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Benjamin, Cinema and Experience: "The Blue Flower in the Land of Technology"
Author(s): Miriam Hansen

Source: New German Critique, No. 40, Special Issue on Weimar Film Theory (Winter, 1987), pp.
179-224
Published by: Duke University Press
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Cinemaand Experience:
Benjamin,
"TheBlueFlowerin theLand ofTechnology"
Hansen
Miriamrn
In therepresentationofhumanbeingsthroughtheappa-
ratus,humanself-alienationhas founda mostproductive
realization.["The Artworkin the Age of Its Technical
Reproducibility" version,1935)]
(first
Concerningthemimoire involontaire:
notonlydo itsimages
not come when we tryto call themup; rather,theyare
imageswhichwe have neverseen beforewe remember
them.This is most clearlythe case in those images in
which -like in some dreams- we see ourselves.We
standin frontof ourselves,thewaywe mighthave stood
somewherein a prehistoricpast, but neverbeforeour
waking gaze. Yet these images, developed in the
darkroomof the lived moment,are the mostimportant
we willeversee. One mightsay thatour mostprofound
moments have been equipped -like those cigarette
packs -with a littleimage,a photographof ourselves.
And that"whole life"which,as theysay,passes through
people's mindswhentheyare dyingor in mortaldanger
is composedofsuchlittleimages.Theyflashbyin as rap-
id a sequence as the bookletsof our childhood,precur-
sorsofthecinema,in whichwe admireda boxer,a swim-
meror a tennisplayer.["A ShortSpeech on Proust,"de-
liveredby Benjaminon his fortieth birthday,1932]
Benjamin's reputation in contemporary film theory and criticism

reststo a large extentupon his 1935/36 essay, "The Work of Artin the
Age of Mechanical Reproduction," probably the single most often
cited text by Benjamin or any other German writeron film.' That the
1. "Das Kunstwerkim ZeitalterseinertechnischenReproduzierbarkeit"("The
179
andCinema
180 Benjamin
essay was writtenunder the influence of Brecht facilitatedits

assimilationto debates on Brechtiancinema as theytook place dur-
ingthe 1970s,forinstance,in theBritishjournalScreen. The particular
blend of Marxismand modernismthatdeterminedthe receptionof
Benjamin'swork,however,tendedto obscurethe more incongruous
and ambivalentfeatures oftheArtwork Essay,notto mentionitsprob-
lematicstatusin relationto Benjamin'sotherwritings. Such a reading
was no doubt encouragedby the programmatic tenorof theessayit-
self,theconstruction ofitsargumentthrougha sequenceoftheses.Yet
theone-sidedand reductivegesturethatmayhavesecuredtheessaya
place in college textbookscannotbe takenat facevalue; it is just as
bound up withthepoliticalconstellation in whichtheessaywaswritten
as are the contradictionsthatit so desperatelytriedto resolve.
In thefollowing,I willelaborateon some oftheincongruities ofthe
Artwork Essay and situatethem in relationto a of
theory experienceas
it emergesfromsome of Benjamin'smiddle as well as latertexts.
Brushedagainstthegrainof itsprogrammatic message,theessaystill
speaks to a number of questionsarising at the boundariesbetween
film history,film theory and film criticism.More specifically,
Benjamin's remarkson filmtouch upon an area for which Tom
Gunning,borrowingfromEisenstein,has proposedthe productively
ambiguousterm"cinema of attractions." This termoffersa historical
conceptoffilmspectatorship whichtakesitscue frommodes offasci-
nationprevalentin earlycinema,feedingon attractions such as the
magicaland illusionistpowerof filmicrepresentation, its kineticand
temporalmanipulations(notyetsubordinatedto character movement
and the chronologicalmomentumof linearnarrative) and, above all,
an openlyexhibitionist tendencyepitomizedby therecurring look of
actorsat thecamera.Withthestandardization ofthenarrative film(in
the U.S. around 1906-07),such "primitive"attractions were syste-
matically suppressed - if not pressed into service - by narrative
of viewerabsorptionand identification.
strategies Ratherthandisap-
Artworkin the Age of Its Technical Reproducibility"), Gesammelte (=GS),

Schriften
1.2, ed. RolfTiedemann and Hermann Schweppenhauser (Frankfurt: Suhrkamp,
1974),firstversion,431-469; second version,471- 508; Frenchversion,trans.Pierre
Klossowski,709-739. The second version is included in Illuminations,trans.Harry
Zohn,ed. Hannah Arendt(New York:SchockenBooks, 1969); in thefollowingcited
as I, translationin mostcases modified.The essay is reprintedin one of the most
widely disseminatedcollege textbooks in the field,Gerald Mast and Marshall
Cohen's Film Theory and Criticism: Readings,thirdedition (New York:
Introductory
OxfordUniversity Press,1985); thisreprintomitsBenjamin's footnoteswhichcon-
tain large chunksfromthe firstversion.
MiriamHansen 181
pear, Gunningcontends,the cinemaof attraction continued"under-

