Benjamin WorkofArt

The true is what he can; the false is what he wants.
-- M ADAME DE DURAS1
T h e W o r k o f A r t in t h e A g e o f
I t s T e c h n o lo g ic a l R e p r o d u c ib ilit y
SECOND VERSION
W hen M ar x u n der took his a n alysis o f t h e c ap italist m ode o fp r o d u c tion ,

th at m ode was in its in fan cy.2 M ar x ad opt ed an ap pr oach w h ich gave his
in vestigation s pr ogn ost ic value. Goin g back to the basic con dition s o f
capit alist pr od u ct ion , he presen ted th em in a w ay w h ich sh ow ed w h at
could be expected of cap it alism in the future. W h a t could be expected, it
em erged, w as n ot on ly an in creasin gly h arsh exp loitation of th e proletar-
iat but, ultim ately, th e creation o f con dition s w h ich w ou ld m ak e it p o ssi
ble fo r cap it alism to abolish itself.
Since the tr an sfor m at ion of the su perstru ctu re pr oceeds far m ore
slow ly th an th at of th e base, it h as tak en m ore th an h alf a cen tury fo r the
ch an ge in the con dition s of produ ction to be m an ifested in all areas of
culture. H ow th is p r ocess h as affected cu lture can on ly n ow be assessed,
an d th ese assessm en ts m u st m eet certain p r ogn ostic requ irem en ts. Th ey
do n ot, h ow ever, call for th eses on the ar t of the p r olet ar iat after its sei-
zure of pow er, an d still less fo r an y on th e ar t o f the ctassless society. Th ey
call for th eses defin in g th e ten den cies of the developm en t of a r t un der the
presen t con dition s of produ ction . Th e dialectic of th ese con d ition s of
produ ction is eviden t in the su perstr u ctu re, n o less th an in th e econ om y.
Th eses defin in g the developm en tal ten den cies of ar t can th erefore con-
tribute to th e political stru ggle in w ays th at it w ould be a m istake to un-
19
20 PRODUCTION, R E P R O D U C T I O N , AND RECEPT I ON
derestim ate. Th ey n eu tralize a n u m ber o f tradition al con cepts— su ch as

creativity an d gen ius, eter n al valu e an d m ystery— w h ich , u sed in an un-
con trolled w ay (an d con tr ollin g th em is difficult today), allow factu al
m aterial t o be m an ipu lated in th e in terests o f fascism . [n w h at follow s,
th e con cepts w h ich are in trodu ced in to th e th eory o f art differ from th ose
n ow cu rren t in th at th ey are com pletely u seless for th e p u rp oses o f f as
cism . On the oth er h an d, th ey are u sefu l fo r th e form u lation o f rév olu -
tion ary d em an ds in the polit ics o f art [Ku n st politik \.
II
In prin ciple, the w or k o f art h as alw ays been repr odu cible. O b jects m ade
by h u m an s cou ld alw ays be copied by h u m an s. Replicas were m ade by
pupils in pr acticin g for th eir cr aft, by m aster s in d issem in atin g their
w orks, an d, finally, by th ird parties in pu r su it o f profit. But the tech n o
logical r epr od u ct ion of ar t w or k s is som et h in g new. H avin g ap p ear ed in-
term itten tly in h istory, at w idely spaced in tervals, it is n ow bein g ad op t ed
w ith ever-in creasin g in ten sity. Gr aph ic ar t w as fir st m ad e tech n ologically
reprodu cible by the w ood cu t , lon g before w ritten lan gu age becam e re
produ cible by m ovable type. Th e en or m ou s ch an ges br ou gh t ab ou t in
literature by m ovab le type, the tech n ological r eprodu ction o f w ritin g,
are w ell kn ow n . But th ey are on ly a special case, th ou gh an im por t an t
one, of th e ph en om en on con sider ed h ere from th e perspective o f w orld
h istory. In th e cou r se of th e M id d le Ages th e w ood cu t w as supplem en ted
by en gravin g an d etch in g, an d at the begin n in g of th e n in eteen th cen tury
by lith ograph y.
Lith ogr aph y m arked a fu n dam en tally n ew stage in th e tech n ology of
reprodu ction . Th is m u ch m ore direct p r ocess— distin gu ish ed by th e fact
th at the dr aw in g is traced on a ston e, r ath er th an in cised on a block of
w ood or etch ed on a copper plate— first m ade it possible for gr ap h ic art
to m ar ket its p r od u ct s n ot on ly in lar ge n u m bers, as previously, but in
daily ch an gin g var iation s. Lith ogr aph y en abled gr ap h ic art to pr ovide an
illu strated accom pan im en t t o everyday life. I t began t o keep pace w ith
m ovable-type prin tin g. But on ly a few decad es after the in ven tion of li
th ograph y, gr aph ic ar t w as su r p assed by ph otogr aph y. For th e first tim e,
ph ot ogr aph y freed th e h an d from th e m ost im portan t artistic task s in the
process of pictor ial r epr od u ct ion — t ask s th at n ow devolved upon th e eye
alon e. An d since th e eye perceives m ore sw iftly than th e h an d can draw,
th e process of pictor ial r epr od u ct ion was en or m ou sly accelerated, so th at
T HE W O R K OF ART: S E C O N D V E R S I O N 21
it cou ld n ow keep pace w ith speech . Ju st as th e illu strated n ew spaper vir-

tu ally lay h idden within lith ograph y, so the sou n d film w as laten t in ph o
tograph y. Th e t ech n ological reprod u ction of sou n d w as tackled at the
en d o f th e last cen tury. A rou n d 1900, tech n ological reprodu ction n ot
on ly h ad reach ed a st an d ard th at perm itted it t o reprodu ce all k n ow n
w ork s o f art, p rofou n d ly m od ify in g th eir effect, bu t it also h ad captu red
a place o f it s ow n am o n g th e art ist ic processes. In gau gin g th is stan d ard ,
w e w ou ld do w ell to study the im p act w hich its tw o differen t m an ifest a
tion s— the reprod u ction o f art w ork s an d the art o f film — are h av in g on
art in its trad it ion al form .
Ill
In even th e m ost perfect r epr od u ct ion , on e th in g is lack in g: the h ere an d

now o f the w or k of art— its un iqu e existen ce in a par ticu lar p lace . It is
th is un iqu e existen ce— an d n oth in g else— th at bears th e m ark o f th e his-
to ry to wh ich th e w or k h as been s u bj ect. Th is h isto ry in cludes ch an ges to
th e ph ysical stru ctu re o f the w or k over tim e, togeth er w ith an y ch an ges
in ow n ersh ip. Traces o f th e for m er can be detected on ly by ch em ical or
ph ysical an alyses (w h ich can n ot be perfor m ed on a reprod u ction ), w h ile
ch an ges of ow n ersh ip are par t of a tradition which can be traced only
from the st an d p oin t of the or igin al in its presen t location .
Th e h ere an d n ow o f th e or igin al un derlies the con cep t of its auth en -
ticity, an d on the latter in turn is fou n ded the idea o f a tradition w h ich
h as passed the ob ject dow n as the sam e, iden tical th in g to the pr es
ent day. T h e w h ole sph ere o f au th en ticity e/udes tech n ological— an d o f
course n ot on ly tech n ological— reprodu ct ion . But w h ereas th e auth en tic
w or k retain s its full au th ority in the fa ce o f a repr odu ction m ade by
h an d, w h ich it gen erally br an ds a forgery, th is is n ot th e case w ith tech n o
logical reprodu ct ion . Th e r eason is t w o fold . First, tech n ological r e p r o
du ction is m ore in depen den t of the or igin al th an is m an u ai reprodu ction .
For exam p le, in p h ot ogr ap h y it can br in g ou t aspects of th e origin al th at
are accessible on ly to th e lens (w h ich is ad ju st ab le an d can easily ch an ge
view poin t) but n ot t o th e h u m an eye; or it can use certain pr ocesses, such
as en largem en t or slow m otion , to record im ages w h ich escape n atu ral
optics altogeth er. Th is is th e first reason . Secon d, tech n ological r epr od u c
tion can place th e copy o f th e or igin al in situ at ion s wh ich the or igin al it
self can n ot attain . Above all, it en ables the origin al to m eet th e recipien t
h alfw ay, w h eth er in the for m o f a p h ot ogr a p h or in th at of a gr am o p ho ne
22 P R O D U C T I O N , R E P R O D U C T I O N , AND RECEPTI ON
record. Th e cath edr al leaves its site to be received in th e studio o f an art

lover; th e ch oral w ork perfor m ed in an au d it or iu m or in th e open air is
en joyed in a pr ivat e r oom .
Th ese ch an ged circu m st an ces m ay leave the ar t w or k ’s oth er properties
u n tou ch ed, but th ey certain ly devalu e the h ere an d n ow of the artw ork.
An d alt h ou gh th is can apply n ot on ly t o ar t b u t (say) t o a lan d scape
m ovin g p ast the sp ect at or in a film, in the w ork of art th is pr ocess
touch es on a h ighly sen sitive core, m ore vu ln erable th an th at of an y n atu-
ral object. Th at cor e is its auth en ticity. Th e au th en ticity o f a th in g is the
qu in tessen ce o f all th at is tran sm issib le in it from its origin on, ran g-
in g fr om its ph ysical du r ation to th e h istorical testim on y relatin g to it.
Sin ce th e h istorical testim on y is fou n ded on th e ph ysical d u r ation , th e
former, too, is jeopar d ized by r epr od u ct ion , in w h ich th e ph ysical d u r a
tion p lays n o part. An d w h at is really jeop ar d ized wh en th e h istorical t es
tim on y is affected is th e au th or ity o f th e ob ject , th e w eigh t it derives from
tradit ion .
O n e m igh t focu s th ese aspects o f the ar tw or k in th e con cept of the
au r a, an d go on to say: w h at w ith ers in the age of the tech n ological
reprodu cibilit y o f th e w ork o f ar t is th e latter’s au r a. Th is p r ocess is
sym p t om at ic; its sign ifican ce exten ds far beyon d the realm o f art. It
m igh t be stated as a gen eral fo rm u la th at th e tech n ology o f reprodu ction
detach es th e reprod u ced ob ject from th e sph ere o f tradition . By replicat-
in g th e w ork m an y tim es over, it su b st it u t es a m ass ex isten ce f o r a un iqu e
existen ce. A n d in perm ittin g th e reprod u ct ion t o reach th e recipien t in his
or h er ow n situ ation , it actu aliz es th at w hich is reprodu ced. Th ese tw o
processes lead to a m assive u ph eaval in th e dom ain of objects h an ded
dow n fr om th e p ast — a sh atterin g of tr ad it ion w h ich is th e reverse side of
th e presen t crisis an d ren ew al o f h um an ity. Both pr ocesses are in tim ately
related to th e m ass m ovem en ts of our day. Th eir m ost pow erfu l agen t is
film. T h e social sign ifican ce o f film , even — an d especially— in its m ost
positive for m , is in con ceivable w it h ou t its destru ctive, cath artic side: the
liqu idation of the valu e of tr adition in the cu ltural h eritage. Th is phe-
n om en on is m ost ap p ar en t in the gr eat h istorical films. It is assim ilatin g
ever m ore advan ced posit ion s in its spread . W h en Abel Gan ce ferven tly
pr oclaim ed in 1927, “ Sh ak esp ear e, Rem b r an d t, Beeth oven will m ake
film s. . . . All legen ds, all m yth ologies, an d all m yth s, all th e fou n ders of
religion s, in deed, all r eligion s, . . . aw ait their celluloid resu rrection , an d
the h eroes are pressin g at the gat e s,'’ he w as in vitin g th e reader, n o dou bt
u n aw ar es, to w itn ess a com preh en sive liq u id at ion .3
IV
Ju st as the en tire m od e o f existen ce o f h u m an collectiv es ch an ges ov er

lon g h istorical p eriod s, so too d oes th eir m ode o f perception . Th e w ay in
w h ich h um an perception is or gan ized — th e m ediu m in w h ich it occu r s—
is con dition ed not on ly by n ature bu t by h istory. The era of the m igr a
tion o f peoples, an er a w h ich saw t h e rise of th e late-Rom an ar t in du stry
an d th e Vien n a Gen esis, developed n ot on ly an art differen t from t h at of
an tiqu ity bu t also a differen t perception . Th e sch olar s o f th e Vien n ese
sch ool Riegl an d W ickh off, r esistin g th e w eigh t o f th e classical tradition
ben eath w h ich this ar t h ad been buried, were th e first to th ink of u sin g
such ar t to dr aw con clu sion s ab ou t the or gan izat ion of percept ion at the
tim e th e art w as p r od u ced .4 H ow ever far-reach in g th eir in sigh t, it w as
lim ited by the fact th at th ese sch olars w ere con ten t to h igh ligh t th e fo r
m ai sign ature w h ich ch ar acter ized perception in late-Rom an tim es. Th ey
did n ot attem pt to sh ow th e social u ph eavals m an ifested in th ese ch an ges
in perception — an d per h aps cou ld n ot have h oped to do so at th at time.
Today, the con d ition s fo r an an alogou s in sigh t are m or e favor ab le. A n d if
ch an ges in the m ediu m of presen t-day perception can be u n d er st ood as a
decay o f the au r a, it is possible to d em on strate th e social deter m in an ts of
th at decay.
W h at, th en , is the au r a? A str an ge tissue of sp ace an d tim e: th e un ique
appar ition o f a distan ce, h ow ever n ear it m ay be.5 To follow w ith the
eye— wh ile restin g on a sum m er after n oon — a m ou n tain ran ge on the h o
rizon or a bran ch th at casts its sh ad ow on th e beh older is to breath e th e
au ra o f th ose m ou n t ain s, o f th at bran ch . In th e ligh t o f th is descr iption ,
w e can readily gr asp the social basis o f th e a u r a ’s p r ese n t decay. It rests
on tw o circu m st an ces, both lin ked to the in cr easin g em ergen ce of the
m asses an d the gr ow in g in ten sity o f th eir m ovem en ts. N am ely: the desire
o f th e presen t-day m asses to “get closer” to th in gs, an d th eir equ ally pas-
sion ate con cern f o r ov ercom in g each th in g's u n iqu en ess [ O berw in dun g
d es Ein m aligen jed er Gegeben h eit] by assim ilat in g it as a reprodu ction .
Every day th e urge gr ow s stron ger to get h old o f an ob ject at close ran ge
in an im age [Bild], or, better, in a facsim ile [A bbild], a r eprodu ction . An d
the r eprodu ction [R eprod u k t ion ], as offered by illu strated m agazin es an d
n ew sreels, differs u n m istak ab ly from th e im age. Un iqu en ess an d p er m a
n en ce are as closely en tw in ed in th e latter as are tr an sitor in ess an d re-
peatab ility in th e form er. Th e str ippin g o f th e veil fr om th e object, th e d e
struction o f the aura, is the sign atu re o f a perception w h ose “ sen se fo r all
24 P RODUCTI ON, REPRODUCTI ON, AND RECEPTI ON
th at is the sam e in th e w o r ld ” 6 h as so inc reased th at, b y m ean s o f repro-

