Question 2

Due 7/1 - 6 PM

Consider our discussion so far of Walter Benjamin’s “The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction.” Remembering the points outlined in lecture in Monday’s class, your blog assignment requires you to locate media on the internet and provide a Benjamin-inspired reading. You are required to use a few short quotations from the essay.

I have split up the class to cover two different themes in the essay:

If your last name begins with A-L:

Consider Benjamin’s points on actors in relationship to a SHORT movie clip that you can locate online. Link to this clip and then consider how some of Benjamin’s points in Sections VIII, IX, and X can be used to analyze the clip of your actor in action. How does this clip show (or not show) Benjamin’s points?

If your last name begins with M-W:

Consider Benjamin’s points on the differences between film and paintings in sections XI, XII and XIII. Link to a SHORT movie clip and a piece of “traditional art” (sculpture, painting, drawing) that you locate online. Analyze how these show us how film is very different as an effective medium. Use Benjamin’s specific points to dissect the movie clip in contrast to the “artistic image.”