we see indistinctly ‘in any case,’ but brings to light entirely new structures of matter, slow motion not only reveals familiar aspects of movements but discloses quite unknown aspects within them – aspects ‘which do not appear as the retarding of natural movements but have a curious gliding, floating character of their own”. (p37) People are indeed working with art.

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