d uction , it ext r acts sam en ess even fr om w ha t is un iqu e. Th u s is m an i
fested in th e field o f perception w h at in the th eoretical sph ere is n otice-
able in the i nc rea s in g sign i ficance of statistics. Th e a lign m en t of reality
with the m asses and o f the m asses wi th reality is a p r ocess of im m easu r-
able im por t an ce for both th in kin g an d perception .
Th e un iqu en ess of the w ork of ar t is iden tical to its em beddedn ess in

the con text of tra di ti on . O f co urs e, this tr ad it ion itself is th orou gh ly alive
an d extrem ely ch a n geabl e. An an cien t statu e o f Ven us, fo r in sta n ce, ex-
isted in a tra d ition al con text for the Greeks (w h o made it an ob ject
o f w or sh ip ) th at w as differen t fr om the con t ext in w h ich it existed for
m edieval clerics (w h o vie we d it as a sin ister idol). But w h at w as equ ally
eviden t to both w as its u n iqu en ess— th at is, its au r a. O rigin ally, the
em beddedn ess of an ar t w or k in the con text o f tr ad it ion fou n d expr ession
in a cult. As we k no w, the earliest ar tw or k s orig in ated in th e service o f
r itu als— first m agic a l, th en re ligiou s. An d it is h igh ly sign ifica nt th at the
ar t w or k ’s au r atic m ode of existen ce is n ever e n tir el y severed from its rit-
ual fon ction . In oth er w or d s: th e un ique valu e o f th e “au t h e n t ic” w ork o f
art alw ay s h as ifs b asis in ritu al. Th is ritu alistic b asis, h ow ever m ediated
it ma y be, is still recogn izable as secu larized ritu al in even th e m ost p r o
fan e for m s o f the cu lt o f beauty. Th e secu lar w orsh ip of beauty, w h ich de-
veloped d uri ng the Ren aissan ce an d prevai led fo r th ree cen tu ries, clearly
di splayed th at r it u alist ic basis in its su bsequ en t d ecl ine an d in the first se-
vere crisis wh ich befell it. Fo r w h en , with the adven t o f th e firs t tru ly rev-
olu tion ar y m ean s o f r epr od u ct ion (n a me ly ph otograph y, w h ich em erged
at the sam e time as socialism ), ar t felt the ap p r oach of th at crisis w h ich a
cen tu ry later h as becom e u n m istakable, it reacted with the doctrin e o f
l’art p ou r /-'art— th at is, w ith a th eology o f ar t .7 T h is in tu rn gave rise to a
n egative th eology, in the form of an idea o f “p u r e ” ar t, w h ich rejects n ot
on ly an y social fu n ction bu t an y defin ition in term s o f a repr esen tation al
con ten t. (In p oetry, M allar m é w as th e first to ad op t th is st an d p oin t .)8
N o in vestigation o f the w or k o f art in th e age o f its tech n ological
reprodu cibility can over look th ese con n ection s. Th ey lead to a cru cial in
sigh t: for th e first time in w orld h istory, t ech n ological r eprodu cibility
em an cip at es the w ork of ar t from its p a rasi tic subservien ce to ritu al. To
an ever-in creasin g degree, th e w or k reproduce d becom es th e reprodu c -
tion of a w ork design ed for r eprodu cibility.9 Fr om a ph ot ogr aph ie plate,
for exam ple, o ne can m ak e any n um ber of pri n ts; to ask for the “ auth en -
t ic" prin t m akes no sen se. B u t as soon as the criterion o f auth en ticity
ceases to be applied to artistic prod u ction , th e w h ole social fu n ction o f
art is rev olu tion iz ed. In stead o f bein g fou n d ed on ritual, it is based on a
differen t p ractice: politics.
VI
Art h isto ry mi gh t be seen as the w or k i n g out o f a ten sion betw een tw o

po la ri ti es w ith in the ar tw or k itself, its cou r se bein g determ in ed by slift s
in th e balan ce betw een the tw o. Th ese tw o p ôles are th e a r t w or k ’s cult
value an d its exh ib i tion valu e .10 A r t ist ic pr odu ction begin s w ith figures in
th e service o f m agic. W h at is im p or t an t fo r the se figures is t h at th ey are
presen t, n ot th at th ey are seen . Th e elk depicted by Ston e Age man on the
w alls o f h is cave is an in stru m en t o f m agic, an d is exh ibited to oth ers
on ly coin ciden tally; w h a t m atters is th at the spir it s see it. C ult value as
such even ten ds t o keep th e ar tw or k ou t o f sigh t; certain statu es o f god s
are accessible on ly to th e priest in the cella; certain im ages o f th e M a-
don n a rem ain covered n early all year rou n d; certain scu lptu r es on m édi
éval cath ed r als are n ot visible to the vi ewe r at g roun d level. W ith the
ém an cipation o f specific art ist ic pract ices from the serv ice o f ritual, the
opportu n ities f o r ex h ib it in g th eir Jro d u c t s in crease. It is eas ier to exh i bit
a p or t r ait bu st t h at can be sen t here an d there th an to e xh i b it the statu e
o f a divin ity th at h as a fixed place in the in terior o f a tem ple. A pan el
pain tin g can be exh ibit ed m ore easily th an th e m osaic or fresco which
preceded it. An d alth ou gh a m ass m ay h ave been n o less s u i te d to public
pr esen tation th an a sym ph on y, th e sym ph on y cam e in to bein g at a time
w h en the poss ibi lity of su ch presen tation pr om ised to be greater.
Th e scop e for e xh i bi ti n g the w ork of art h as in creased so e n orm o us ly
with the var iou s m eth ods of tech n ologically r epr odu cin g i t th at, as h ap-
pened in preh istoric tim es, a qu an titative sh ift betw een th e tw o poles o f
th e ar t w or k h as led to a qu alitative tr an sfor m at ion in its n ature. Ju st as
the w ork of art in preh i s to ric tim es, th rough the exclu sive e m ph asi s
placed on its cu lt value, becam e first and for em ost an in strum en t of
m agic wh ich on ly later cam e t o be reco gn ized as a w or k o f a r t, so tod ay,
th r o ugh th e exclu sive em ph asis placed on its exh i b iti on valu e, th e w ork
o f art becom es a co n s tru ct [GebildeJ w ith qu ite n e w fu ncti o n s. Am on g
th ese, the one we are con sciou s o f— the ar tistic fu n ction — m ay subse-
quen tly be seen as i nc i den ta l. Th is m uch is certain : tod ay, film is the m ost
serviceable veh icle of this n ew un derstan din g. Cer t ain , as w ell, is the fact
26 P R O D U CTI O N , R E P R O D U CTI O N , A N D R ECE PTI O N
th at th e h istorical m om en t of th is ch an ge in the fu n ctio n of art— a c han ge

w h ich is m ost fu lly eviden t in the case o f film— allow s a direct com pari-
son with the prim e val era o f art n ot on ly fr om a me th od ologica l but also
fr om a m a terial poin t of view.
Preh ist oric art m ade use of certain fixed n ot at ion s in th e service of
m agical practice. In s o m e cases, th ese n o ta t ion s p r ob ab ly com p ri sed the
actu al p cr form in g of m agical acts (the carvin g o f an an cestr al figure is it
self such an act); in oth ers, they gave in stru ction s for such procédu res
(the an cestral figure d em on st r at es a ritual p ost u r e ); an d in stiü oth ers,
they provided object s for m agical con tem pl ati o n (con te m plation of an
an cestr al figure stren gth en s t he occu lt pow ers of the beh older). The sub-
jects for th ese n ot at ion s w ere h um an s an d th eir en viron m en t, w h ich were
de pict ed a cco rd in g to the r equ irem en ts of a s ociety w h ose tech n o logy ex-
isted on ly in fu sio n w ith rit u a l. C om p are d to th at of the m ach in e age, of
cou r se, th is tech n ology w as u n d evelop ed . But fr om a dialectical stan d-
poin t, the dis parity is u n im por tan t. W h at m atters is th e way th e or ien t a
tion an d aim s of th at tech n o logy differ from t h ose o f ou r s. W h ereas the
form er m ade th e m axim u m p oss ible use of h u m an b ein gs, th e latter re
duce s th eir use to th e m in im um . Th e ach ievem en ts o f the first tech n ology
m igh t be said to cu lm in a te in h u m an s acrifi ce; t h ose of th e seco n d, in th e
rem ote-con troll ed air cr aft w h ich n eeds n o h u m an c rew. Th e resu lts of th e
first tech n ology are valid o n ce an d for all (it d eals w ith ir réparable lapse
or s acrificial death , w h ich h olds good for etern ity ). Th e resu lts o f th e sec
on d ar e w h oIly p r ovision al (it oper atcs by m ean s o f experim en ts an d
en d LessJy varied test pr océdu res). Th e origin of th e secon d tech n ology lies
at the poin t w h ere, by an u n con sciou s ru se, h u m an b e in gs first began to
distan ce th em selves from n atu re. It lies, in oth er w or d s, in play.
Seriou sn ess and pl a y, rigor an d l icen se, are m in gled in every w ork o f
ar t, th ough in very differen t p r op or t ion s. Th is im plies th at art is lin ked to
both the secon d and the first tech n ologies. It sh ou ld be n oted, h owever,
t h at to descri be the goal of th e secon d tech n ology as “m astery over n a
tu re” is h igh ly qu est ion ab le, sin ce th is im plies view in g the secon d tech-
n olo gy from the stan d poin t of the first. Th e first tech n ology re ally so ugh t
to m aster n atu re, w h ereas th e secon d aim s r ath er at an i nter p lay betw een
n ature an d h um an ity. Th e pr im ar y social fu n ction o f art t o d a y is to re-
h earse th at in terplay. Th is applies es peci ally to film. T h e fu n ction o f film
is to train h u m an bein gs in the apperception s an d react ion s n eeded to
deal w ith a v ast ap p arat u s w h ose ro/e in th eir lives is ex pan d in g alm ost
daily. Dealin g w ith thi s ap p ar at u s also teach es th em th a t tech n ology will
release th em fr om their ens la vem en t to th e p ow er s o f th e ap p a r atu s o nly
when h u m an ity’s w h ole con stitu tion h as ad ap t ed it self to the new p r o

ductive forces w h ich the secon d tech n ology h as set fr e e.L1
VII
In ph otograph y , ex h ibitio n v alu e begin s to driv e back cu lt value on all

fro n t s. But cu lt value does n ot give w ay w ith ou t resistan ce. It falls back
to a last en tren ch m en t: th e h u m an cou n ten an ce. It is no acciden t th at the
por t r ait is cen tral to early ph otograph y. In the cu lt of rem em bran ce of
dead or ab sen t loved on es, th e cu lt value o f the im age fin ds its last refuge.
In the fleetin g expr ession of a h um an face, the au r a beckon s from early
ph ot ogr ap h s fo r th e last tim e. Th is is w h at gives th em th eir m elan ch oly
an d in com par able beauty. Bu t as the h u m an bein g w ith dr aw s from the
ph otogr aph ie im age, exh ibition value for the first tim e sh ow s its superi-
ority to cult value. To h ave given th is developm en t its local h abitation
con stitu tes the un ique sign ifican ce o f Atget, w h o, ar ou n d 1900, took
p h ot ogr ap h s of deserted F .iris st r eet s.12 It h as ju stly been said th at he
ph ot ogr ap h ed th em like scen es of crim es. A crim e scen e, too, is deserted;
it is ph otogr aph ed for th e pu r pose o f establish in g eviden ce. W ith Atget,
ph ot ogr ap h ic records begin t o be eviden ce in the h istor ical trial [Proz ess].
Th is con stitu tes th eir h idden political sign ifican ce. Th ey dem an d a spe-
cific kin d of r eception . Free-floatin g con tem plat ion is n o lon ger appropri-
ate to th em. Th ey un settle th e view er; he feels ch allen ged to find a partic-
ular w ay to ap p r oach th em. At the sam e time, illu strated m agazin es begin
to put up sign posts for h im — wh eth er th ese are r igh t or w r on g is irrele
vant. For the first time, cap t ion s becom e obligatory. An d it is clear th at
th ey h ave a ch ar acter altogeth er differen t fr om the titles of pain tin gs. Th e
directives given by cap tion s to th ose look in g at im ages in illustrated m ag
azin es soon becom e even m ore precise an d com m an din g in film s, wh ere
the w ay each sin gle im age is u n der stood seems prescribed by the se-
quen ce of all th e precedin g im ages.
VIII
Th e Greeks h ad on ly tw o w ays oft e ch n ologically r epr od u cin g w orks of

art: cast in g an d stam pin g. Br on zes, terra cot tas, an d coin s w ere the only
ar tw or k s th ey cou ld produ ce in large n u m bers. All oth ers w ere un ique
an d cou ld n ot be tech n ologically r epr od u ced . Th at is w h y th ey had to be
m ad e for all eternity. T h e state o f th eir tech n ology com pelled th e Greeks
to prod u ce etern al v alues in th eir art. To th is they ow e their preem in en t
28 P R 0 D U CTI 0 N , R E P R 0 D U CTI 0 N , A N D R ECE PTI 0 N
posit ion in ar t h istory— the st an d ar d for su bsequ en t gén ération s. Un-