ground," both in certain avant-gardefilmpracticesand as a compo-
nentof particulargenres(e.g. the musical)and, I would add, in the
eroticappeal ofparticular stars.2Althoughthehistoricalphenomenon
in question can be tracedmost distinctly throughthe processof its
eliminationand appropriation, it nonethelesspreserves,in itsunder-
ground existence, an alternative
visionofcinema--arangeoffilm/spec-
tatorrelationsthatdifferfromthe alienatedand alienatingorganiza-
tionof classicalHollywoodcinema.
The dual focusofthisargumentis itselfendebtedto a historical dis-
course on the cinema. It resumes a perspectivearticulatedamong
WesternEuropean avant-gardeartistsand intellectualsduring the
1920swhichwas markedby an enthusiasmforthepossibilitiesof the
newmediumand a simultaneouscritiqueofitsactualdevelopment, in
particularitsopportunistic recourseto traditional
literaryand theatri-
cal conventions.In thisspirit,Dadaistsand Surrealistscelebratedthe
cinema'sprimitiveheritage,especiallyslapstickcomedywithitsanar-
chic physicalityor trickfilmsin the styleof MliRs. Likewise,many
writerson theleftseized upon contemporary Sovietfilmas an alterna-
tiveto mainstreamcinema,as a model ofrealizing- and reconciling
- thecinema'saestheticand politicalpotential(cf.theGermanrecep-
tion of Potemkin).
A decade later,whenBenjaminwrotehisArtwork Essay,the"all-out
gamble ofthe historical process"(Kracauer) in which filmand photog-
raphy were to play a decisive role3 seemed all but lost; insteadof
advancing a revolutionaryculture, the media of "technical
reproduction" were lending themselves to oppressive social and
political and
forces--first foremost in the fascist restorationof myth
through mass spectacles and newsreels, butalso in theliberal-capitalist
marketplace and in Stalinistculturalpolitics.Nonetheless,Benjamin's
2. Tom Gunning,"The Cinema ofAttraction: EarlyFilm,Its Spectatorand the

Avant-Garde,"WideAngle8.3/4 (1986): 63-70. The question of the differenceor
alterityof earlycinema has been debated by a numberof film scholars-among
them Robert Allen, Charles Musser, Noel Burch, David Bordwell and Kristin
Thompson. On the transgressive potentialof eroticismin thestar cult see myarti-
Valentinoand Female Spectatorship,"
cle, "Pleasure,Ambivalence,Identification:
CinemaJournal25.4 (Summer 1986): 6-32. Thomas Elsaesser examines similar
questions withregardto the historicalspecificityof Weimar Cinema; see "Film
Historyand Visual Pleasure:WeimarCinema," in CinemaHistories, CinemaPractices,
ed. PatriciaMellenkampand PhilipRosen (Frederick,MD: University Publications
of America,1984), 47-84.
3. SiegfriedKracauer,"Die Photographie"(1927), in Das OrnamentderMasse
(Frankfurt: Suhrkamp,1963; 1977), 38-39.
182 Benjaminand Cinema
concernwiththe photographicmedia stillparticipatesin the avant-

gardeperspective ofthe 1920s(unlikeAdorno'sworkon mass culture
whichclearlybelongsto anotherperiod).The belatedmomentof the
Artwork Essay onlyenhancesthe utopianmodalityof its statements,
shifting the emphasisfroma definitionof what filmis to its failed
opportunities and unrealizedpromises.Thus,thecinemabecomesan
object--aswell as a medium--of"redemptivecriticism,"the same
effort of criticalpreservation thatinspiredBenjamin'sworkon Baude-
laireand the ParisArcades,thePassagen-Werk.4
BenjaminactuallyconceivedoftheArtwork Essayas a heuristic
con-
struction,a "telescope" which would help him look through"the
bloodyfog" at the "phantasmagoriaof the nineteenth century"so as
to delineatein itthefeaturesofa future, liberatedworld.5The "bloody
fog"of 1935 made himdeploy,in a strategic confrontation,thetrans-
formation ofexperiencein industrialsociety(ofwhichthecinemawas
bothsymptomand agent)againsttraditional notionsofart,in particu-
lar a belated cult of He
l'artpourl'art. had been pursuinga critiqueof
the latterfor quite a while,specifically in his polemics againstthe
Georgecircle.Now, withthegrowingthreatof fascism- not onlyin
Italyand Germanybut otherEuropean countriesas well - he per-
ceived a complicityof aestheticideology(and individualintellectual
exponents like ErnstJuingerand F.T. Marinetti)with the fascist
aestheticization of politicsand war.6
4. JuirgenHabermas, "Consciousness-Raisingor RedemptiveCriticism: The

Contemporaneityof Walter Benjamin" (1972), New GermanCritique17 (Spring
1979): 30-59; Habermas in factincludesthe Sovietfilmof the twentiesamong the
objects of Benjamin's redemptivecriticism,a claim that is borne out by a
comparisonofthestatusofSovietfilmin theArtworkEssaywithBenjamin'searlier,
somewhatmore distancedand criticalreporton "The Situationof Russian Film
Art"(1927), GS 11.2:747-751,and his defense of BattleshipPotemkinin his response
to Oskar Schmitz,ibid., 751-55.The firstto emphasize the redemptivethreadrun-
ningthroughBenjamin'swork, connectingphilosophyof history,aesthetictheory
and the phenomenologyof everydaylife,was of course SiegfriedKracauerwhose
own workof the 1920s testifiesto a deep affinity withsuch intentions,likewise
rootedinJewishmysticism: "Zu den SchriftenWalterBenjamin's"(1928),Ornament
derMasse,249-255. Also see RichardWolin,Walter AnAesthetic
Beinjamin: ofRedemption
(New York:Columbia University Press, 1982).
5. Das Passagen-Werk (=PW), ed. RolfTiedemann(Frankfurt: Suhrkamp, 1983),
II: 1151. An importantsectionof the Passagen-Werk, KonvolutN ("Epistemology,
Theoryof Progress"),trans.Leigh Hafrey& Richard Sieburth,is included in The
Forum15.1-2 (Fall-Winter1983-84): 1-40. On the relationshipbetween
Philosophical
the ArtworkEssay and the Passagen-Werk see Susan Buck-Morss,"Benjamin's
Passagen-Werk: Redeeming Mass-Culture for theRevolution,"NewGerman Critique
29 (Spring/Summer 1983): 212.
6. Epilogue to theArtwork Essay,I, 241-42; "PariserBrief<1>" (1936), GS III:
MiriamHansen 183
From this perspective,reproductiontechnologyfiguresas an

