Walter Benjamin criticized cinema in the 1930s for causing traditional works of art to lose their aura, and it’s a question that remains relevant in the face of modern digital advances.
Today, movies are recognized as the defining artistic genre of our time, with audiences of up to 10 million people per film. However, it’s interesting to note that in the early days of cinema, in the 1930s, W. Benjamin critically examined cinema. According to him, movies were losing the aura of traditional works of art.
Benjamin’s concept of “aura” has a very philosophical and profound meaning. It is like a beautiful scent or a living, breathing life force that we experience when we let go of our dehumanized, objectified consciousness and attitudes and connect with an object with our soul’s gaze. It is near us and yet far away, appearing ephemerally at any given moment when we are immersed in the object through soul communication. A work of art invokes an aura from the abyss, and the recipient experiences the aura through communion with the work of art. However, the aura of a work of art is destroyed when mechanical and technological devices such as photography and cameras invade the realm of art, and Benjamin cites cinema as a prime example.
Benjamin points out that the most important feature of cinema is that the camera takes the place of the audience. In the case of theater, the actor and audience interact directly, allowing the actor to create a character other than himself or herself and to act in sync with the audience. The audience can experience the aura that surrounds the main character of the play through the actor playing that character. In movies, however, the camera intervenes between the actor and the audience. The actor performs in front of the camera, but the impersonal nature of the machine makes it impossible to share eye contact. The audience can’t connect with the actor because they only see the image on the screen, and they can only connect with the actor when they feel in sync with the camera. As a result, the audience is visually testing and criticizing the actor, just like the camera. As a result, the actor has to be content with performing tricks in front of the camera in a kind of exile, cut off from all communication. The aura that surrounds the actor, and the aura of the character he or she portrays, is bound to disappear.
A movie star’s performance is not a single, unified work, but rather the sum of many separate actions. This comes from the nature of the camera, which breaks down the actor’s performance into a series of assemblageable episodes. The moments of action in a finished movie, filmed and edited by the camera from multiple perspectives, are only the camera’s own. The actor is just one of many props selectively placed in each moment of action, and there is no room for aura to intervene in the images assembled by the camera.
In this respect, Benjamin criticizes cinema as the most stark demonstration of art and its audience’s distance from the beautiful realm of the virtual, which has traditionally been considered the only realm in which art can bloom. It’s unclear whether Benjamin’s criticisms, made in the early days of cinema, can be fully applied to today’s cultural poster child.
However, Benjamin’s criticisms are too relevant to be dismissed as a relic of the past. While modern digital technology has made movies more complex and sophisticated, it can also accelerate the loss of aura that Benjamin feared. While advances in ultra-high-definition digital cinematography and computer-generated imagery (CGI) have increased the realism of cinema and enhanced audience immersion, they also pose the risk of transforming the unique artistic experience of cinema into mechanical repetition and a standardized visual experience.
As such, today’s filmmakers and audiences need to revisit Benjamin’s critical perspective. It requires constant thought and effort to balance technological advancement with artistic expression, and to ensure that cinema functions as a tool to enrich the human aesthetic experience beyond mere visual pleasure. Benjamin’s insights can serve as an important guide in exploring the direction of contemporary cinematic art, and his critical perspective offers warnings and suggestions that are still valid today.