dou btedly, ou r position lies at th e op p osite pole fr om th at of th e Greeks.
N ever before h ave ar tw or k s been tech n ologically r eprodu cible to such a
degree an d in such qu an tities as today. Film is the first art form w h ose ar
tistic ch ar acter is en tirely determ in ed by its reproducibility. It w ou ld be
idle to com par e th is for m in detail w ith Gr eek ar t. Bu t on on e precise
p oin t such a com par ison w ou ld be revealin g. For film h as given cru cial
im por t an ce to a quality of th e ar tw or k w h ich w ou ld h ave been th e last
to find ap p r oval am on g the Gr eek s, or w h ich they w ou ld h ave dism issed
as m ar gin al. Th is quality is its capacity for im provem en t. Th e finish ed
film is the e xact an tith esis o f a w or k created at a sin gle strok e. It is assem -
bled fr om a very large n um ber o f im ages an d im age sequen ces th at offer
an array of ch oices to the editor; these im ages, m oreover, can be im-
proved in an y desired w ay in the pr ocess leadin g fr om th e in itial take to
th e fin al cut. To pr od u ce A W om an o f Paris, w h ich is 3,000 m eters lon g,
Ch aplin sh ot 125,000 m eters o f film .13 T h e film is th erefore the artw ork
m ost cap ab le o f im prov em en t. A n d th is capability is lin k ed to it s r adical
ren u n ciation o f etern al v alue. Th is is cor r ob or at ed by the fact th at for the
Greeks, w h ose art depen ded on the pr od u ction of eter n al valu es, the pin-
n acle o f all th e arts w as th e form least cap ab le o f im provem en t— n am ely
scu lptu r e, w h ose p r od u cts are literally all of a piece. In th e age of the as-
sem bled [m on tierbarJ ar tw or k , the declin e of scu lptu re is in evitable.
IX
The n in eteen th -cen tury dispute over th e relative ar tistic m erits of p ain t
ing an d p h otogr aph y seem s m isgu ided and con fu sed t o d ay .14 But this
does not dim in ish its im por t an ce, and m ay even u n derscore it. Th e d is
pute w as in fact an expression o f a w or ld-h istor ical u ph eaval w h ose true
n atu r e w as con cealed fr om both p ar ties. In sofar as th e age of tech n ologi
cal reprodu cibility separ ated art from its basis in cu lt, all sem blan ce of
ar t ’s au t on om y d isappear ed forever. Bu t th e resu ltin g ch an ge in the fun c
tion of ar t lay beyon d th e h orizon o f the n in eteen th cen tury. An d even the
tw en tieth , wh ich saw the developm en t of film, w as slow to perceive it.
T h ou gh com m en tators h ad earlier ex pen d ed m u ch fru itless ing enu-
ity on th e question o f w h eth er p h ot ograp h y w as an art — w ith ou t ask in g
the m ore fu n d am en tal qu estion o f w h eth er the in v en tion o f ph ot ograph y
h ad n ot t ran sform ed the entire ch aracter o f art — film th eorists quick ly
ad op t ed th e sam e ill-con sidered st an d p o in t. But the difficulties wh ich
ph ot ogr aph y cau sed for tr ad it ion al aesth etics were ch ild's play com pared
to th ose presen ted by film. H en ce tlie ob tu se an d h yperbolic ch aracter of

early film th eory. Abel Gan ce, for in stan ce, com par es film to h ieroglyph s:
“By a r em ar k able regression , we ar e tr an sp or ted back to th e expressive
level of th e Egyptian s. . . . P ictorial lan gu age h as n ot m atured, because
ou r eyes are n ot yet adapted to it. Th ere is n ot yet en ou gh respect, not
en ough cu lt , for w h at it e xp r e sse s."15 O r, in th e w or d s o f Séverin -M ars:
“W h at oth er art h as been gran ted a dream . . . at on ce m ore poetic an d
m ore real? Seen in th is ligh t, film m igh t r epr esen t an in com par able m ean s
of exp r ession , an d on ly th e n oblest m in ds sh ou ld m ove within its atm o-
sph er e, in th e m ost perfect an d m ysteriou s m om en ts of th eir lives.” 16 It
is in stru ctive to see h ow th e desire to an n ex film to “ ar t ” im pels these
th eoretician s to attribu te elem en ts of cu lt to film— w ith a str ikin g lack of
discr etion . Yet w h en th ese sp ecu lation s w ere pu blish ed, w orks like A
W om an o f Paris and Th e Gold R u sh h ad alr eady appear ed . Th is did n ot
deter Abel Gan ce fr o m m akin g th e com p ar ison w ith h ieroglyph s, while
Séver in - M ar s sp eak s o f film as on e m igh t speak o f pain tin gs by Fra
A n gelico.17 It is revealin g th at even tod ay especially r eact ion ar y au th ors
look in th e same direction for th e sign ifican ce of film— fin din g, if n ot ac-
tu ally a sacr ed sign ifican ce, then at least a su pern atu r al one. In con n ec
tion w ith M a x Rein h ar d t’s film version o f A M id su m m er N igh t ‘s Dream ,
W erfel com m en ts th at it w as u n dou btedly the sterile copyin g o f th e exter-
n al w or ld— with its streets, in teriors, r ailw ay stat ion s, r estau r an ts, au t o
m obiles, an d beach es— th at h ad preven ted film up to n ow from ascen d-
in g to th e r ealm o f art. “ Film h as n ot yet realized its true p u r p ose, its real
possibilities. . . . Th ese con sist in its un iqu e ability to use n atu ral m ean s
to give in com parably con vin cin g exp r ession t o th e fairylike, th e m arvel-
ou s, th e su pern atu r al. ” 18
To p h ot ogr ap h a pain tin g is one kin d o f r epr od u ct ion , bu t to ph ot ogr aph

an action perform ed in a film studio is an oth er. In th e first case, w h at is
repr od u ced is a w ork o f art, w h ile th e act of pr od u cin g it is not. Th e cam -
er am an ’s perfor m an ce w it h th e len s n o m ore creates an ar tw or k th an a
con d u ct or ’s with the baton ; at m ost, it creates an artistic perform an ce.
Th is is un like the pr ocess in a film stu d io. H er e, w h at is reprodu ced is n ot
an ar t w or k , an d the act of r epr odu cin g it is n o m ore such a w or k th an in
the first case. Th e w ork of ar t is produ ced on ly by m ean s o f m on tage.
And each in dividu al com pon en t o f this m on tage is a r epr odu ction of a
pr ocess w h ich n eith er is an ar tw ork in it self n or gives rise to on e th rough
ph otogr aph y. W h at, th en , are th ese pr ocesses tepr odu ced in film , sin ce
they ar e certa i nly n ot w or k s o f ar t ?
To an sw er th is, we m ust star t fr om the p e c aliar n atu re of the artistic
per for m an ce of th e film a cto r. H e is disti n gu is h ed from th e stage actor in
th at h is perfo rm a nce in its origin al form , from w h ich th e r eprodu ction is
m ad e, is n ot carried o u t in fron t o f a r an d om ly com p osed audien ce but
before a gr ou p o f specialists— execu tive produ cer, director, cin em atogra-
pher, sou n d r ecordist, ligh tin g design er, an d so on — w h o are in a position
to in terven e in his perfor m an ce at an y tim e. Th is aspect o f filrn m akin g is
h igh ly s ign ifican t in socia l term s. For th e in terven tion in a perform an ce
by a body of exper ts is also ch ar acter istic o f spor t in g perfor m an ces an d,
in a wi d e r sen se, of all test p erfor m an ces. Th e e nt ire pr ocess o f film p ro -
d u ction is determ in ed, in fact, by su ch in terven tion . As we kn ow , man y
sh ots ar e fi lmed in a n u mber o f tak es. A sin gle cry fo r h elp, fo r exam pl e,
can be recorde d in several differen t ver sion s. Th e editor th en m a kes a se-
lection fr om th ese; in a s en se, he establish es one o f them as th e record. An
action p e r form ed in th e film stu d io th erefore d iffer s fr om th e corresp ond-
in g real action the w ay the com petitive th row in g of a discu s in a spor ts
aren a w ou ld differ from the th row in g of th e sam e discus from the sam e
spot in th e sam e direction in order to kill som eon e. Th e first is a test per
form an ce, w h ile the secon d is n ot.
Th e test perfor m an ce of the film actor is, h ow ever, en tirely un ique in
ki n d . In w h at does th is perfor m a n c e con sist? It con s ists in crossin g a
certain bar r ier wh ich con fin es th e social valu e of test perform an ces
w ith in n ar r ow lim its. I am referrin g now n ot to a perform an ce in the
w o rld o f sp or t s, but to a p erform an ce prod uced in a m ech an ized test. In a
sen se, th e ath lete is con fron ted on ly by n atu r al tests. H e m easu r es hi ms elf
aga ins t tasks set by n ature, not by equ ipm en t— ap ar t fr om exception a l
cases like N u r m i, w h o w as said to n m again st th e d o c k .13 M ean whi le
the w or k p r ocess, especially sin ce it h as been stan d ardized by the assem -
bly lin e, daily gen erates cou n tless m ech an ized tests. Th ese tests are
perfor m ed u n aw ar es, an d th ose w h o faiJ are exclu ded fr o m th e w ork
process. But th ey are also con du cted open ly, in agen cies for testin g pro-
fession al aptit u d e. In both cases, the test su bject faces th e barrier men-
tion ed above.
Th ese tests, un like th ose in th e w orld o f s po r t s, ar e in cap able o f being
pu blicly exh ibited to the degree on e w ou ld desire. And th is is precisely
w h ere film com es into play. Film m ak es test perform an ces capable o f be
in g exh ibited, by tu rn in g th at ability it self in to a test. Th e film actor per-
for m s not in fron t of an audien ce bu t in fron t of an ap p ar atu s. Th e film
T H E W O R K OF ART : S E C O N D V E R S I O N 31
director occu pies exactly the sam e position as the exam in er in an apti
tude test. To pe rform in th e glar e of arc lam ps wh i le sim u ltane ou s ly
m eetin g th e dem an d s of th e m icr oph on e is a test perform an ce o f the high-
est order. To ac co m p lish it is to preserve on e ’s h um a nity in t h e face of the
ap p ar at u s. In terest in th is perform an ce is wid esp re a d . For th e m ajor ity of
city dw ellers, th rough o ut the w or k day in offices an d fact or ies, have to re-
li n qu ish th eir h um an ity in the face o f an a p p ar a tu s. In the even in g th ese
sam e m a sscs fill the cin em as, to w itn ess the film actor ta k in g reven ge on
th eir beh alf n o t only by assertin g h is hu m an ity (or w h at ap p ear s to th em
as such ) a ga in s t the ap p ara tu s, but by pl acin g th at ap p ar at u s in the ser
vice of h is trium ph .
XI
In the case of film, the fac t th at th e ac to r represen ts som eon e else before
t he audien ce m at ters m uch less th an the fact th at he represen ts h im self
before th e ap p ar at u s. O n e o f th e first to sen se th is tr an sfor m at ion o f the
act or by the tes t perfor m a n ce w as P ir an d ello.20 Th a t his r em ar ks on the
su bj ect in his n ovel Sigir a [Sh oot!l are con fin ed to th e n egative aspects of
th is ch an ge, an d to silen t film only, d oes little t o dim in ish th eir rele
va n ce. For in th is respect, th e sou n d film ch a n ged n oth in g essen tial. W h a t
m atters is th at the actor is perfor m in g for a piece of equ ipm en t— or, in
th e case of so u n d film, for tw o p ieces of equ ipm en t. “Th e film a ctor, ”
Piran dello w rites, “ feels as if exi le d . Exiled n ot only from th e stage but
from his own person . W ith a vagu e u n ease, he sen ses an in explicable
void, stem m in g from the fact th at his body ha s lost its su bstan ce, th at he
h a s been volatilized, s trippe d o f his reality, his life, his voice, th e n o ises he
m akes wh en m ovin g a bout, an d h as been turn ed into a m u te im age that
flickers for a m o m en t on th e screen , th en van ish es in to s ile nc e. . . . Th e
little ap p ar at u s will p la y with his sh ad ow before th e audien ce, an d he
h im self must be con ten t to play before th e ap p ar at u s. ” 21 Th e situ ation
can a lso be ch ar acter ized as follow s : for the first tim e— and th is is the ef
fect of film — the h um an bein g is p laced in a p osit ion w h ere he m ust oper-
ate w ith h is w h ole livin g person , wh ile for goin g its au r a. For the au r a is
boun d to his presen ce in th e h ere an d n ow . Th er e is no facs im iie of the
au r a. Th e au ra su r r ou n d in g M acb eth on the st age can n ot be divorced
from the a ura w h ich , for the li vin g sp ect at or s, su r r ou n d s th e actor wh o
p lays h im. W h at d istin g u ish es th e sh o t in the film stu d io, h owever, is th at
the cam era is su b st itute d for th e audien ce. As a result, the au r a su rrou n d-
ing the actor is dispelled— an d, wi th it, the au r a o f th e figure he por tr a y s.
32 P R 0 D U CTI 0 N , R E P R 0 D U C T I 0 N , A N D R ECE PTI 0 N
It is n ot su r pr isin g th at it sh ou ld be a d r am at ist such as Piran dello

w h o, in reflectin g on th e spécial ch ar acter o f film actin g, in adverten tly
touch es on the crisis n ow affectin g the th eater. In deed, n oth in g con tr ast s
more star k ly w ith a w ork of art com pletely su bject to (or, like film,
foun ded in) tech n ological repr odu ction th an a stage play. An y th orou gh
con sideration w ill con firm th is. Exp er t observers h ave lon g recogn ized
th at, in film , “ th e best effects are alm ost alw ays ach ieved by ‘actin g’ as
little as possible. . . . Th e d evelopm en t,” accor din g to R u d o lf Arn h eim ,
w ritin g in 1932, h as been tow ar d “ usin g th e actor as one o f th e 'p r o p s,’
ch osen for h is typicaln ess an d . . . in troduced in the proper con text. ” 22
Closely bou n d u p with th is developm en t is som eth in g else. The stage ac
t or iden tifies h im self w ith a role. T h e film act o r v ery often is den ied th is
opportun ity . H is perform an ce is by no m ean s a un ified w h ole, but is as-
sem bled from m an y in dividu al perform an ces. A p ar t from in ciden tal con-
cern s ab ou t st u d io ren tal, availab ility o f oth er act or s, scenery, an d so on ,
th ere are elem en tary n ecessities o f th e m ach in ery th at split th e act or ’s
perform an ce in to a series of episodes capable o f bein g assem bled. In p a r
ticular, ligh tin g an d its in stallation requ ire the represen tation o f an ac
tion — wh ich on th e screen ap p ear s as a sw ift, un ified sequ en ce— to be
filmed in a series o f sep ar at e takes, w h ich m ay be sp r ead over h ours in
th e studio. N o t to m en tion th e m or e obviou s effects o f m on tage. A leap
from a w in dow , for exam ple, can be sh ot in the stu dio as a leap from a
scaffold , w h ile the en suin g fall m ay be filmed w eeks later at an ou t d oor
location . An d far m ore p ar ad oxical cases can easily be im agin ed. Let us
assu m e th at an act or is su pposed to be startled by a kn ock at the door.
If his reaction is n ot sat isfactor y, the dir ector can r esort to an expedien t:
he could h ave a sh ot fired w ith ou t w arn in g beh in d th e act or ’s back on
som e oth er occasion when h e h appen s to be in the stu dio. Th e act or ’s
frigh ten ed reaction at th at m om en t could be recorded an d th en edited
in to the film. N ot h in g sh ow s m ore gr aph ically th at art h as escaped the
realm o f “ beautifu l sem b lan ce,” wh ich for so lon g w as regarded as the
on ly sph ere in w h ich it could th rive.2-1
XII
Th e représen tation o f h um an bein gs by m ean s o f an ap p arat u s h as m ade