unintentional ally,as itwere,priorto anyrevolutionary possibilities
(I,
231). To repeat the by now familiar argument: the technical
reproducibilityofexistingworksofartand, whatis more,itsconstitu-
tiverole in theaestheticsof photography and filmhave createda his-
toricalstandardwhichaffects thestatusofartin itscore.Withtheelim-
inationofqualitiesthataccruedto theartwork as a unique object-its
and
presence,authenticity authority, its "aura"- the standardof
universalreproducibility shattersthe culturaltraditionthat draws
legitimacy fromtheexperienceofart,thusbaringtheentanglement of
artand social privilege.At the same time,technicalreproductionas-
sumesa crucialrole in viewof thecrisisand reorganization oftheur-
ban masses.In thisconstellation, technicalreproduction converges,as
an objectivedevelopment,withself-critical tendencieswithintheinsti-
tutionof art itself,forcedinto the open by avant-gardemovements
such as Dada and Surrealism(1, 237-38,249-50).
Having establishedthe terms"aura" and "masses" as opposite
poles ofthepoliticalfieldofforce,Benjaminproceedsto asserta func-
tionalaffinitybetweenmassesand themediaoftechnicalreproduction
by wayof whatmightbe called a phenomenologicalsyllogism.If the
aura is definedas "the unique phenomenonof a distance,however
closeitmaybe," thecontemporary massesarecharacterized byan anti-
theticalintention,"the desire[...] to bringthings'closer' spatiallyand
humanly,whichis just as ardentas theirbenttowardovercomingthe
uniquenessof everyrealityby acceptingitsreproduction."
Everydaytheurgegrowsstronger i.e.lessref-
Junabweisbarer,
utable]togetholdofan objectatverycloserangebywayof
itscopy[Abbild],
itsimage[Bild]or,rather, itsreproduction.
Unmistakably,reproduction as offeredby illustrated
maga-
zinesandnewsreels differs
fromtheimage.Uniqueness and
permanenceare as closelylinkedin the latteras are
and reproducibility
transitoriness in theformer. To pryan
objectfromitsshell,todestroyitsaura,isthemarkofa per-
ceptionwhose"senseoftheuniversal equalityofthings [Sinn
inderWelt]"has increasedto sucha degree
fiirdas Gleichartige
thatitextracts
itevenfroma uniqueobjectbymeansofits
482-95; "Theories of GermanFascism,"NewGerman 17 (Spring1979): 120-

Critique
128. On thepoliticalcontextof Benjamin'srejectionof theGermanaesthetictradi-
tion,see BurkhardtLindner,"TechnischeReproduzierbarkeit und Kulturindustrie:
Benjamins'PositivesBarbarentum'im Kontext,"in: Lindner,ed.,"Linkshattenoch
allessichzu entrdtseln...":
Walter imKontext
Benjamin (Frankfurt:
Syndikat,1978),
180-223.
184 Benjamin
andCinema
reproduction.Thus is manifestedin the fieldof perception

sphereis noticeable
whatin thetheoretical in thegrowing
importanceofstatistics.7
Mounted as an argumentabout large-scalehistoricalshiftsin the
collective organization of human perception, this passage
distinguishestwo, perhaps three,interdependent aspects of such a
change: its manifestation along spatial and temporal registers
(distance/proximity, permanence/transitoriness),and the modalityof
an objectin relationto others,definedbytheregister vs.
ofsingularity
multiplication, similarityor likeness.These aspectsmay overlap in
illustratingthedecayoftheaura,yettheygiveriseto diverging linesof
argument when Benjamin triesto establisha functional be-
affinity
tweenmedia and masses.
The spatio-temporal lineofargumentlinksfilmand photography to
socialchangethroughtheconceptof"shock,"whichBenjaminwas to
elaborate in his 1939 essay on Baudelaire ("Some Motifs in
Baudelaire")and whichhe alreadyassumesin the Artwork Essay,es-
the
pecially first version. The adaptation of human perceptionto in-
dustrialmodes ofproductionand transportation, especiallytheradical
restructuration of spatial and temporalrelations,has an aesthetic
counterpart in theformalproceduresofthephotographic media -the
arbitrary moment of in
exposure photography and the fragmenting
gripofframing and editingin film.Withitsdialecticof continuityand
discontinuity, withtherapidsuccessionand tactilethrustofitssounds
and images,filmrehearsesin therealmofreceptionwhattheconveyor
beltimposesupon humanbeingsin therealmofproduction.8 Resum-
ing Kracauer's of
concept "distraction," Benjamin citesthisgrimpar-
allelforitsculturalnegativity,itssubversionofthebourgeoiscultofart
and of a mode of receptionpredicatedon individualcontemplation
7. I, 223, translation
modified.Zohn's translationobliteratesthe crucialdistinc-
tionbetweenBildand Abbild, obviouslyrelatedtermswhich have acquired an anti-
theticalmeaningat thisparticularhistoricaljuncture:"Everyday the urge grows
strongerto gethold of an object at veryclose rangebywayof itslikeness,itsrepro-
duction." Likeness, reproduction- same difference. At a loss foran antithetical
termin what follows,Zohn insteadconstructsan oppositionbetween"reproduc-
tion" on the one hand and "image seen by theunarmedeye" on theother,a free-
style additionto Benjamin's text.
8. Draftnotes relatingto the ArtworkEssay, GS 1.3: 1040; also see "Baude-
laire," I, 175.
MiriamHansen 185
and illusionistabsorption.9In its emphasis on formaldiscontinuity

