Benjamin THESIS: THE FILM MAKES THE CULT VALUE RECEDE in to the background not only by putting the public in the position of the critic but also by the fact that at the movies this position requires no attention. The public is an examiner, but an absent minded one

Aura AuthenticityHistoryTraditionUniqueness Natural Value

Point 1: In principle, a work of art has always been reproducible. mechanical reproduction changes how art is produced and consumed

Point 2: Mechanical reproduction changes not only how art is produced and consumed but also its authenticity.

Point 3: the mode of human sense perception has changed over long periods of history therefore it cannot be only nature that determines this. Historical circumstance must play a role.

Point 4: The uniqueness of a work of art cannot be separated from its being embedded in the fabric of tradition.

Point 5: According to Benjamin works of art are received and valued on 2 different planes: –Cult value: –Exhibition value:

Point 6: In photography, exhibition value begins to displace cult value in every way

Pont 7: The dispute 19th century dispute between painting and photography was: is photography art?

Point 8: In point # 8 Benjamin is pointing out: that the artistic performance on the stage is presented to the audience through the actor him/herself where as the film is presented to the audience through the lens of the camera

Point 9: In point # 9Benjamin is pointing out how the contrast between the stage actor and the film actor allow for a greater understanding of how aura is removed from the work of art in the age of mechanical reproduction

Point 10: –2 main points: 1) The film responds to the shriveling of aura before the camera with a build up of the personality of the actor outside the studio 2) In film and in sports anyone who watches it takes on the persona of an expert

Point 11: Because of the very distance that the camera puts between the actor and the audience film allows for the spectacle – unimaginable in any earlier time Here Benjamin gives us the examples of the surgeon and magician in comparison to the examples of the painter and cameraman:

Point 12: Technical reproduction changes the reaction of the masses towards art

Point 13: The characteristic of film are not only based on how an actor presents him or herself to the camera but also the ways in which through the camera, a person can represent his or her environment

Point 14: One of the foremost tasks of art has always been the creation of demand that can only be satisfied later

Pont 15: The mass is a matrix towards which all traditional behaviour towards works fo art issues today in a new form

Benjamin THESIS: THE FILM MAKES THE CULT VALUE RECEDE in to the background not only by putting the public in the position of the critic but also by the fact that at the movies this position requires no attention. The public is an examiner, but an absent minded one