possib le a h igh ly produ ctiv e use o f th e h um an bein g's self-alien ation . Th e
n ature of th is use can be gr asped th rough th e fact that the film act o r ’s es-
tran gem en t in the face of the ap p ar at u s, as Piran dello describes th is e xp e
rien ce, is basically of the sam e kin d as th e estran gem en t felt before on e’s
T H E W O R K OF ART: S E C O N D V E R S I O N 33
appearan ce [Ersch ein un g] in a m ir r or —a favorite th eme of the Rom an -

tics. Bu t n ow the m ir ror im age [Bild] h as becom e detach able fr o m th e
p er son m irrored, an d is tr an spor table. A n d w h ere is it tr an spor ted ? To a
site in fron t of th e m asses.24 N atu r ally, the screen actor n ever for a m o
m en t ceases to be a w are o f th is. W h ile he stan d s before th e ap pa r a t u s, he
k n ow s th at in th e end he is con fr on tin g th e m asses. It is th ey w h o w ill
con trol h im. Th ose w h o are n ot visible, n ot presen t while he execu tes his
perform an ce, are p recisel y the on es w h o w ill con trol it. Th is inv is ibility
h eigh ten s the auth ority of th eir con tr ol. It sh ould not be forgotten , of
cou rse, th at th ere can be no political ad van tage derived from th is con
tr ol un til film h as liberated it self fr o m th e fetters o f capitalist exp loit a
tion. Film capit al uses th e r evolu t ion ar y oppor tu n ities im plied by th is
con trol for coim ter r evolu tion ary p u r p oses. N o t on ly does the cu lt of the
m ovie star which it fosters preserve th at m agic of the person ality w h ich
h as lon g been n o m ore th an th e pu tr id m agic of it s ow n com m odity ch ar
acter, but its cou n ter part , th e cult of th e audien ce, rein forces th e cor r u p
tion b y w h ich fascism is seekin g t o s u ppla nt th e class con sciou sn ess of
th e m asses.25
XIII
It is in h eren t in th e tech n ology of film , as of sp or t s, t h at everyon e w h o

w itn esses th ese perfor m an ces does so as a qu asi-expert. An yon e w h o h as
listen ed t o a gr ou p of n ew spaper boys lean in g on th eir bicycles and dis-
cu ssin g the ou tcom e o f a bicycle race w ill h ave an in klin g o f this. In
th e case of film, the n ew sreel d em on st r ates un equivocally th a t any in di
vidual can be in a posit ion to be filmed. B ut th at possibility is n ot en ough .
A n y person today can lay d aim to bein g film ed. Th is claim can best be
clarified by con siderin g the h istorical sit u at ion of literature today.
For cen turies it w as in the n ature of literature th at a sm all n um ber of
w riters con fron ted m an y th ou san d s of reader s. Th is bega n to ch an ge t o
w ard th e en d o f the p ast century. W ith th e grow th an d exten sion o f th e
press, w h ich con st an tly m ade n ew political, religiou s, scien tific, profes-
sion al, an d local jou r n als available to r ead er s, an in creasin g n u m ber of
reader s— in isolated cases, at first— turned in to w riters. It began with th e
space set aside for “letters t o the ed it or ” in the daily press, an d h as n ow
reach ed a poin t w h ere th ere is h ardly a Eu ropean en gaged in the w ork
process w h o cou ld n ot, in prin ciple, find an oppor tu n ity to pu blish som e-
wh ere or oth er an accou n t of a w ork experien ce, a com plain t, a report,
or som eth in g o f th e kin d. Th u s, th e distin ction between au t h or an d p u b
34 P R 0 DU CTI 0 N , R E P R 0 D U CTI 0 N , A N D R ECE PTI 0 N
lie is abou t to lose its axiom at ic ch aracter. Th e différen ce becom es func-

tion al; it m ay vary from case to case. At an y m om en t, the r ead er is ready
to becom e a writer. As an exp er t — wh ich he h as h ad to becom e in an y
case in a h igh ly specialized w or k p r o cess, even if on ly in som e m in or
capacit y— the r ead er gain s access t o au t h or sh ip . W ork itself is given a
voice. An d the ability to describe a job in w ords now form s p ar t o f th e
expertise n eeded to carry it out. Liter ar y com peten ce is n o lon ger
foun ded on sp eci a lize d h igh er education bu t on po lytech n ic tr ain in g, an d
th us is com m on property.
All th is can readily be applied to film, w h ere sh ifts th at in litera
ture took pl a ce over cen turies h ave occurred in a decade. In cin em atic
pr actice— above all, in Ru ssia— th is sh ift h as a lr ea dy been p a r tly real-
ized. Som e of th e actors takin g part in Ru ssian film s are n ot actor s in ou r
sen se but people w h o p o rtray th em selv es—an d prim arily in th eir ow n
w or k p r ocess. In w estern Eu rope today, th e capit alist exploitation o f
film obstru cts th e h u m an bein g's legitim ate ciaim to being reprodu ced.
Th e claim is also ob st r u ct ed , in ciden tally, b y un em ploym en t, w h ich ex-
cludes large m asses from pr od u cti o n— th e pr ocess in which th eir pri-
m ary en titlem en t to be rep rodu ce d w ou ld lie. Un der th ese circu m stan ces,
the film in du stry h as an over ri d in g in terest in stim ulatin g th e in volve
ment o f the m asses th ro ugh i l lusi on a ry d isplays an d am b igu ou s s p ec ul a -
tion s. T o t his end it h as set in m otion an im m en se publicity m ach in e, in
the service of w h ich it h as piaced the careers an d love lives of the st ar s;
it h as organ ized poils; it h as h eld beauty c o n tests. All th is in or d er to d is
tort an d cor ru pt th e o ri g in ai an d justified in terest o f the m asses in film—
an i n terest in u n der st an din g th em selves an d th erefore th eir class. Th u s,
th e sam e is t r u e of film capit al in p ar t icu lar as of fascism in gen eral:
a com pellin g urge t ow ar d n ew social opportu n ities is bein g clan destin ely
exploited in th e in terests of a pr operty-ow n in g m in ority. For th is rea
son alon e, th e expr opr iation o f film capital is an urgen t dem an d for the
proletariat.
XIV
The sh ootin g o f a film , especially a sou n d fiim , offers a h ith erto un im ag-
in a bl e spectacle. It presen ts a pr ocess in w h ich it is im possible to assign
to th e sp ect at or a sin gle view poin t w h ich w ou ld exclu de from h is or
her field o f vision th e equ ipm en t n ot di rectl y in volved in th e action be
ing film ed—th e cam er a, the ligh tin g un its, th e tech n ical crew, and so
forth (un less the a lign m en t of th e sp ect at or 's pu pil coin cided with th at of
the cam era). Th is circu m stan ce, m ore th an an y other, m ak es an y resem-

blan ce between a scen e in a film stu dio an d on e on stage superficial an d ir
relevan t. In prin ciple, the th eater in cludes a position from w h ich th e ac
tion on th e st age can n ot easily be detected as an illusion . Th ere is n o such
p os ition w h ere a film is bein g sh ot. Th e illu sory n ature o f film is o f the
secon d degree; it is th e resu lt of editin g. Th at is to say: In th e film stu dio
the ap p arat u s h as pen etrated so deeply in to reality th at a pu re view o f
th at reality , free o f th e foreign b od y o f equ ipm en t, is the resu lt o f a spe-
cial procedu re— n am ely , th e sh oot in g by the specially ad ju st ed p h o t o
graph ie dev ice an d th e assem b ly o f th at sh ot w ith oth ers o f th e sam e
k ind. Th e equipm en t-free aspect o f reality has h ere becom e th e h eigh t of
artifice, an d the vision of im m ediate reality the Blue Flow er in th e lan d of
tech n ology. 26
Th is st at e of affair s, w h ich con tr asts so sh ar ply w ith th at w h ich ob-
tain s in the th eater, can be com pared even m ore in structively to th e sit u a
tion in pain tin g. H er e w e h ave to pose th e qu estion : H o w does the cam
era op er at or com pare w ith th e pain ter? In an sw er to th is, it w ill be
h elpful t o con sider the con cept o f th e o p e r at o r as it is fam iliar to us from
surgery. Th e su r geon represen ts th e p olar opposit e of the m agician . Th e
attitu de of th e m agician , w h o h eals a sick person by a layin g-on of h an ds,
differs from th at o f the su rgeon , w h o m ak es an in terven tion in th e p a
tien t. Th e m agician m ain tain s the n atu r al distan ce betw een h im self an d
the person treated; m ore precisely, h e reduces it sligh tly by layin g on h is
h an ds, bu t in creases it greatly by his auth ority. Th e su r geon does exactly
th e reverse: he gr eatly dim in ish es the distan ce fr o m th e patien t by pene-
tratin g the p at ien t ’s body, an d in creases it on ly sligh tly by the caution
w ith wh ich his h an d m oves am on g th e or gan s. In sh or t: un like th e m agi
cian (traces o f w h om are still fou n d in the m édical pr actition er), th e su r
geon ab st ain s at the decisive m om en t from con fron tin g his pat ien t person
to person ; in stead, he pen etrates th e patien t by op er atin g.— M agician is
to surgeon as pain ter is to cin em atograph er. Th e pain ter m ain tain s in h is
w ork a n atu r al distan ce from reality, w h er eas th e cin em atogr aph er pen e
trates deeply in to its tissue. Th e im ages obtain ed by each differ enor-
mously. Th e p ain ter ’s is a total im age, w h ereas th at o f the cin em atogr a
ph er is piecem eal, its m an ifold par ts bein g assem bled accor d in g to a n ew
law. H en ce, th e presen tation o f reality in film is in com parably the m ore
sign ifican t f o r people o f today , sin ce it prov id es th e equ ipm en t-free aspect
o f reality th ey are en titled to dem an d from a w ork o f ar t , an d does so
precisely on th e b asis o f the m ost in ten sive in terpen etration o f reality
w ith equipm en t.
36 PRODUCTION, R E P R O D U C T I O N , A ND R E C E P T I O N
xv
Th e tech n ological reprodu cibility o f the artw ork ch an ges th e relation o f

the m asses to art. The extrem ely back w ard attitu de t ow ard a Picasso
pain tin g ch an ges in to a h igh ly p rogressiv e reaction to a Ch aplin -fi.lm. Th e
progressive attitu de is ch aracterized by an im m ediate, in tim ate fu sion o f
pleasu r e— p leasu r e in seein g an d experien cin g— with an attitu de of ex
pert ap p r aisal. Such a fusion is an im por tan t social in dex. As is clearly
seen in th e case of pain tin g, th e m ore reduced the social im pact o f an art
for m , th e m or e w idely criticism an d en joym en t of it diverge in th e public.
Th e con ven tion al is un critically en joyed, wh ile th e truly n ew is criticized
with aver sion . N o t so in the cin em a. Th e decisive reason fo r th is is th at
n ow h ere m ore th an in th e cin em a are th e r eaction s o f in dividu als, w h ich
togeth er m ak e up the m assive reaction o f the au dien ce, determ in ed by the
im m in en t con cen tr at ion of reaction s in to a m ass. N o soon er are th ese re
action s m an ifest th an th ey r egu late on e an oth er. Again , the com p ar ison
with pain tin g is fru itfu l. A pain tin g h as alw ays exerted a claim to be
view ed pr im ar ily by a sin gle person or by a few. Th e sim u ltan eou s view-
in g of pain tin gs by a lar ge au dien ce, as h appen s in the nin eteen th century,
is an early sym ptom of th e crisis in pain tin g, a crisis triggered n ot on ly by
ph otogr aph y bu t, in a relatively in depen den t way, by th e ar tw or k's claim
to the atten tion o f th e m asses.
Pain tin g, by its n atu re, can n ot provide an object of sim u ltan eou s col
lective reception , as arch itecture h as alw ays been able to do, as th e epic
poem could d o at on e tim e, an d as film is able to do today. An d alth ough
direct con clu sion s ab o u t th e social role of pain tin g can n ot be d r aw n from
th is fact alon e, it d oes have a str on gly adverse effect w h en ever pain tin g
is led by spécial circum stan ces, as if again st its n atu re, to con fr on t the
m asses directly. In th e ch urch es an d m on ast er ies of the M iddle Ages, and
at the prin cely cou r ts up to abou t the en d of the eigh teen th century,
the collective reception o f pain tin gs took place n ot sim u ltan eou sly but
in a m an ifoldly gr ad u at ed an d h ierarch ically m ediated way. If th at has
ch an ged, the ch an ge testifies t o th e spécial con flict in wh ich pain tin g h as
become en m esh ed by the tech n ological r eprodu cibility of th e im age. An d
w h ile effor t s h ave been m ade to presen t pain tin gs to tlie m asses in galler-
ies an d salon s, th is m ode of reception gives the m asses no m ean s of orga-
n izin g an d r egu latin g th eir respon se. Th u s, th e sam e public wh ich reacts
progressively to a slap st ick com edy in evitably displays a back w ar d att i
tude t ow ar d Su r r ealism .
T HE WO R K OF ART: S E C O N D V E R S I O N 37
XVI
T h e m ost im portan t social fu n ction o f film is to establish equ ilibrium be