and disruption,film'srehearsaloftheshockeffect wouldthuscoincide
withthetenetsofpoliticalmodernism,i.e. theBrechtianelementsofa
"cinema of attraction."(Yet,as I will argue later,the psychoanalytic
premisesof Benjamin'sconceptof shockcertainly pointbeyondthis
affiliation).
While the spatio-temporal reorganizationof experienceis traced
primarily therealmofcinematicreception,thelineofargumentthat
in
stresseslikenessand multiplicity seems to rely,to a greaterextent,on
the peculiarityof cinematicrepresentation, the iconic relationship
betweenfilm and referent.Followingan interesting discussion of
screenacting,'0Benjaminestablishesthe masses as the pre-eminent
subject matterof a liberatedcinema which he sees prefiguredin
certainRussianfilms(e.g. Vertov):"Any man todaycan lay claim to
beingfilmed"(I, 231). To be sure,thisphrasealso concernschangesin
the relations of reception,in particular,the democratizationof
expertisewhichupsetsthe traditionalhierarchybetweenauthorand
reader/viewer.Butmodellinghisnotionofexpertiseon thefluctuating
boundary between commentator and participant in populardiscourse
on sportsevents(e.g. newspaperboys discussingthe outcome of a
bicyclerace), Benjamin draws a problematicanalogy betweenlive
eventsand a medium of spatio-temporal displacement-an analogy
thatassumesan unproblematic relationshipbetweenfilmand reality.
Relying thus upon the iconic self-evidenceof photographic
reproduction, he suggestivelyconflatessemioticand politicalsensesof
representation,making thelatter vouch fortherevolutionary potential
of the former.
Moreover,byillustrating thisrevolutionary potentialwithreferences
and polytechnical
to statistics education,he clearlyplaces thecinema
on the side of "experientialpoverty"(Erfahrungsannut), a termthat
a in
marks problematicslippage, Benjamin'swritings of thatperiod,
betweena historicalphenomenologytracingthedeclineofexperience
and the politicalendorsementof such a declineforthe sake of what
9. Kracauer,"Cult of Distraction"(1926), Ornament derMasse, translationin this

issue.
10. The question of screenactingis treatedat much greaterlengthin the first
versionof the essay(GS 1.2: 449-455) whereit furnishesan importantlinkbetween
Benjamin's notion of shock and the politicalfunctionof the cinema, a point to
whichI will returnlater.
andCinema
186 Benjamin
he callsa "new,positiveconceptofbarbarism.""In lightofthisagen-

da, the distinctionbetween"Bild" (image)and "Abbild"(imagein the
sense of copy, reflection,reproduction)congeals into a binary
opposition; reduced to one side of that opposition,a politically
progressivecinema would have to become a traininggroundforan
enlightenedbarbarism.Withthe denigrationof the auraticimage in
favorof reproduction, Benjaminimplicitlydeniesthemassesthepos-
sibilityof aestheticexperience,in whatever form(and thus,like the
CommunistPartyduringthe 1920s,risksleavingaestheticneeds to be
exploitedbytheenemy).More important yet,he cutshimselfofffrom
a crucialimpulseof his own thought- crucialat leastto a theoryof
experience in the age of its declining communicability.Since
Benjamin'scontribution to currentdebatesin filmstudiesrestsupon
an elaborationoftheplace ofcinemain conjunctionwiththisverythe-
ory, I will take a detour throughsome aspects of his concept of
"Erfahrung," a termwhich "experience" approximatesonly in the
vaguest and most preliminarysense.
The self-denigrating slantof the ArtworkEssay comes into focus

only when compared with other writingsof his middle and later
periodin whichBenjaminactuallytriesto redeeman auraticmode of
experiencefora historicaland materialist practice.Relevanthereare
above all his essayson Surrealism,on photography and on the "mi-
meticcapability";his workon Proust,Kafka,Leskovand Baudelaire;
his epistemologicalremarks on the "dialectical image" in the
Passagenwerk; hisfirst-hand
and, finally, accountof theeffectsof hash-
ish. Whetherconcernedwith aesthetic,psychologicalor historical
questions,all thesetextscontributeto a theoryofexperiencein which
the phenomenonBenjamincalls "aura" playsa precariousyetindis-
pensablepart.
11. "Erfahrungund Armut" (1933), GS I1.1: 213-219. Other essays in which

