Reading Response: Roland Barthes AND Walter Benjamin

Although Roland and Walter tried to convey different messages in their essays, they are tied to a common theme: transformation.

At the time of writing, Walter and his fellow art critics were experiencing a new series of shockwaves created by cameras: filmmaking. Like Man with a Movie Camera (1928), films fused the gap between reality, forcing artists to contemplate their roles: Should they depict reality? Express their imagination? Or accept the new art form?

Under this historical background, Walter aimed to clarify the peripheries between art and technology.

Roland also focused on roles but in particular those of filmmakers and the audience. He deemed the audience as one who intends to spend his leisure at the cinema (which reasonably constitutes the majority of his time). Therefore, the audience has little expectation, and waits to be hypnotized by filmmakers.

However, many have changed since Roland’s era and I argue that there is a redistribution of roles in the modern era.

For instance, compared to the posters and brochures in the past, the audience have more accessible information about a film before entering the cinema via trailers or movie review aggregators, such that the audience has certain expectations before entering the cinema.

Another example could be the introduction of cinematic universes, urging the audience to watch other related movies to satisfy the wide use of intertextuality in a film.

These examples seem to nullify Roland’s assumption of the audience.