tween h u m an bein gs an d the ap p arat u s. Film ach ieves th is goal n ot only
in term s o f m an ’s présen tation o f h im self to th e cam era but also in terms
o f his représen tation o f his en viron m en t by m ean s of th is ap p ar at u s. On
th e o ne h an d, film furth ers in sigh t into the n ecessities govern in g ou r lives
by its use of close- u ps, by its accen tu ation of h idden details in fam iliar
object s, an d by its explor ation of com m on place m ilieu x th rough the inge-
n ious gu id an ce of th e cam er a; on the oth er h an d, it m an ages to assu re us
of a vast an d un su spected field o f actio n \Spielrau m ],
O u r bar s an d city streets, our offices an d fu rn ish ed r oom s, ou r rail-
r oad station s an d ou r factories seem ed to close relen tlessly arou n d us.
Th en cam e film an d exploded th is prison -w orld with the dyn am ite o f the
split secon d, so th at n ow we can set o ff calm ly on jou rn eys of adven -
ture am on g its far-flun g debris. W ith the close-u p, space exp an d s; with
slow m ot ion , m ovem en t is exten ded. An d ju st as en largem en t n ot merely
clarifies w h at w e see in distin ctly “ in a ny c a se ,” but brin gs to ligh t entirely
n ew stru ctu res o f m atter, slow m otion n ot on ly reveal s fam iliar aspects of
m ovem en ts, bu t d iscloses quite un kn ow n aspect s w ith in th em — aspects
“w h ich do n ot ap p ear as the retardin g o f n atu ral m ovem en ts but h ave a
cu riou s glidin g, floatin g ch aracter of their ow n .” 27 Clearly, it is an oth er
n ature w h ich sp eak s to the cam era as com p ar ed to the eye. “ O th er ”
above all in the sen se th at a sp ace in form ed by h um an con sciou sn ess
gives w ay to a space in form ed by the u n con sciou s. W h ereas it is a com
m on place th at, for exam ple, we have som e idea w h at is in volved in the
act o fw alk in g (if o n ly in gen eral term s), we have no idea at all w h at hap-
pen s durin g the sp lit secon d wh en a person actu ally tak es a step. W e are
fam iliar with th e m ovem en t of pickin g up a cigarette ligh ter or a spoon ,
but kn ow alm ost n oth in g of w h at really goes on betw een h an d an d
m etal, an d still less h ow th is var ies with differen t m oods. T h is is where
the cam er a com es in to play, w ith all its r esou r ces for sw oop in g and
risin g, d isru ptin g an d isolatin g, stretch in g or com pr essin g a sequen ce,
en largin g or redu cin g an object. It is th rou gh the cam era th at we first dis-
cover the optical u n con sciou s, ju st as w e discover the in stin ctual un con
sciou s th rough psych oan alysis.
M or eover , th ese tw o types of u n con sciou s are in rima tely lin ked. For in
m ost cases th e diverse aspects o f reality captu red by t he film cam er a lie
ou tside on ly the n orm al spectru m of sen se im pr ession s. M an y o f th e de
38 P R 0 D U CT I 0N, R E P R 0 D U CT I 0 N , A N D RE C E P TI 0 N
form ation s an d ster eotypes, tr an sfor m at ion s and catastr oph es wh ich can
assail th e op t ical w orld in film s afflict th e actu al w orld in psych oses, h al
lu cin ation s, an d dr eam s. Th an k s to the cam er a, th erefore, the in dividu al
perception s o f the psych otic or the dream er can be ap p r op r iat ed by col
lective perception . Th e an cien t truth expr essed by H er aclitu s, th at th ose
w h o are aw ak e h ave a w orld in com m on w h ile each sleeper h as a w orld
of his ow n , h as been in validated by film— an d less by depictin g th e dream
w orld itself than by creatin g figures of collective dream , such as the
globe-en circlin g M ickey M o u se.2S
I f on e con siders th e d an gerou s ten sion s w h ich tech n ology an d its con
séqu en ces h av e en gen dered in the m asses at large— ten den cies w h ich at
critical st ages tak e on a psy ch otic ch aracter— one also h as to recogn ize
th at th is sam e tech n ologiz ation [Tech n isierun g] h as created the possibil-
ity o f psy ch ic im m u n ization again st su ch m ass psy ch oses. It d oes so
by m ean s of ce rt ain film s in w h ich the forced d ev elopm en t o f sad ist ic fan -
tasies or m asoch ist ic delu sion s can prev en t th eir n atu ral an d dan ger
ous m at u ration in th e m asses. Collective lau gh ter is one such preem ptive
an d h ealin g ou t b r eak of m ass psych osis. Th e cou n tless gr otesqu e events
con su m ed in films are a graph ie in dication o f th e dan gers th reaten in g
m an kin d from the r epr ession s im plicit in civilization . Am erican slapst ick
com edies an d Disn ey film s trigger a th erapeu tic release o f u n con sciou s
en ergies.29 Th eir foreru n n er w as th e figu re o f th e eccen tric. H e w as the
first to in h abit the n ew fields o f action open ed up by film— the first occu
pan t o f th e n ew iy built h ou se. Th is is th e co n t ext in w h ich Ch aplin takes
on h istorical sign ifican ce.
XVII
It h as alw ays been on e o f the pr im ar y t ask s o f ar t to create a dem an d

w h ose h ou r o f full sat isfaction h as n ot yet corn e.30 Th e h istory o f every
art for m h as critical period s in w h ich the particu lar form strain s after ef
fects w h ich can be easily ach ieved on ly with a ch an ged tech n ical stan
d ar d — th at is to say, in a new art form . Th e excesses an d crudities of art
w h ich thus resu lt, par ticu lar ly in period s of so-called decaden ce, actually
em erge from the core of its rich est h istorical en ergies. In recen t years, D a
daism h as am u sed itself with such b ar b ar ism s. O n ly n ow is its im pulse
recogn izable: D ad aism att em pted t o prod u ce w ith th e m ean s o f pain tin g
(or literatu re) th e effects w hich the pu blic tod ay seek s in film .
Every fu n dam en tally new, pion eerin g création of dem an d will over-
sh oot its target. D ad aism did so to the exten t th at it sacrificed the m arket
T H E W O R K OF ART: S E C O N D V E R S I O N
valu es so ch aracterist ic o f film in favor o f m or e sign ifican t asp ir at ion s—

of w h ich , to be su re, it w as u n aw ar e in the form descr ibed here. Th e Da-
d aists attach ed m uch less im portan ce to th e com m ercial usefu ln ess of
th eir artw orks t h an to the u selessn ess of th ose w or ks as objects of con
tem plative im m ersion . Th ey sou gh t to ach ieve th is u selessn ess n ot least
by th orou gh d egr ad ation o f th eir m aterial. Th eir p oem s are “w ord-
sala d ” con tain in g obscen e expr ession s an d every im agin able kin d o f lin-
guistic refuse. Th e sam e is true of their p ain tin gs, on w h ich th ey m ou n ted
bu tton s or train t ick et s. W h at th ey ach ieved by such m ean s w as a ruth-
less an n ih ilation o f th e au ra in every ob ject th ey pr od u ced , w h icli they
bran ded as a reprodu ction th rou gh the very m ean s of its produ ction . Be
for e a pain tin g by Arp or a poem by Au gu st Str am m , it is im possible to
take tim e for con cen tration an d evalu ation , as one can befor e a pain tin g
by Der ain or a poem by Rilk e.31 Con tem plative im m ersion — w h ich , as
th e bourgeoisie degen erated, becam e a breedin g gr ou n d for asocial be-
h avior — is h ere op p osed by d istr action \A blen k u n g] as a var ian t of social
beh avior. D ad aist m an ifestation s actu ally gu ar an t eed a quite veh em en t
distr action by m ak in g ar tw or ks th e cen ter o f scan d ai. O n e requirem en t
w as p ar am ou n t: to ou t r age th e pu blic.
Fr om an allu rin g visu al com position or an en ch an tin g fabric o f sou n d ,
th e D ad aists turn ed the ar tw or k in to a m issile. It jolted th e viewer, takin g
on a tactile [t ak tisch ] quality. It th ereby fostered the dem an d for film,
sin ce the distr act in g elemen t in film is also pr im ar ily tactile, bein g based
on su ccessive ch an ges o f scen e an d focus w h ich h ave a percussive effect
on th e spect ator .32 Film h as freed the p h y sical sh ock effect— w h ich D ad a
ism h ad k e p t w rapped , as it w ere, in side th e m oral sh ock effect— from
th is w rappin g.
XVIII
Th e m asses ar e a m at r ix fr om wh ich all cu stom ary beh avior tow ard

w orks of art is today em ergin g n ew born . Q u an tity h as been tran sform ed
in to quality: the greatly in creased m ass o f participan t s h as p rod u ced a
differen t k ind o f participation . Th e fact th at th is new m ode of p ar t icip a
tion first appear ed in a disr epu table form sh ou ld n ot m islead th e o b
server. Th e m asses ar e criticized for seek in g d istr action [Z erstreuun g] in
th e w or k of ar t , w h ereas the ar t lover su pposed ly app r oach es it with con
cen tration . In th e case of th e m asses, th e ar tw or k is seen as a m ean s o f en
tertain m en t; in the case o f th e art lover, it is con sidered an object o f devo-
tion .—Th is calls fo r closer exam in ation .-1-1 D istr action an d con cen tration
form an an tith esis, w h ich m ay be for m u lated as fo iio w s. A person w h o

con cen tr âtes before a w ork of ar t is a bso r b ed by it; he en ters in to the
w ork, ju st as, accor d in g to iegen d, a Ch in ese pain ter entered his co m
plet ed pain tin g w h ile beh oidin g it.34 By con t r ast , th e distr acted m asses
absor b th e w ork o f art in to th em selves. Th eir w aves lap ar ou n d it; th ey
en com pass it w ith th eir tide. Th is is m ost ob viou s w ith regard to b u ild -
in gs. Arch itecture h as alw ays offered the pr ototype o f an ar tw or k th at is
received in a state of distr action an d th r ou gh the collective. Th e laws o f
arch itecture’s reception a re h igh ly in str uctive.
Bu ildin gs h ave accom p an ied h um an existen ce sin ce prim eval tim es.
M an y ar t form s h ave com e in to bein g an d p as sed aw ay. Tragedy begi ns
with the Greeks, is extin gu ish ed alon g w ith th em , an d is revived cen tu
ries later. Th e epic, w h ich origin ates in the early d a ys of peoples, dies
ou t in Eu rope at th e en d o f th e Ren aissan ce. Pan el pain tin g is a cre-
ation o f th e M iddie Ages, an d n o th in g gu ar an t ees its un in terrupted e xis
tence. Bu t th e h u m an n eed for sh elter is perm an en t. Arch itecture h as
never h ad fa l low period s. Its h istory is lon ger th an th at of an y oth er art,
an d its effect o ugh t to be recogn ized in an y a ttem pt to accou n t for the re-
iation sh ip of the m asses to th e w or k o f art. Bu ild in gs are received in a
tw ofold m an n er: by use an d by perception . Or, better: tactilely an d opti-
cally. Such reception can n ot be u n d er st ood in term s of th e con cen trated
atten tion of a traveler befor e a fam ou s buildin g. On the tactile side, th ere
is n o cou n ter part to wh a t con tem pl a ti on is on th e optical s i de. Tactile re
ception com es ab ou t n ot so m uch by w ay o f atten tion as by w ay of h abit.
Th e latter largely determ in es even th e optical reception o f arch itecture,
w h ich spon tan eou sly tak es th e form o f casu al n oticin g, rath er th an atten
tive ob ser vat ion . Un der certain circu m stan ces, th is form o f reception
sh aped b y arch itectu re acquires can on ical value. For th e task s w hich face
th e h u m an ap p arat u s ofp ercep t ion at h istorical tu rn in g poin ts can n ot be
p erform ed solely by op t ical m ean s— t h at is, b y w ay o f con tem plation .
T h ey are m astered grad u ally — tak in g th eir cue from tactile reception —
th rough h abit.
Even th e distracted person can form h abits. W h at is m ore, th e a bility
to m aster certain task s in a sta te of d istr action first proves th at th eir p er
form an ce h as becom e h abit u al. Th e sort o f distr action th at is provided
b y art represen ts a cover t m easure o f th e exten t to w h ich it h as becom e
possib le to perfor m n ew task s of ap p ercep ti o n . Sin ce, m oreover, in divid-
u als are tem pted to evade s uch task s, art w ill tack le the m ost difficult an d
m ost im por t an t task s w h erever it is abie to m obilize the m asses. It does
so c u rren tly in film. R eception in distraction — th e so rt ofrecep tion w h ich
is in creasin gly n ot iceable in all areas o f ar t an d is a sy m ptom o f p ro f o u n d

ch an ges in apperception — fin ds in film its tru e train in g grou n d . Film , by
virtue of its sh ock effects, is pr ed isp osed to th is form of reception . In th is
respect, too, it pr oves to be the m ost im por t an t su bject matter, at presen t,
for the th eory of perception wh ich the Greeks cal led aesth etics.,!
XIX
Th e in creasin g prolet ar ian izat ion of m od er n m an an d th e in creasin g fo r

m ation of m asses are tw o sides of the sam e p r ocess. Fascism attem pts to
or gan ize the newly p r oletarian ized m asses wh ile leavin g in tact the prop-
erty relation s wh ich th ey strive t o abolish . It sees its salvation in gran tin g
expr ession to the m asses— but on n o accou n t gran tin g th em r igh ts.36 Th e
m asses h ave a righ t to c h an ge d pr oper ty r elation s; fascism seeks to give
th em ex pression in keepin g th ese relation s u n ch an ged. T h e logical out-
com e o f fascism is an aesth eticiz in g o f p olit ical life. W ith D ’An n un zio,
decaden ce m ade its entry in to p olit ical life; w ith M arin etti, Fu tu rism ; and
with H itler, the Boh em ian tradition of Sch w a bin g.37
A ll efforts to aesfh etV/ze p olitics cu lm in ate in on e poin t. T h at one
p oin t is w ar. War, an d o n ly w ar, m ak es it p ossib le to set a goal for m ass
m ovem en ts on th e gr an dest scale w h ile preservin g tr adition al proper ty
relation s. Th at is h ow th e situ at ion pr esen ts itself in political term s. In
tech n ological term s it can be for m u lated as follow s: on ly w ar m akes it
possib le to m obilize all of tod ay’s tech n ological r esou rces w h ile m ain -
tain in g property r elation s. It goes w ith ou t sayin g th at the fascist
glorification of w ar does n ot m ake use of th ese ar gu m en ts. Neverth eless,
a glan ce at su ch glorification is in structive. In M a ri netti ’s m an ifesto for
the colon ial w ar in Et h iop ia, w e read:
For twenty-scven years, we Futurists have rebelied against the idea that
w ar is anti-aesthetic. . . . We therefore state: . .. War is bk:au ti fu l because—
thanks to its gas masks, its ter rifyi ng megaphones, its flame th rowers, and
light tanks—it escablishes man’s dominion over the subjugated mach in e.
War is beautiful because it inangurates the dreamed-of metaliization of the
human bod y. War is bea utiful because it en riches a flowering meadow with
the fiery orchids of machine-guns. War is beautiful b cause it combines
gunfite, barrages, cease-fires, scents, and the fragrance of putréfaction in to
a symphony. War is beautiful because it creates new architectures, like
those of armored tanks, geometric squadrons of aircraft, spirals of smoke
from buming villages, and much more . . . . Poets and artists of Futurism,
42 P R 0 DU CTI 0 N , RE P R 0 D U CTI 0 N , A N D R E C E P T l 0 N
. . . remember these principles of an aesthetic of war, that they may illumi-

nate . . . your struggles for a new poetry and a new sculpture!38
T h is m an ifesto h as th e m erit o f clarity. Th e qu estion it poses deserves

to be taken up by th e dialectician . To h im , th e aesth etic o f m odern w ar-
far e ap p ear s as follow s: if th e n atu ral use o f produ ctive forces is im peded
by the property system , th en the in crease in tech n ological m ean s, in
speed , in sou rces o f energy will p r ess tow ard an u n n atu r a! use. Th is is
fou n d in w ar, an d the destru ction caused by w ar furn ish es p r oof th at so
ciety w as n ot m atu re en ou gh to m ak e tech n ology its or gan , th at tech n ol
ogy w as n ot sufficien tly developed to m aster th e elem en tal forces o f so ci
ety. T h e m ost h orrifyin g featu r es o f im per ialist w a r ar e determ in ed by the
discrepan cy between th e en or m ou s m ean s of p r od u ction and th eir in ade-
qu ate use in th e pr ocess of pr odu ction (in oth er w or d s, by un em ploym en t
and th e lack of m ark ets). Im perialist w ar is an u prisin g on the p art of
tech n ology , tvhich d em an d s repay m en t ’tn “h u m an m at erial" for th e n at
u ral m at erial society h as den ied it. In stead of deployin g pow er station s
acr oss th e lan d, society deploys m an p ow er in th e for m of arm ies. In stead
o f prom ot in g air traffic, it pr om ot es tra ffic in sh ells. An d in gas w arfare it
h as fou n d a n ew m ean s o f abolish in g the au r a.
“ Fiat ars— pereat m u n d u s,”35 says fascism , expectin g from war, as
M ar in etti ad m its, th e artistic gratification o f a sen se perception altered by
tech n ology. Th is is eviden tly the con su m m ation o f l’art p o u r l’art. H u-
m an kin d, w h ich on ce, in H om er, w as an ob ject o f con tem plation for th e
O lym pian god s, h as n ow becom e on e fo r itself. Its self-alien ation h as
reach ed th e poin t w h ere it can experien ce its ow n an n ih ilation as a s u -
prem e aesth etic pleasu re. Such is the aesth eticiz in g o f p olit ics, as prac-
ticed by fascism . Com m u n ism rep lies by politiciz in g art.
Written late December l 935-begiiining of February 1936; unpublished in this form in