Benjamin tips the scales in thisdirectioninclude "The Authoras Producer" and
some of his commentarieson Brecht(Understanding [London: NLB, 19731)as
Brecht
well as the short piece, "The DestructiveCharacter,"Reflections
(=R), ed. Peter
Demetz, trans.Edmund Jephcott(New York: HarcourtBrace Jovanovich,1978),
301-303. For a contextualizingdefenseof Benjamin's plea fora "positivebarbar-
ism," see Lindner(note 6, above).
MiriamHansen 187
Benjamin'sattitudetowardsthe decline of the aura is profoundly

ambivalent,justas theconceptofaura itselfdisplaysan "irritating
am-
In his 1931essayon photography,
biguity."12 he venturesa first
defini-
tionofthephenomenon("a peculiarweb ofspace and time"'1)which
he resumes,withslightmodifications, in the Artwork Essay.
We define[theauralas theuniqueappearance[Erscheinung]
ofa distance,
howevercloseitmaybe. Resting
on a summer
afternoonandletting
one'sgazefollow a mountain
rangeon
thehorizonor a branchwhichcastsitsshadowon one -
thatmeansbreathing the aura of thosemountains,that
branch.[1,222-231
Withthisimageofan impersonalizedsubjectivity, Benjamindefines
the aura as a mode of perceptionexperiencedin relationto natural
objects;yetthe definitionis offeredby wayof illustrating a historical
development -the witheringof theaura in the work
traditional ofart.
If the perception the aura thusrefersto a particularappearanceof
of
naturein potentiallyall objects,it is also conceptualized,fromthe
start,as dependentupon thesocialconditionsofperception, as contin-
gentupon historical
change.
Whatthenis theparticular qualityofauraticperception, whatmakes
it indispensibleto experience(Erfahrung)in the emphaticsense of the
word? Significantly -and, perhaps,at firstsightparadoxically- the
perceptionof theaura in naturalobjectsrestsupon "a projectionofa
social experience among human beings onto nature.""14That
experience,as Benjaminelaboratesin his lateressayon Baudelaire,is
theanticipatedreciprocityofthegaze: "The personwe lookat,or who
feelshe is beinglookedat,looksat us in return.To experiencetheaura
of a phenomenonmeans to invest[belehnen] it withthe capabilityof
12. Marleen Stoessel,Aura,das vergessene Zu SpracheundEtfahrung

Menschliche: bei
WalterBenjamin(Munich: Hanser, 1983), 25. The followingremarksto some extent
retraceStoessel'sargument.Also see Habermas, 44-47.
13. "Eine kleineGeschichteder Photographie"("A ShortHistoryof Photogra-
phy"). GS II.1: 378. There are several translationsof this essay: one by Stanley
Mitchellin Screen13.1 (Spring1972): 5-26; anotherin One-WayStreet andOtherWrit-
ings,trans.Edmund Jephcottand KingsleyShorter(London: NLB, 1979); and a
third- and probablyleast reliable - by Phil Pattonin Artforum 15.6 (February
1977): 46-61.
14. "Central Park,"GS 1.2: 670; NewGerman 34 (Winter1985): 41; "On
Critique
Some Motifsin Baudelaire," GS 1.2: 646-47; 1, 188.
returningthe gaze. This experiencecorrespondsto the data of the

memoire
involontaire"
(I, 188).
WhileBenjaminalludesto a phenomenologicalconceptofthegaze,
he above all invokestheromanticmetaphorofnatureopeningitseyes
(AugenaufschlagenderNatur)whichalreadyoccurs,in a kabbalisticguise,
in his 1916 essay on language.'"The notionof "Belehnung" implies
botha particularkindofattentiveness or receptivity
(thehumancapa-
bilityof respondingto another'sgaze, whethervisual or intentional)
and theactualizationofthisintersubjective experiencein therelation-
ship withnon-human nature. Hence theexperienceoftheaura in nat-
ural objectsis neitherimmediatenor 'natural'(in the sense of mythi-
cal) butinvolvesa suddenmomentoftransference, a metaphoricactiv-
ity.'6
The gaze thatnatureappears to be returning, however,does not
mirrorthe subjectin itspresent,consciousidentity, but confronts us
withanotherself,neverbeforeseen in a wakingstate.Undeniably,this
kindofvisionis notwhollyunrelatedto thesphereofthedaemonic,in
particularFreud's notionof the "uncanny"to whichI will returnin
conjunctionwiththesexualand gender-specific implicationsofauratic
experience.The Freudian connotation,like the referenceto the
memoire involontaire
and Benjamin'sglossingof Proustas an expertin
mattersof the aura, suggestswhatcommentatorshave pointedout:
thatthe"unique appearanceofa distance" whichmanifests itselfin the
perceptionofspatiallypresentobjectsis ofa temporal
dimension,mark-
ing the moment
fleeting in whichthe traceofan unconscious, "prehis-
toric"past is actualizedin a cognitiveimage.'7
15. "On Language as Such and the Languageof Man," R, 314-32; 325ff.In the
kabbalisticframework ofthisessay,themotifofendowingnaturewithan answering
gaze is prefigured,in an acousticand metaphysicaldimension,in the problemof
translation,in the disjunction between the mute language of nature and the
multiplicityof human languages,and the fragmentary relationshipof eitherto a
paradisicallanguage of names. Also see "The Task of the Translator"(1923), I, 69-
82.
16. Perhaps deliberatelyunderstatingthe connection,Benjamin explains in a
footnotethattheendowmentof naturewithan answeringgaze is "a source of poe-
try"and adds that"words,too,can have an aura," illustrating thisremarkwithone
ofhis favoritequotationsfromKarl Kraus:"The closeryou look at a word,thegreat-
er the distancefromwhichit looks back" (I, 200).
17. Stoessel, 45. Also see Benjamin's comments on Baudelaire's "corres-
pondances" whichare not simultaneous,as thoseof theSymbolistes,but are "data
of remembrance,"conveyingthe "murmur" of a prehistoricpast (I, 182 and note
MiriamHansen 189
Indeed, an importantaspectof Benjamin'snotionof theaura is its

