week six response
In this week’s reading I found myself disagreeing with the author at one point. In The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction, the author says, “The artistic performance of a stage actor is definitely presented to the public by the actor in person; that of the screen actor, however, is presented by a camera, with a twofold consequence. The camera that presents the performance of the film actor to the public need not respect the performance as an integral whole. Guided by the cameraman, the camera continually changes its position with respect to the performance. The sequence of positional views which the editor composes from the material supplied him constitutes the completed film.” (Benjamin 6) This section of the reading made me uneasy as it seems to demote the importance of a film actor to a film versus a stage actor to a play. The statement “The artistic performance… of the screen actor is presented by the camera,” seems harsh and inaccurate. The camera and editing system are simply tools of the film medium just as a stage and theater are to a play. Although it does require skilled operators in the making of a film to get a good actor’s performance across well these operators can’t cover a up the performance of a poor actor just like the in theater.
I don’t disagree entirey with the author in the this reading or even section. I do feel that certain statements are to thin and not defended well from different perspectives.
-Ian Harrison