Benjamin’s lifetime. Gesamme/tc Schriften, VII, 350-384. Translated by Edmund Jephcott
and Harry Zohn.
N otes
This version of the essay “Das Kunstwerk im Zeitalter seiner technischen Repro-
duzierbarkeit” (first published in Volume 7 of Benjamin’s Gesattimelte Schriften,
in 1989) is a revision and expansion (by seven manuscript pages) of the first ver
sion of the essay, which was composed in Paris in the autumn of 1935. The sec
ond version represents t he form in which Benjamin originally wished to see the
work published; i t served, in fact, as the basis for the first publication of the es-
say—a som . ' at' shortened form tran ' . ' into French— in the Zeitschrift ffrr
Soziûlforsci : .. in May 1936. The third ion of the i . y (1936-1939) can be
found in Ben jami n, Selected W ritings, Volume 4: 1938-1940 (Cambridge, Mass.:
Harvard University Press, 2003), pp. 251-283.
1. Madame Claire de Duras, née Kersai nt (1778-1828), th e wife of Duc
Amé dee de D ura s, field marshal un d er Louis XVIII, was the a u th o r of two
novels, Ourika (18 23 ) and Edouard (1 825). She presided over a bri lli a n t sa
lon in Paris. Benj amin cites Madame de Duras in th e o rigin a l Fre nch.
2. Karl Marx (1818-1883) a n alyzed the ca pita list mode of production in Das
Kap/ta/ (3 vols., J 867, l 885, 1 895), which w as carried to completion by his
collaborator Friedrich Enge ls (1820-1895).
3. Abel Cance, “Le Temps de l’image est ven u!” (It Is Time for th e Image!),
in Leon Pierre-Quint, Germaine Dulac, Lionel Landry, and Abel Cance,
L’Art ciném atographique, vol. 2 (Paris, 19 27), pp. 9 4-9 6. |Benjamin’s n o te.
Gance (1889-1981) was a Fren c h film director whose epic films ]'accuse
(1919), La Roue (1922), and Napoléon (1927) made innovative use of such
devices as superimposition, ra p id in te rcut ting, and spl it screen.—Trans. J
4. Alois Riegl (1858—1905) w as an Austrian art hisîortîiii who ^ugncc! înut dif
ferent forma l orderings of art emerge as expr ess ion s of diffe rent historical
ep oc h s. He is the author of Stilfragen: Grundlegungen zu einer Geschichte
der Ornamentik (Questions of Style: Toward a H isto ry of Orna me n t; 1893)
and Die spatrom ische Kunst-Industrie nach den Funden in Osterreich-
Ungam (1901). The latter has been translated by Rolf Winkes as Late Ro
man A rt Iidustry (Rome: Giorgio Bretsclmeider, L985). Franz Wickhoff
(1853-1909), a ls o an Au st rian art his tori a n, is th e author of Die W iener
Genesis (The Vie n na Genesis; 1895), a study of the s umptu o usly illu mi
na te d, early six th-ce n tury a.d . copy of the biblical book o f Genesis pre-
served in the Austrian National Library in Vienna.
5. “Einmalige Erscheinung einer Ferne, so nah sic sein m ag.” At stake in
Benjamin’s formulation is a n interweaving n ot just of time and space—
einmalige Erscheinung, literally “one-time appearance”— but of far and near,
eine Ferne suggesting both “a distance” in space or time and “ s om e th ing re-
mote,” however near it (the distance, or d is tan t thing, that app ' may be.
6. Benjamin is quoting J oh a n nes V. Jen sm , Ext»îische Novellen, trans'. Julia
Koppel (Be rl in: S. Fischer, 1919), pp. 41-42. Jen sen (1873-1950) w as a
Danish n ove list, poet, and ess a yist who won the Nobel Prize for Liter a ture
in 1944. See “Hashish in Marseilles” (1932), in Be n jami n, Selected W ritings,
Volume 2:1927- 1934 (Cambridge, Mass.: Har va rd University Pre ss, 1999),
p. 677.
7. Apply ing Kant’s idea of the pure a nd disinterested e x ist ence of the work of
art, the French philosopher Vicrnr Cousin made use of the phrase l'art pour
/'art (“art for art’s sake”) in his 'J818 lec t u re “Du Vra i, du be a u, et du bien”
(On the True, the Beautiful, and the Good). Th e ide a was later given cur-
44 P R O D U C T I O N , R E P R O D U C TI ON, A N D H ECE PT I O N
rency by writers such as Theophile Gautier, Edgar Allan Poe, and Charles
Baudelaire.
8. The French poet Stéphane Mallarmé (1842-1898) was a central figure in the
Sym boli st movement, which sought an incantatory language divorced from
a ll referential function.
9. In film, the technological reproducibility of the product is not an externally
imposed condition of its mass dissémination, as it is, say, in literature or
painting. The technological reproducibility o f films is based directly on the
technology of their production. This not only m ak es possible the mass dis-
semination of films in the m ost direct way, but actually enforces it. It does so
because the process of producing a film is so costly that an individual who
cou ld afford to buy a pa in tin g, for example, could n ot afford to buy a Imas-
ter print of a] film. It was calculated in 1927 that, in order to make a profit, a
major film needed to reach an audience of nine million. Of course, the ad-
vent of sound film [in that year] in iti a ll y caused a movement in the op p o si te
direction: its audience was restricted by language boundaries. And that coin-
cided with the emph asis placed on national interests by fascism. But it is less
important to note this setback (which in any case was mitigated by dubbing)
than to o b ser ve its connection with fascism. The s imu 11 ane ity of t lie two
phenomena results fr om the economic crisis. The same d iso rders which led,
in the world at large, to an attempt to maintain existing property rela tio ns
by brute force induced film capital, under the threat of crisis, to speed up the
development of sound film. Its introduction broiight temporary relief, not
only because sound film attracted the masses back into th e cinema but also
because it consolidated new ca pi ta l from the electricity industry wi th that of
film. Thus, con sidered from the outside, sound film p r omoted national inter
ests; but seen from the inside, it helped internationalize film p rodu cti on even
more than before. [Benjamin's note. By “the economic crisis,” Benjamin re
fers to the devastating consequences, in the United States and Europe, of the
stock market crash of October 1929.—Trans.]
10. This polarity cannot come into its own in the aesthetics of Idealism, which
concei ves of beauty as something fundamenraJly undivided (a n d thus ex-
cludes anything polarized). Nonetheless, in Hegel this polarity announces it-
se lf as c le arl y a s pos s ible within the lim its of Ide a li sm. We quote from his
Vorlesungen zur Philosophie der Geschichte [Lectures on the Philosophy of
His tory] : “Images were known of old. In those early d a ys p ie ty required
them for worship, but it could do without beautiful images. Such images
might even be disturbing. ln every beautiful ima e, there is also so meth ing
external—although, insofar as the image is beautiful, its spirit still speaks to
the human being. But reli gio us worship, being no more than a spiritless tor-
po r of the soul, is directed at a thing. . . . Fine art arose . . . in the ch u rch . . . ,
though art has now gone beyond the ecclesiastical principle.” Likewise, the
following passage from the Vorlesungen Uber die Asthetik [Lectures on Aes-
thetics] indicates that Hegel sensed a problem here: “We are beyond the
stage of venerating works of art as divine and as objects deserving our wor
ship. To d ay the impression they pr o duce is of a more reflective kind, a nd the
emotions they arouse require a m ore stringent te st. ” [Benjamin’s note. The
German Idealist philosopher Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (1770-1831)
accepted the chair in ph ilo sop hy at the University of Berlin in 1818. His lec
tures on aesthetics and the philos op hy of history (delivered 1820-1829)
wer e later published by h is editors, with the text based m a inly on notes
taken by his students.—Trans.]
'11. The aim of révolutions is to accelerate this a d a ptati on. Révolutions are
innerv a ti ons of the collective—or, m o re prec ise ly, efforts at innervation on
the part of the new, hi st orically unique collective which has its organs in the
new techno logy. This second technology is a system in w hich the mastering
of el emen ta ry social forces is a precondition for p layi ng [das Spieij w ith nat
ural forces. Just as a child who has ItMtncd to gmsp stretchcs out its hand for
the m o on as it would for a bail, so huma n ity, in its efforts a t innervati o n,
sets its si gh ts as m uch on c urren tly utopian goals as on g oa ls within reach.
For in révolu ti on s, it is not only the second technol ogy which asserts its
claims vis-a-vis society. Because this te chn ology aims at Jiberating hu man be-
ings from drudge ry, the individual suddenl y sees his scope for piay, h is field
of action [SpielraumJ, immea su r a bl y ex pa n de d . He d oes not yet know his
w ay around th is space. But a lre a dy he registers his demands on i t. For the
more the collective makes the second technol ogy its own, the more ke enl y
individuals bel o n ging to the collective feel how little they have received of
what was due them under the dominion of the first technology. In other
w ords, it is the individual liberated by the liquidation of the fir st tech n ology
who stakes h is claim. No s ooner h a s th e sec ond technol o gy secured its initial
revo lutio na ry gains t ha n vital questions affe cti ng the individual—questions
of love and death wh ich had bee n buried by the first technology— once again
press for solutions. Fourier’s w ork is the first historical evidence of this
d eman d . [Benjamin’s note. Ch a rl es Fourier (1772-1837), French social the
orist and reformer, urged that society be reorganized into self-contained
agrarian cooperatives which he called “ phalansteries.” Among his wo rk s are
Théorie des quatre m ouvements (Theory of Four Movements ; 1808) a n d Le
Nouveau Monde miiisbfnel (The New Industrial Wo r ld ; 1829-1830). He is
an important figure in Benjamin's Arcades Project. The term Spieiraum, in
this note, in note 23, and in the text, literally means “playspace,” “space for
play. ”—Trans. J
12. Eugène Atget (1857-1927), French photographer, spent his career in obscu-
ri ty making p ict ures of Paris and its environs. He is wid e 1y recogn ized as one
of the leading photographers of t he twentieth century. See Benjamin’s “Little
History of Photography” ( 19 31}, in this volume.
13. A W oman o f Paris (1923)—which Benjamin refers to by its French title,
46 P R O D U CTI 0 N , R E P R O D U C T I 0 N , A f\I D R E C E PT I 0 N
L'Opinion publique—was written and directed by the London-bom actor

and di rec tor Charlie Chaplin (Charles Spencer Chaplin; 1889-1977). Ch ap
lin came to the Un ited States with a vaudeville act in 1 9 L0 and ma d e his m o
tion pic ture debut there in 1914, eventu ally achieving worldwide re nown as
a comed ia n. He starred in and directed such films as The Kid (1921 ), The
Circus (1928), City Ligh ts (1931), Modern Times (1936), and The Great
Dictator ( 1940). See Benjamin’s short pieces “Ch aplin” (1929) and “Ch ap
lin in Re trospect” (1929), in this volume.
14. On the nineteenth-century q u a rre l between p a i nting and p ho togr ap hy, see
Benjamin’s “Little History of Photography” ( 1931 ), in this volume, and
Benja mi n, The Arcades Project, trans. Howard Eiland and Kevin
McLaughlin (Cambridge, M ass.: Harvard University Press, 1999), pp. 684
692.
15. Abel Gance, “Le Temps de l’image est venu!” in L'A rt ciném atographique,
vol. 2, p. 101. [Benjamin’s note. On Gance, see note 3 a bove.—Trans.)
16. Séverin-Mars, cited ibid., p. 100. [Benjamin's note. Séverin-Mars ( 1873
1921) was a playwright an d film actor who starred in three of Gance's films:
La Dixièm e Symphonie, j'accu se, and La Roue.—Trans.]
17. Charlie Chaplin wrote and directed The Gold Rush in 1925. On Chaplin and
A Woman o f Paris, see note 13 a bove. Giovanni da Fiesole ( 1387-1455),
known as Fra Angelico, was a n Ita lia n D o min ica n fri a r, celebrated for his
"angelic'’ virtues, and a painter in the early Renaissance Florentine style.
Among his most fanions works are his frescoes at Orvieto, which reflect a
characteristically serene religious attitude.
18. Franz Werfel, “Ein Sommernachtstraum: Ein Film von Shakespeare und
Reinh ardt," Neues Wiener Journ al, cited in Lu, N ove m ber 15, 1935.
[Benjamin’s note. Werfel (1890-1945) was a Czech-born poet, novelist, and
playwright associated with Expressionism. He emigra te d to the United
States in 1940. Among his works are Der A bituriententag (The Class Re
union; 1928) and Das Lied non Bernadette (The Song of Bernadette; 1941).
Max Rein ha rdt (Maximilian Go Idman; 1873-1943) was Germany's most
important stage producer and director d u ring the first third of the twentieth
century an d the sing le m os t significa n t influence on the classic German si-
lent cinema, many of whose directors and actors train d under him at the
Deutsches Theater in Berlin. His direct film activity wa limited to several
early German silents an d to the American movie A M idsum m er Nigh t’s
Dream- (1935), which he codirected with William Dieterle.—Trans.J
19. Paavo Nurmi (1897-1973), a Finnish long-distance mnner, was a winner
at the Olympic Games in Antwerp (1920), Paris (1924), and Amsterdam
(1928).
20.Begin n in g in 1917, the Italian playwright and nove lis t Luigi Pira ndel lo
(1867-1936) a chieved a series of successes on the stage that made him world
fanions in the 1 920s. He is best known for his plays Sei personaggi in cerca
d ’autore (Six Characters in Search of an Author; 1921) and Enrico IV

