The Dissipating Aura of Cinema

Abstract

In the “The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproducibility,” Walter Benjamin predicted the decline in aura of the art object.  This paper argues that in fact, cinema, as film, remained precious and original, hard to reproduce and distribute, retaining cult-value. Only now, with the introduction of digital and computer technologies, have Benjamin’s expectations of cinema come to fruition.  Benjamin discusses two characteristics of art objects that change under conditions of reproducibility. The first is the reduction of the primacy of the original.  According to Benjamin, previous to mechanical reproduction, the original was the prerequisite to the concept of authenticity.  Reproducibility makes the copy independent of the original, thus reducing the primacy of the original. This paper will argue how, increasingly, the ease of digital storage, reproduction, manipulation, and distribution threatens the concept of an “original” and therefore the aura of cinematic objects as representational artworks. The second characteristic is the mobility of the copy.  This mobility of the copy allows it to be experienced in different and unanticipated ways, modifying the way cinematic artworks “take place.”  Digitization takes this mobility to new levels; thus in the digital age our exposure to moving images becomes increasingly ubiquitous.  This paper will examine in greater detail how this ubiquity changes the experience of cinema. The paper examines the characteristics Benjamin prematurely attributed to the reproducible filmic art object and how the “tremendous shattering of tradition,” which he described is beginning as movies morph from ritual art objects to tele-cultural forms with new expectations and experiences.