complextemporality - whichinscribeshis theoryofexperiencewith
thetwofoldand antagonistic registersof memoryand history.Firstof
all, Benjamin leaves no doubt that,being contingent upon the social
conditionsof perception,the experienceof the aura is irrevocably in
decline,precipitated by theeffects of industrialmodes of production,
information, transportation and urbanization,especiallyan alienating
divisionof labor and theproliferation of shocksensations.Yet onlyin
theprocessofdisintegration can theaura be recognized,can itbe regi-
steredas a qualitativecomponentof(past)experience.The first impact
ofthatdeclinein turnmarksa particularhistorical experience, which is
whatBenjaminreads,as a "hiddenfigure,"in theworkofBaudelaire.
The traumaticreorganizationof perceptionthatmasquerades as
modernitymanifestsitselfmost obviouslyin spatialterms,as an up-
rootingof the subjectfroma humanrangeof perceptionwhichMary
Ann Doane describesas a "despatializationofsubjectivity."'s Sincefor
Benjamin,however, time has conceptualpriorityover space, thisshift
is ultimatelyand more cruciallya matterof detemporalization. The
imagesof loss thathe evokesin hisessayon Leskov,"The Storyteller"
(1936),driftfromtheerosionofspatialrelationscrucialto theepic tra-
dition- the proximityof the collectiveof listeners,the mystery of
faraway places - to that of the temporal conditionsof experience, the
dissociationof collectivememoryand individualrecollection,the
lattersurviving onlyin theprivatizedsubjectivity of novelwriting and
reading. The reification of time not only has eroded the capabilityand
communicability experience- experience memory,as awareness
of as
of temporality and mortality-but the very possibility of
remembering, thatis imagining,a different world."The decayof the
aura and the atrophyof thevision[Phantasievorstellung] of a betterna-
ture(owingto thedefensivepositionofclass struggle) are one and the
same.'19
13, 198-99).The emphasison the momentary, epiphanticcharacterof auraticexpe-

rienceis linkedto a Messianicconcept of time,in particularthe notionofJetztzeit,
the timeof the Now.
18. MaryAnn Doane, " 'When the Directionof the ForceActingon theBody Is
Changed': The MovingImage," WideAngle7.1&2 (1985): 44. Doane's argumentin-
vokesboth theArtworkEssay and WolfgangSchivelbusch'sBenjaminianstudy,The
RailwayJourney:Trainsand Travelin the19thCentury,trans.AnselmHollo (New York:
Urizen, 1979).
19. PW,J76, 1. It is significantthatthissentenceis precededby a descriptionof
Superimposedupon thehistorical-materialisttrajectoryofdeclineis
a less linear -though no less pessimistic- sense of belatedness,
endebtedto thetemporality ofJewishMessianism.The affinity of the
concept of aura with on
Benjamin'searlyspeculations language(see
note 15,above) suggestsanotherconceptofhistory, definedbythetra-
jectoryof Fall and Redemption.The tensionofdestructive and utopi-
ofradicalJewishMessianism20
an impulsescharacteristic could actual-
ly be seen as a matrixforBenjamin'sambivalencetowardsthe aura,
evenbeforethatambivalencewas enforcedbyrevolutionary intentions
and politicaldespair.Thus, because the aura as the necessaryveil of
beautifulappearance(schiner Schein)pretendsto a premature,merely
private with
reconciliation a fallen world,it requiresthe destructive,
"masculine,"demystifying of
gesture allegory,themortifying graspof
knowledge,of criticalreading.For only in a fragmentary state,as
"quotation,"can the utopian sedimentof experiencebe preserved,
can it be wrestedfromthe emptycontinuumof historywhich,for
Benjamin,is synonymous withcatastrophe.21
auraticexperiencein the reciprocityof the eroticgaze, linkingindividualsexual

desire to the Utopian longingsof the human species,and followedby a somewhat
laconic equation of thedecay of theaura withthedecayof potency.Whiletheissue
here is impotencein Baudelaire,along withthehistoricaldissociationof sexus and
eros (J72a,2), Benjaminplaces itin a politicalcontextofthebourgeoisie'sceasingto
concernitselfwiththe futureof the productiveforcesunleashed in its service,the
decline of the Utopian imagination J63a, 1; J75, 2). The connection between
libidinaland politicalimaginationis resumedin thesecond of Benjamin's"Theses
on thePhilosophyofHistory,"I, 253-54 (evenmoreexplicitin therestoredGerman
edition, GS 1.2: 693-94), where the redemptivepromise of erotic happiness is
establishedas thebasis of that"weakMessianicpower"whichlinkseverygeneration
to the precedingones and by which the past "is referredto redemption."In this
context,also see ChristineBuci-Glucksmann,WalterBetnjamin und die Utopiedes
Weiblichen (Hamburg: VSA, 1984), 34-35.
20. Anson Rabinbach, "Between Enlightenmentand Apocalypse: Benjamin,
Bloch and Modern GermanJewishMessianism,"New GermanCritique 34 (Winter
1985): 78-124. Also see GershomScholem,TheMessianic Idea inJudaism(New York:
SchockenBooks, 1971), 1-36.Rabinbachshowsconvincingly thatBenjamin'stheol-
ogy of language cannot be separatedfromparticularpoliticalconfigurations con-
cerningthe positionof GermanJewstowardsWorldWar I, just as Benjaminschol-
ars likeBuck-Morss,Wohlfarth and Wolinhave arguedfora complex,ifproblemat-
ic, interdependenceof his theologicalthoughtwith his later Marxism. See Rolf
Tiedemann, "Historical Materialismor PoliticalMessianism?,"Philosophical Forum
15.1-2(Fall-Winter 1983-84):71-104; IrvingWohlfarth, "On theMessianicStructure
of Benjamin's Last Reflections,"Glyph3 (1978): 148-212.
21. The trajectorybetween allegorical destructionand redemption links
Benjamin's earlierwork,in particularTheOriginofGermanTragicDrama(1925) and
Hansen 191
Miriam
The possibility oftransforming an auraticmode ofexperience,ofre-