(Henry IV; 1922).
21. Luigi Pirandello, II turno (The Turn), cited by Léon Pierre-Quint, “Significat
ion du cinéma,” in L'A rt ciném atographique, vol. 2, pp. 14-15. [Benjamin's
noteI
22. Rudolf Arnheim, Film als Kunst (Berlin, 1932), pp. J 76-177. In this context,
certain appa rently incidental details of film d irecting which d iverge from
practices on the stage take on added interest. For example, the attempt to let
the actor perform without makeup, as in Dreyer’s Jeann e d'Arc. Dreyer
spent months seeking the forty actors who constitute the Inquisitors’ tribu
nal. Searching for these actors was like hunting for rare props. Dreyer made
every effort to avoid resemblances of age, build, and physiognomy in the
actors. (See Maurice Schultz, “Le Maquillage” [Makeup], in L’Art ciném a
tographique, vol. 6 |Paris, 1929], pp. 65-66.) If the actor thus becomes a
prop, the prop, in its turn, not infrequently fonctions as actor. At any rate, it
is not unusual for films to allocate a role to a prop. Rather than selecting ex-
am ples at random from the infinite number available, let us take just one es-
pecially revealing case. A clock that is running will always be a disturbance
on the stage, where it cannot be pe rm itted its role of mea suring time. Even in
a naturalistic play, real-life time would conflict with theatrical time. In view
of this, it is most reveali ng tha t fil m—whe re a ppropriate—can readily make
use of time as measured by a clock. This feature, more than many others,
makes it clear that—circumstances permitting—each and every prop in a
film may perform decisive fonctions. From here it is but a step to Pudovkin’s
principle, which states that “to connect the performance of an actor with an
object, and to bu ild that performance around the o bj ect, . . . is always one of
the most powerful methods of cinematic construction” (V. I. Pudovkin, Film
Regie und Film m anusk ript [Film D irection and the Film Script] (Berlin,
1928), p. 126). Film is thus the first artistic medium which is able to show
how matter plays havoc with human beings [wie die Materie dem Menschen
m itspielt]. It follows th at films can be an excellent means of materialist ex
position. |Benjamin’s note. See, in English, Rudolf Arnheim, Film as Art
(Berkeley: University of California Press, 1957), p. 138. Arnheim (1904
2007), German-born Gestalt psychologist and critic, wrote on film, litera
ture, and art for various Berlin newspapers and magazines from the mid-
1920s until J 933. He came to the United States in 1940 and taugbt at Sarah
Lawrence, the New Sch ool for Social Research, Ha rvard, and the Un iversity
of Michigan. Besides his work on film theory, his publications include A rt
and Visual Perception (1954), Picasso's Guernica (1962), and Visual Thinking
(1969). La Passion de Jeanne d ’Arc, directed by Carl Theodor Dreyer, was
released in 1928. Dreyer (1889-1968), Danish writer-director and film
critic, is known for the exacting, expressive design of h is films, his subtle
camera movement, and his concentration on the physiognomy and inner
48 P R O D U C T I O N , R E P R O D U C T I O N , AND RECEPT I ON
psyc h o logy of his characters. Among his best-known works are Vampyr
(1931), Vredens Dag (Day of Wrath; 1943), and Ordet (1955). Vsevolod
lllarioiiovich Pudovkin (1893-1 953), one of th e masters of Soviet silent cin-
ema, wrote and directed films— such as Mother (1926), The En d of St. Pe-
fersbwrg (1927), and Storm ourr Asia (1928)—that showed the évolution of
individualized yet typical ch aracters in a social environment. H e also pub-
lished books on film tec hnique and film acting.—Trans.J
23. The significance of beautiful semblance [schoner Scheiji] is rooted in the age
of aura tic percep ti on that is now coming to an en d. The aesthetic theory of
th a t era was most fully articulated by Hegel, for whom beauty is “ the ap-
pearance [Erscheinungj of spirit in its immédiate . . . sensuous form, created
by the spirit as the form adequate to itself” (Hegel, Werke, vol. 10, part 2
[Berlin, 1837], p. 121). Although this formulation has some derivative quali-
ties, Hegel’s statement that art strips away the “semblance and deception of
this false, transient w orld” from the “true c on ten t of phe n omena " (Werke,
vol. 10, part 1, p. 13) already diverges from the traditional experiential basis
[.Erfahrungsgrund] of this doctrine. This ground of e x p e ri e nce is the aura.
By contrast, Goethe’s work is still entirely imbued with beautiful sem bla n ce
as an auratic reality. Mignon, Ottilie, and Hele n a partake of that reality.
“The beautiful is neither the veil nor the veiled object but rather the object
in its veil”: this is the quintessence of Goethe's view of art, and th a t of antiq-
uity. The decline of this view makes it doubly urgent that we look back at
its origin. This lies in mimesis as the primai phenomenon of all artistic ac-
tivity. The mime presents what he mimes merely as semb la nce [Der
Nachm achende macht, w as er macht, nur scheinbar\. And the oldest form of
imitation had only a single material to work with: tlie body of the mime
himself. Dance and language, gestures of body and lips, arc the earliest man
ifestations of mimesis.—The mime presents his subj ect as a semblance [Der
Nachm a chende macht seine Sache scheinbar], One could also say that he
plays his subject. Thus we enco unte r the polarity informing mimesis. In mi
mesis, tightly interfolded like cotyledons, slumber the two aspects of art:
semblance and pl ay. Of course, this po la rity can interest the dialectician only
if it lins a histo ri cal role. And that is, in fact, the case. This role is determined
by the world-historical c onflict between the first a nd second tec hn ol ogies.
Semblance is the most abstract— but therefore thc most uhiquitous—schema
of all the magic procédures of the first technology, whereas play is the inex-
haustible reservoir of a11 the experimenting procédures of the second. Nei
ther the concept of semblance n or that of play is foreign to traditional aes
thetics; and to the extent that the two concepts of cult value and exhibition
value are latent in the other pair of concepts at issue here, they say nothing
new. But this abruptly changes as soon as these latter concepts lose the ir in
différence toward hi s to ry. They then lead to a practical insight—namely,
that what is lost in the withering of semblance and the decay of the aura in
works of art is m a tched by a h uge gain in the scope fo r p lay ISpiel-RattmJ.

This space for pJay is w ides t in film. In film, th e eJement of sem b la n ce has
been en t irely displaced by the element of pJay. The p os i ti ons which photog
raphy had occ u pi ed at the expense of cult value have thus been massively
fortified. In film, the element of sembla nce has yicIded its place to the ele-
me nt of play, wh ich is allied to th e second techno logy. Ra muz rec en tl y
summed up th is alliance in a formulation which, in the gu ise of a meta p h or,
gets to the heart of the m a tter. He says: “We arc currently witnessing a fasci
na ting process. The various sciences, which up to now have each operated
alone in their spécial fields, are beginning to converge in their object and
to be combined into a single science: c he mi stry, p hysi cs, and mechanics are
becoming interlinked. It is as if we were eyewitnesses to the e n o rm ously
accelerated completion of a jigsaw puzzle whose first pieces took several
millennia to put in place, where a s the last, bec ause of their contours, and
to the astonishment of the spectators, a re moving together of their own
accord” (Charles Ferdinand Ramuz, “Paysan, nature” [Peasant, Nature],
Mesure, 4 |October 1935]). These words give ultimate express ion to the di
mension of pl ay in the second technology, w hich reinforces that in art.
[Benjamin’s n o te. It should b e kept in m ind that Schein can mean “luster”
a nd “a pp . a ra n ce, ” as well as “semblance” or “illusion.” On Hegel, see
n ote 10 a bove. The poet Jo hann Wol fgang von Goethe (1749-1832) vis ited
Italy in 1786-1788 and in 1790, gaining new insp irati on from his e nco u n -
ter wi th Greco-Roman antiquity; a cla ssica lly pure and restra ined concep
tion of be a uty informs his cre a ti on of such female figures as Mignon in
W ilhelm Meisters Lehrjahre (Wilhelm Meister’s Apprenticeship; 1796),
Ottilie in Die W ahlvenuandtschaften (El ec ti ve Affinities; 1809), and Helena
in Faust, Part II (1832). Benjamin’s définition of t h e bea uti fu l as “the ob
ject in its veil” is quoted (with the italics added) from his essay “ Goeth e ’s
Elective Affinities” (1924-1925), in Benj am in, Selected W ritings, Volume 1:
191.3-./ 926 (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1996), p. 351.
Charles Ferdinand Ramuz (1878-1947) was a Swiss writer résident in Paris
(1902-1914), where he collaborated w ith the composer fgor Stravinsky, for
whom he wrote the text of Histoire du soldat (The Soldier’s Tale; 1918). He
also p u bl ish ed novels on rura l life that combine realism with allegory.—
Trans.J
24. The change note d here in the mode of exhi b ition—a change bro u ght about
by reproduction technology—is a Iso noticeable in pol iti cs. The crisis ofde-
mocracies can be understood as a crisis in th e conditions governing the
public présentation of politicians. Democracies exh i bi t the poli ticia n di
re c tly, in person, before elected représentatives. The p a rliamen t is his pub
lic. But innovations in recording equipment now enable. the speaker to be
heard by an unlimited number of people while he i pe.iking, and to be
seen by an unlimited number sh ortly afterward. This means that pri ority is
50 PRODUCTION, REP RODUCTI ON, AND RECEPTI ON
give n to prcsen ti ng the politîcîan before the recording equipment. Parlia-

ments are becoming depopulated at the same time as theaters. Radio and
film are changing not only the function of the professional actor but,
equally, the function of those who, like the p o litician, present themselves
before these media. The direction of th is change is the same for the film actor
and the politician, regardless of their different tasks. It tends toward the
exhibition of controllable, transferable skills under certain social conditions,
just as sports first called for such exhibition under certain natural condi
tions. This results in a new form of selection—selection before an appara
tus—from which the c h a mpion, the star, and the dictator emerge as victors.
l'Benjamin’s note]
25. It should be noted in passing th a t proletarian class consciousness, which is
the most enlightened form of class co nsc iousne ss, fu n d am e ntaüy transforms
the structure of the pro letari a n masses. The class-conscious prolétariat forms
a compact mass only from th e outside, in the minds of its oppressors. At the
moment when it takes up its struggle for liberati o n, this apparently compact
mass has actually a Ire ady begun to loos en. It ceases to be governed by mere
reactions; it m a k es the transition to action. The loosening of the proletarian
masses is the work of sol ida rity. In the so lid arity of the p roletaria n class
struggle, the dead, undialectical opposition between individual and mass
is abolished; for the comra d e, it does not exist. D ec isi ve as the m asses are
for the revo lu ti o n ary leader, therefore, his great achievement lies not in
drawing the masses after him, but in co n stantly incorporating himself into
the m a sse s, in o rder to be, for them, always one among hundreds of thou-
sa n ds. But the same class struggle which Joosens the compact m ass of the
p roleta riat compresses that of the petty b ourg e o is ie. The mass as an impene-
tra ble, compact entity, which Le Bon and oth e rs have ma d e the subject of
their “ mass psy c ho logy,” is that of the petty b o u r^eois ie. The petty bour
geoisie is not a class; it is in fact only a m . *n the greater the pressure
acting on it between the two anta stic t c the bourgeoisie and the
p. !etari at, the more compact it . mes. In this ma ss the emotional ele-
n it d esc ti b ed in mass psychol ogy is in deed a dn ermimn g fa c to r. But for
that v reason this compact mass forms the m r h e sis of the proletarian
cadre, which o beys a collective ratio. In the petty- ourgeois mass, t he reac
tive n rient des cr ibe d in mass psychology is in d-.d a dete rm in in g factor,
But precisely for that reason this compact mass with its unmediated reac
tions forms the antithesis of the pro Ietari a n cadre, whose a c tions are medi-
ated b y a task, however momentary. Demonstrations by t he compact mass
thus always have a pa nicked quality—whether they give vent to war fever,
hatred of Jews, or the instinct for self-preservation. Once the distinction be
tween the co m pact (that is, petty-bourgeois) mass and the class-conscious,
proletarian mass has been de a rly made, its ope ratio na l significance is also
clear. This distinction is now here more graphically illustrated than in the not
uncommon cases when some outrage originally performed by the compact

