Walter Benjamin and Film, Theater

From what I remember, when we read this essay in film classes we were never really told to look at it a certain way, but the conclusion from the subsequent discussion was always that it cannot be taken as anything other than his perception on film at the time, and given his political environment, and that for the most part he is "wrong." However he cannot be totally wrong, it is art, and it is said that art is what you see in it, at least partly. Beauty also is in the eye of the beholder, so what may seem normal and even expected to most of us (cuts, close-ups, slow motion...) may be something that turns turns others away.

In fact Benjamin was right about one thing, his quote from Paul Valéry, that "we must expect great innovations to transform the entire technique of the arts, thereby affecting artistic invention itself and perhaps even bringing about an amazing change in our very notion of art.” Although it hasn't changed the entire technique of the arts, at least not directly and not for every art, these mechanical innovations have indeed brought about and amazing change in our very notion of art, not by any means changing those we already had, but in creating new ones to add to them.

My classes have mostly disagreed with his take on actors, maybe it was the quality or style of films at the time, or the stage training that seems to emanate from some actors of the era, but films take you into an even more personal level, putting you in the most intimate of positions unlike a play ever could, showing things you'd probably never see in a play, and some you'd never catch (such as the imperfections revealed in close-ups). I love theater and go to plays whenever I can, but I see it as a different art and appreciate it for what it is, which is in a different manner than that in which I appreciate film.

Films are also able to take us to fantastic worlds thanks to its ability to make us so willingly suspend disbelief, something a bit harder for stage productions precisely thanks to the editing Benjamin so profoundly dislikes, but this is more easily done now than in his time.