deemingit fromthe dead-endof cultand social privilege,turnson a
particularmomentin the developmentof the productiveforces-
whichBenjamindesignatesas the"dialectical,Copernicanturnofrec-
ollection."This momentis theanticipatedawakeningof the "dream-
ingcollective,"a keymetaphorin thesectionsofthePassagenwerk writ-
ten before1935, and the dream refersto the historicalnightmareof
capitalism."Capitalismis a naturalphenomenonwithwhicha new
dream-sleepcame over Europe, and in it, a reactivation of mythic
powers.'"22Withthistheoretical trope,Benjaminadded a decisive -
-
and, to criticslike Adorno,dangerous twistto the philosophical
conceptof "Naturgeschichte," accordingto whichbothterms,"nature"
and "history,"are dialecticallymediatedratherthanantithetical. Thus,
whileman's historicalsubjectionof (bothinnerand outer)natureleft
nothingin naturethatwas nothistorical(and hencealienated),history
itselfhad assumed the appearanceof nature,maskingits social and
economicrelationsas mythical fate.23Takingthisconceptone stepfur-
ther,Benjamin decided to treatthe 19thcentury,withitsunprecedent-
ed proliferation of evernew commodities,consumergoods and fash-
ions,as "an originalformof prehistory (N3a,2) so as to
[Urgeschichte]"
get at thelayerof dreams that both sustained and exceeded thehistori-
cal orderof production.As mythicalimages,the phantasmagorias of
modernity werebydefinition ambiguous,promisinga classlesssociety
whileperpetuating theveryopposite;yetas dreamimagestheycould
his major essayon Goethe'sElective (1922), to hiswritingsof thefinalyears,

Affinities
especiallysection N of thePassagen-Werkand his "Theses on the Philosophyof His-
tory"(1940). Also see his "CentralPark," 46: "The image of 'redemption'entails
the firm,seeminglybrutalgrasp [Zugrif."
22. PW, section K; K1,1; Kla,8. Buck-Morss,"Passagen-Werk," 214ff.; Rudolf
Tiedemann, Editor's Introduction,PW, 26ff.
23. Susan Buck-Morss,TheOriginofNegative Dialectics(New York:The Free Press,
1977), 52-57 ("Natural Historyand Historical Nature"); Wolin, 166f.;Burkhardt
Lindner, " 'Natur-Geschichte':Geschichtsphilosophieund Welterfahrungin
Benjamin's Schriften,"Text + Kritik31/32 (1971): 41-58. In his programmatic
speech of 1932, "Die Idee der Naturgeschichte," Adorno resumeda crucialtheme
of Benjamin's study of the Baroque Trauerspiel and joined it with the Hegelian
conceptof"second nature"as elaboratedby LukAcs,inHistory andClassConsciousness
(1923), in terms of Marx's analysis of commodity fetishism.Poststructuralist
attemptsto conflateBenjamin's concept of nature with a Barthesiannotion of
"myth"not onlyreduce thehistoricaldialecticwithinthetermbut also occlude the
utopian perspectiveof a "reconciliationwithnature."
be read and transformedinto historicalimages, into strategiesof wak-

ing up. To quote Susan Buck-Morss,
The nightmarish, infernalaspects of industrialismwere
veiled in the moderncityby a vastarrangement of things
whichat the same timegave corporealformto the wishes
and desiresof humanity.Because theywere"natural"phe-
nomena in the sense of concretematter,theygivethe illu-
sion of being the realizationof those wishes ratherthan
merelytheirreified,symbolicexpression.[...] It was as
"dream-imagesof thecollective"- bothdistorting illusion
and redeemablewish-image- thattheytook on political
meaning.24
Benjamin found this perspective prefigured in the Surrealists,

especially their explorations of "the most dream-like object in the
world of things": the city of Paris. In Aragon's Paysan de Paris and
Breton's Nadja, he recognized his own fascination with an urban
landscape cluttered with objects that had lost their value as
commodities, the most recent casualties of the cult of the New.
Surrealism"was the firstto perceive the revolutionaryenergiesthatap-
pear in the 'obsolescent,' in the firstiron constructions,the firstfactory
buildings, the earliest photos, the objects that have begun to be ex-
tinct,grand pianos, the dresses of fiveyears ago, fashionable restau-
rants when the vogue has begun to ebb from them."25 To be sure,
such energies are revolutionaryprimarilyin theirnegativity;the misery
revealed in the afterlifeof interiors,of enslaved and enslaving objects,
translatesinto politics as a "revolutionarynihilism." Yet, as "every-
thingforgottenmingles withwhat has been forgottenof the prehistoric
world," the outdated displays of the Paris arcades present an "ideal
panorama of a primeval time barely gone by [einerkaum verflossenen
Urzeit],""a world of secret affinities."26 Thus, the unruly assimilation
of the modern to the archaic not only challenges history'sclaim to pro-
gress; it also offersa chance of redeeming auratic experience as a cog-
24. Buck-Morss, "Passagen-Werk,"213-14.