mass becomes, as a result of a revolutionary situation and perhaps within
the space of seconds, the revolutionary action of a class. The spécial feature
of such truly historic events is that a reaction by a compact mass sets off an
internai upheaval which loosens its composition, enabling it to become
aware of itself as an association of class-conscious cadres. Such concrete
events contain in very abbreviated form what communist tacticians call
“winning over th e petty bou rgeoi sie." These tacticians have a further in ter-
est in clarifying this process. The ambiguous concept of the masses, and the
indiscriminate references to their mood which are commonplace in the Ger
man revolutionary press, have undoubtedly fostered illusions which have
had disastrous conseqnences for the German proletariat. Fascism, by con-
trast, has made exceLLent use of these laws—whether it understood them or
not. It realizes that the more compact the masses it mobilizes, the better the
chance th at the counterrevolutionary instincts of the petty bourgeoisie will
determine their reactions. The proletariat, on the other han d , is preparing
for a society in which neither the objective nor the subjective conditions
for the fo rmation of masses will exist any lon ger. [Benjamin’s note. Gustave
Le Bon (1841-1931), French physician and sociologist, was the author of
Psychologie des foules (Psychology of the Crowd; 1895) and other works.—
Trans. J
26. Benjamin alludes here to Heinrich von Ofterdingen, an unfinished novel by
the German Romantic poet Novalis (Friedrich von Hardenberg; 1772-1801),
first published in l 802. Von Ofterdingen is a me di eval poet in search of the
mysterious BLue Flower, which bears the face of his unknown beloved. See
Benjamin’s “Dream Kitsch ” (1927), in this volume.
27. Rudolf Arnheim, F//m als Kunst, p. 138. [Benjamin’s note. In English in
Arnheim, Fi/m as Art, pp. 116-117. On Arnheim, see note 22 above.—
Trnns.]
28. Benjamin refers to Fragment 89 in the standard Diels-Kranz édition of the
fragments of Heraclitus of Ephesus, the Pre-Socratic philosopher of the
sixth-fifth centuries b . c . On Mickey Mouse, see the following note.
29. O f cou rs e, a comprehensive a nalys is of these films should not overlook their
double meaning. It should start from the ambiguity of situations which have
both a comic and a horrifying effect. As the reactions of children show, com-
edy and horror are closely reLated. In the face of certain situations, why
shouldn’t we be allowed to ask which reaction is the more human? Some re-
cent Mickey Mouse films offer situations in which such a questio n seems jus-
tified. (Their gloomy and sinister fire-magic, made technically possible by
color film, highlights a feature which up to now has been present only co-
vertly, and shows how easily fascism takes over “revolutionary" innovations
in this field too.) What is revealed in recent Disney films was latent in some
of the earlier ones: the cozy acceptance of bestiality and violence as inevita-
52 P R O D U CTI 0 N , R E P R 0 D U CTI 0 N , A N D R E C E PTI 0 N
ble concomitants of existence. This renews an old tradition which is far from
reassuring—the tradition inaugurated by the dancing hooligans to be found
in depictions of medieval pogroms, of whom the “tiff-raff" in Grimm’s fairy
tale of that title are a pale, indistinct rear-guard. [Benjamin’s note. The inter-
nationally successful Mickey Mouse cartoon series developed out of the
character of Mortimer Mouse, introduced in 1927 by the commercial artist
and cartoon producer Walt Disney (1901-1966), who made outstanding
technical and aesthetic contributions to the development of animation be
tween 192 7 and 1937, and whose short animated films of the thirties won
praise from critics for their visual comedy and their r hyth mic and unconven-
tional technical effects. See Benjamin’s “Mickey M ouse’' (1931), in th is vol
ume. “Riff-raff” translates “Lumpengesindel,” the tide of a story in Jacob
and Wilhelm Grimm’s collection of tales, Kinder- wnd HausmarcbflM (Nurs
ery and Hou sehold Ta les ; 1812, 1815).—Trans.]
30. “The artw ork,” writes André Breton, “ has value only insofar as it is alive to
reverberations of the future.” And indeed every highly developed art form
stands at the intersection of three lines of development. First, technology is
working toward a particular form of art. Before film appeared, there were
little books of photos that could be made to flit past the viewer under the
pressure of the thumb, presenting a boxing match or a tennis match; then
there were coin-operated peepboxes in bazâârs, with image sequences kept
in motion b y the turning of a handle. Second, traditional art forms, at cer
tain stages in their development, strain laboriously for effects which later are
effortlessly achieved by new a rt forms. Before film became established, Da-
daist performances sought to stir in their audiences reactions which Chaplin
then elicited more naturally. Third, apparently insignificant social changes
often foster a ch ange in reception which benefits only the new ait form. Be
fore film had started to create its public, images (which were no longer mo-
tionless) were received by an assembled audience in the Kaiserpanorama.
Here the audience faced a screen into which stereoscopes were fitted, one for
each spectator. In front of these stereoscopes single images automatically ap
peared, remained briefly in view, and then gave way to others. Edison still
had to work with similar means when he presented the first film strip—be
fore the movie screen and projection were known; a small audience gazed
into an apparatus in which a sequence of images was shown. Incidentally,
the institution of the Kaiserpanorama very dearly manifests a dialectic of
development. Shortly before film turned the viewing of images into a collec
tive activity, image viewing by the individual, through the stereoscopes of
these soon outmoded establishments, w as briefly intensified, as it had been
once before in the isolated contemplation of the divine image by the priest
in the celta. [Benjamin’s note. André Breton (1896-1966), French critic,
poet, and editor, was the chief promoter and one of the founders of the Sur-
realist movement, publishing the first Manifeste du surréalisme in 1924. In
Zurich in 1916, an international group of exiles disgusted by World War I,

and by the bourgeois ideologies that had brought it about., launched Dada,
an avant-garde movement that attempted to radically change both the work
of art an d society. Dadaist groups were active in Berlin, New York, Paris,
and elsewhere during the war and into the 1920s, recruiting many nota
ble artists, writers, and performers capable of shocking their audiences at
public gatherings. On Chaplin, see note 13 above. Thomas Alva Edison
(1847-1931) patented more than a thousand inventions over a sixty-year
period, including the microphone, the phonograph, the incandescent electric
lamp, and the alkaline storage battery. He supervised the invention of the
Kinetoscope in 1891; this boxlike peep-show machine allowed individuals
to view moving pictures on a film loop running on spools between an elec
tric lamp and a shuttec He built the first film studio, the Black Maria, in
1893, and later founded his own company for the production of projected
films. The Kaiserpanorama (Imperial Panorama), located in a Berlin ar
cade, consisted of a dome-like apparatus presenting stereoscopic views to
customers seated around it. See Benjamin's “Impérial Panorama” (Ch ap
ter 6 in this volume), excerpted from his Berlin Childhood around 7 900
(1938).—Trans.}
31. Hans Arp (1 887-1966), Alsatian painter, sculptor, an d poet, was a founder of
tbe Zurich Dada group in 1916 and a collaborator with the Surrealists for a
time after 1925. August Stramm (1874-1915) was an early Expressionist
poet and dramatist, a member of the circle of artists gathered around the
journal Der Sturm in Berlin. The French painter Andre Derain (1880-1954)
became well known when he. Henri Matisse, and Maurice de Vlaminck
were dubbed the “Fauves,” or “wild beasts,” at the 1905 Salon d’Automne.
Rainer Maria Rilke (1875-1926), Austro-German lyric poet and writer,
published his Duineser Elegien (Duino Elegies) and Sonette an Orpheus
(Sonnets to Orpheus) in 1923.
32. Let us compare the screen [Leinwand] on which a film unfolds with the can-
vas [Lemwand] of a painting. The image on the film screen changes, whereas
the image on th e canvas does not. The painting invites the viewer to contem
plation; before it, he can give himself up to his train of associations. Before a
film image, he cannot do so. No sooner has he seen it than it has already
changed. It cannot be fixed on. The train of associations in the person
contemplating it is immediately interrupted by new images. This consti
tutes the sh ock effect of film, which, like all shock effects, seeks to in
duce heightened attention. Film is the art form corresponding to the pro-
nounced threat to life in which people live today. It corresponds to profound
changes in the apparatus of apperception—changes that are experienced
on the scale of private existence by each passerby in big-city traffic, and on
the scale of world history by each fighter against the present social order.
[Benjamin’s note. A more literal translation of the last phrase before the sen
54 P R 0 D U CTl 0 N , R E P R O D UCT I 0 N , A N D R E C E P T I 0 N
tence in italics is: “seeks to be buffered by intensified presence of mind

IGeist.esgegenw art]. ”—Trans.]
33. Secti o ns XVII an d XVIII introduce the idea of a productive “ rece pt ion in dis
traction” (Rezeption in der Zerstreuung), an idea indebted to the writings of
Siegfried Kracauer a nd Louis Aragon. This positive ide a of distraction—
Zerstreuung also means “entertainment”—contrasts with the negative idea
of distraction that Benj amin developed in such essays as “Theater and Ra
dio” (1932) and “The Author as Producer” (1934), both in this volume; the
latter idea is associated with the theory and practi ce of Bertolt Brecht’s epic
theater. See “Theory of Distraction ” (1935-1936), in this volume.
34. Benjamin rela tes the legend of this Chine e pa in ter in the 1934 version of his
Ber/in Childhood around 1900, in Benjamin, Selected Writings, Volume 3:
1935-1938 (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2002), p. 393.
35. The terni “aesth etics” is a derivative of Greek aisthetikos, “of sense percep
tion ,” from aisthanesthai, “ to perceive.”
36. A technological factor is important here, especially with regard t o the news-
reel, whose signifi ca nce for p rop aga nda purposes can hardly be overstated.
M ass reproduction is especially favored by th e reproduction o f the m asses.
In grea t ceremonial processions, gia nt rallies and mass sporting events, and
in war, all of which are now fed into the camera, the masses come face to
face with themselves. This process, whose significance need not be empha-
sized, is closely bound up with the development of reproduction and record
ing technologies. In general, mass movements are more clearly appre hen de d
by the camera than by the eye. A bird’s-eye view best captures assemblies of
hund reds of thousands. And even when this pe rspective is no less accessible
to th e human eye t han to the camera, the image formed by the eye can n ot be
enlarged in the same way as a pho tograph . Th is is to say that mass move
ments, and above a ll war, are a form of human behavior especially suited to
the cilmeca. [Benjamin’s note]
37. Gabriclc D’Annunzio (18 63-1938), Italian writer, m il ita ry hero, and pol iti ca l
leader, was an ardent advocate of Italy’s entry into World War I and, a few
years later, an ardent Fascist. His life and his work are both characterized by
superstition, amorality, and a lavish and vicious violence. Futurism w as an
a rti stic movement aiming to expre ss the dyna mic and violent quality of con-
temporary life, especially as embodied in the motion and force of modern
machinery and modern warfare. 11 was founded by the Italian wr iter Emilio
Filippo Tomaso Marinetti (1876-1944), whose “ M ani fe s te de Futurisme”
(Manifesto of Futurism) was published in the Paris newspaper Le Figaro in
1909; his ideas had a p owerful influence in Italy and Russia. After serving as
an officer in World War I, he went on to join the Fascist party in 1919.
Among his other works are a volume of poems, Guerra sola igiene del
mundo (War the O n ly Hygiene of the World; 1915), and a poli tica 1 essay,
Futurismo e Fascism o (1924), which argues that fasci m is the natural exten
T HE W O R K OF ART: S E C O N D V E H S I O N 55
sion of Futurism. Schwabing, a district of Munich, was much frequemed by

artists a rou n d the turn of the twentieth century; Hitler and ocher Nazi agita-
tors mec in certain of its restaurants and beer cellars and pJotted the unsuc-
cessful revolt again st governmental authority known as che Beer Hall Putsch
(1923).
38. Cited in La Stam pa Torino. [Benjamin’s note. The German editors of
Benjamin’s Gesammelte Schriften argue thac this passage is more likely to
have been excerpted from a French newspaper than from the Italian newspa-
per cited here.—Trans.J
39. “Let art flourish—and the wor)d pass away.” Th is is a play on the motto of
the sixteenth-century Holy Roman emperor Ferdinand I: “Fiat iustitia et
pereac mundus” (“Let justice be done and the world pass aw ay”).

Benjamin WorkofArt

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The true is what he can; the false is what he wants.

W hen M ar x u n der took his a n alysis o f t h e c ap italist m ode o fp r o d u c tion ,

derestim ate. Th ey n eu tralize a n u m ber o f tradition al con cepts— su ch as

it cou ld n ow keep pace w ith speech . Ju st as th e illu strated n ew spaper vir-

In even th e m ost perfect r epr od u ct ion , on e th in g is lack in g: the h ere an d

record. Th e cath edr al leaves its site to be received in th e studio o f an art

Ju st as the en tire m od e o f existen ce o f h u m an collectiv es ch an ges ov er

th at is the sam e in th e w o r ld ” 6 h as so inc reased th at, b y m ean s o f repro-

Th e un iqu en ess of the w ork of ar t is iden tical to its em beddedn ess in

Art h isto ry mi gh t be seen as the w or k i n g out o f a ten sion betw een tw o

th at th e h istorical m om en t of th is ch an ge in the fu n ctio n of art— a c han ge

when h u m an ity’s w h ole con stitu tion h as ad ap t ed it self to the new p r o­

In ph otograph y , ex h ibitio n v alu e begin s to driv e back cu lt value on all

Th e Greeks h ad on ly tw o w ays oft e ch n ologically r epr od u cin g w orks of

posit ion in ar t h istory— the st an d ar d for su bsequ en t gén ération s. Un-

to th ose presen ted by film. H en ce tlie ob tu se an d h yperbolic ch aracter of

To p h ot ogr ap h a pain tin g is one kin d o f r epr od u ct ion , bu t to ph ot ogr aph

It is n ot su r pr isin g th at it sh ou ld be a d r am at ist such as Piran dello

Th e représen tation o f h um an bein gs by m ean s o f an ap p arat u s h as m ade

appearan ce [Ersch ein un g] in a m ir r or —a favorite th eme of the Rom an -

It is in h eren t in th e tech n ology of film , as of sp or t s, t h at everyon e w h o

lie is abou t to lose its axiom at ic ch aracter. Th e différen ce becom es func-

the cam era). Th is circu m stan ce, m ore th an an y other, m ak es an y resem-

Th e tech n ological reprodu cibility o f the artw ork ch an ges th e relation o f

T h e m ost im portan t social fu n ction o f film is to establish equ ilibrium be­

It h as alw ays been on e o f the pr im ar y t ask s o f ar t to create a dem an d

valu es so ch aracterist ic o f film in favor o f m or e sign ifican t asp ir at ion s—

Th e m asses ar e a m at r ix fr om wh ich all cu stom ary beh avior tow ard

form an an tith esis, w h ich m ay be for m u lated as fo iio w s. A person w h o

is in creasin gly n ot iceable in all areas o f ar t an d is a sy m ptom o f p ro f o u n d

Th e in creasin g prolet ar ian izat ion of m od er n m an an d th e in creasin g fo r ­

. . . remember these principles of an aesthetic of war, that they may illumi-

T h is m an ifesto h as th e m erit o f clarity. Th e qu estion it poses deserves

Written late December l 935-begiiining of February 1936; unpublished in this form in

L'Opinion publique—was written and directed by the London-bom actor

d ’autore (Six Characters in Search of an Author; 1921) and Enrico IV

works of art is m a tched by a h uge gain in the scope fo r p lay ISpiel-RattmJ.

give n to prcsen ti ng the politîcîan before the recording equipment. Parlia-

uncommon cases when some outrage originally performed by the compact

Zurich in 1916, an international group of exiles disgusted by World War I,

tence in italics is: “seeks to be buffered by intensified presence of mind

sion of Futurism. Schwabing, a district of Munich, was much frequemed by

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when h u m an ity’s w h ole con stitu tion h as ad ap t ed it self to the new p r o

T h e m ost im portan t social fu n ction o f film is to establish equ ilibrium be

Th e in creasin g prolet ar ian izat ion of m od er n m an an d th e in creasin g fo r