Benjamin - The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction

Benjamin, Walter. "The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction." From Illuminations. Ed. Hannah Arendt. New York: Schocken Books, 1986.

Originally Publshed: 1936

Argument
Art has changed in the age of mechanical reproduction. The reproduced piece of art loses its "aura," as he dubs it. Comparing painting to film, Benjamin sees the painting as a complete picture whereas the film can be cobbled together using the filming and editing processes. Ultimately, he begins to muse on fascism, and the aesthetics of war - the valuing of military technology in the futurist sense.

Most importantly, Benjamin sees the key change as being from an age where art was tied to ritual to an age where art was tied to politics.

Connection
He references Arnheim's comment that actors are often made to be like props. Benjamin notes that with film the actor could be caught be surprise on film, and their pure reaction spliced in for a genuine look of shock. To Benjamin, this is undermining the artistic value. He is, thus, an Arnheimian...he wants film to be a creative medium.

Kracauer - Theory of Film

Kracauer, Siegfried. Theory of Film; The Redemption of Physical Reality. New York: Oxford University Press, 1960.

Argument
As the subtitle suggests, Kracauer believes the essential aesthetic appeal of film is its ability to record and reveal reality. It thus follows in the fashion of photography, adding the critical aspect of movement to photo's stillness. Kracauer argues for a broad definition of art to allow for media, such as painting, which explores imagination to its fullest extent along with film and photography, which reveal reality to us.

He positions Melies's imagination as the antithesis to Lumiere's thesis, brushing aside Melies's commercial success as appealing to the demands of the public, not necessarily using film to its fullest aesthetic potential.

Kracauer also engages with experimental film from avant-garde. These gravitate toward the spirit of modern painting or literature, which smothers reality. However, he does acknowledge the debt film in general owes to experimental in terms of cinematic devices.

Kracauer compares the film to the novel in terms of their efforts to render life in fullness, as well as their aspiration of a sense of endlessness ( in time beyond the beginning or ending of the story, and in space beyond the world portrayed within the story). He also notes certain novels are easier to adapt: those in which the plot and character development occur through action rather than exposition of mental thoughtlife of characters.

Key term
formative - the aspects of film which the filmmaker can use to adjust the reality of what is being recorded...because the formative aspects of film far exceed those of the photographer, the filmmaker may push the bounds of the art all the way towards abstraction. Kracauer, needless to say, doesn't love this.

Arnheim - Film as Art

Arnheim, Rudolf. Film As Art. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1966.

Argument
"Film is a medium...that may, but need not, be used to produce artistic results." (8) Arnheim then proceeds to lay out the various ways this may be accomplished.

Basic Elements of Film (Chapter 1)
Projection of solids (3D) upon a plane (2D) surface - camera can show from various angles
Reduction of depth - make things bigger or smaller, crop an image...the limit of the audience's vision to what the camera chooses to examine
Lighting and absence of color - determines how much or how little is perceived
Delimitation of the image and distance from the object - framing, lens
Absence of the space-time continuum - editing
Absence of the non-visual world of the senses - possible for the mind to create sensory effects in absence, such as smell of incense from image of Catholic church service

Artistic Uses of these Elements (Chapter 2, selected examples)
Projections on plane (44-45)

1. Unusual angle
2. Striking artistic effect which draws new observations out of familiar
3. Attention of the viewer to whether the object is normal or abnormal
4. Camera interprets the object for the viewer (drawing attention)

Lighting and absence of color - limit of black and white is similar to limit of depth in that it gives artist more potential to create - symbols (light and dark), use of shadows.

Delimitation of picture and distance from object - similar to photography. Close-up. Control of audience's attention.

Absence of space-time - montage (94-98
Principles

1. Cutting - shots, scenes, within a scene
   
2. Time Relations - synchronism (simultaneous events), before/after
3. Space relations - same place, different place
4. Subject relations - similarity, contrast, combination of similarity and contrast

Absence of nonvisual senses - moving the camera, art of pantomime, power of silence,

Other capacities of film - mobile camera, backward motion (experimental), accelerated, slowed, still photos, fade in/out/dissolve, superimpositions & simultaneous montages, lenses, manipulation of focus, mirror images

Content of the Film (Chapter 3)
Acting - stylized to get point accross to action, but not excessively so
meaning & invention - much more than just language

Other stuff
Basic technical properties of film: 1.) reproduces objects faithfully, 2.) reproduces motion and events faithfully. It is the 2nd feature which has made it a fundamental break from photography. It shows changes in time (whereas the best photography can do is show bluriness.)

1935 essay on television - an improvement on radio as film is an improvement on photography

1938 essay on recorded dialogue - troubled by problems dialogue has introduced to art of film. Distraction from image, distraction from pace of the film.

Interesting Quotes
65 - "An audince demands the greatest possible likeness to reality in the movies and it therefore prefers three-dimensional film to flat colored to black-and-white, talkie to silent. Every step that brings film closer to real life creates a sensation. Each new sensation means full houses. Hence the avid interest f the film industry in these technological developments."
154 - "...sound film is not only destructive [of the forms that the film artists were using] but also offers artistic potentialities of its own." He goes on to ask, "What will the color film have to offer when it reaches technical perfection?"

Key Terms
"partial illusion" - the acceptance of "the screen world as being true to nature" (15) as how the audience is not put off by black and white film. It's only partial, because the camera can, to a varied extent, project reality.

The Morgan Memorial "Deja Vu - You've Seen this Before"
Mast refers to Arnheim and builds explicitly on his ideas throughout Film/Cinema/Movie.