Ramos, Cris Angelo D.

Art Appreciation

BSMA 1-11

The movie is titled Vivre sa Vie or My Life to Live. Vivre sa Vie is directed by Jean-Luc Godard.
The movie is about the life of Nana, played by Godard’s spouse, Anna Karina. Nana shows the
life of a prostitute who wants to be an actress and be stable in terms of money. The movie has 12
parts, with different scenarios and settings but still revolves about Nana’s life.

Based on Walter Benjamin and his work, The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical
Reproduction, one of the affected art in losing their sense of “aura” is a film. It is true that in film
and in photography, the cameraman only directs us to a single part of the picture and uses a load
of pictures and a ton of edits to be aesthetically pleasing, but it didn’t show us the true side or
story of the whole picture. In case of the film, there is still aura contained in it. Film’s sense of
aura is forced or strained unlike to the earlier art forms whose aura is natural.

In the case of Vivre sa Vie, there are many camera angles, shots, difference in settings
pictures, lightings and other equipment, to just obtain the beauty or the message what the director
wants the viewers to receive. It seems that with all of the elements said above, the aura is slowly
diminishing until it’s lost. Since the aura in satge plays and films are emanated usually on the
actors, unlike in stage plays that aura stays with their actors, the actor’s aura in the said movie is
dropping as with the different shots of pictures of the actors are made. With this pictures, the
authenticity of the art of acting is vanished. It just feel like an old movie without any significance
on it, unlike with stage play that has no cuts, edits, etc. the uniqueness of their act emerges.