25. "Surrealism:The Last Snapshotof the European Intelligentsia"(February
1929), R, 181 (trans.modified).In a letterto Scholem of 1929, Benjaminrefersto
the SurrealismEssay as "an opaque paraventbefore the Arcades project" (PW,
1090). For an earlierstatementon Surrealismsee his "Traumkitsch"(1927), GS 11.2:
620-22.
26. "Franz Kafka"(1934), I, 131; Passagen-Werk II: 1045.
MiriamHansen 193
nitivemode, transformed by the historicaldemolitionoftheaura un-

der the impactof shock.As Habermas observes:"The experiencere-
leased fromtherupturedshelloftheaura was, however,alreadycon-
tainedin the experienceof the aura itself:the metamorphosisof the
objectintoa counterpart Therebya wholefieldof surpris-
[Gegeniiber].
ingcorrespondences between animateand inanimatenatureis opened
up, wherein even thingsencounter us in the structuresof frail
intersubjectivity."27
To Benjamin,the Surrealistssignalled the possibilityof such a
redemptiveturnby theirefforts to overcomethe esoteric,isolating
of
aspect inspiration, to give theauraticpromiseof happinessa public
and secularmeaning-to make it a "profaneillumination."Whether
in their collective anamnesis of dreams, their experimentsin
automaticwriting or pursuitsoferoticpassion,theydefinedthesphere
of politicalactionin termsof the sphereof theirphysicaland psychic
existenceand vice versa, projectingan integral"sphere of images
[Bildraum]" thatmightbe up to theexperientialneeds of a "collective
physis."Clearly,Benjaminwas not interested in Surrealismas a liter-
ary movement(nor in its occult and neo-romantic tendencies)but,
rather,in theanti-aesthetic impulseofitsmanifestos, collagesand per-
formances- in theradicalcrossingoftheartificial floweringofimages
of second naturewitha mode of experiencetraditionally reservedfor
thoseof an ostensiblymore primarynature."We penetratethe mys-
teryonlyto the degreethatwe recognizeit in the everyday world,by
virtueof a dialecticalopticsthatperceivesthe everydayas impenetra-
ble and the impenetrableas everyday."28
The possibilityof experiencein a disenchantedworld,indeed the
verypossibility of conceptualizingexperience,also impliesa crossing
in another sense, the chartingof a historicaland epistemological
transition,a veritable"workof passage." A figureprobablycloserto
27. Habermas, "Consciousness-Raisingor RedemptiveCriticism,"45-46.

28. "Surrealism,"R, 192, 190; GS II.1: 309f.,307. The politicalimplicationsof
thisprogramare fleshedout more clearlyin Adorno's commentaryon Benjamin's
recourseto the discourseof dreams: "The absurd is presentedas ifitwereself-evi-
dent,in orderto striptheself-evident of itspower." UberWalter
Benjamin(Frankfurt:
Suhrkamp, 1970), 54. It should also be rememberedthatBenjaminsaw Surrealism
as a practical critique of official Marxism, the tradition of "metaphysical
materialism"whichhas consistently neglectedtheunconsciousand libidinalside of
human experienceand failed"to win the energiesof intoxicationforthe revolu-
tion." Also see Benjamin's draftnotes,GS 11.3: 1021-41.
Benjamin's intellectualpersona than the Surrealistsis that of the

flaneur,a key figurein both the Passagen-Werk and the essays on
Baudelaire.Alreadyin 1929,theyearhe wrotethe essayson Surreal-
ism and on Proust,Benjaminsketchedout histheoryofexperiencein
a reviewof a contemporarybook on Berlin,"The Returnof the
Flaneur."29 This review illuminates the connection between
Benjamin'snotionof the aura and a secularized,profanemode of
experiencein a number of ways,anticipatingthe most important
aspectsofhistheoryofexperience.The journeyofthewriter as flaneur
(in this case Franz is
Hessel) diametrically opposed to that of the
touristwho seeksout themonumentsand exoticattractions offoreign
sites;rather,itis a purposelesspurposefuldrifting
intothepastwhich
turnsthe cityinto a "mnemotechnicdevice." The muse of memory
takestheflaneur,invariably, on an itinerary
whichleads,"ifnotdown
to theMothers[ofGoethe'sFaust],so intoa pastwhichis all themore
fascinating since it evokesmore thanthe author'smerelyindividual,
private [...] childhood or youth, more even than the city's own
history."As thedetective/priest ofthe"geniusloci," theflaneurreads
this"more" in thephenomenologyoftheminuteand inconspicuous,
the "scentof a particularthresholdor the touchof a particulartile."
Since such images "inhabit"the cityas a collectivespace, the literal
"wooden threshold"turnsintoa "metaphoric"one, and the "pena-
tes" or "thresholdgoddesses"- likethosethatfascinated Benjaminat
theentranceoftheParisarcades- become spatialallegoriesofa tem-
poral crossingor historicalchange ("Zeitenwende").For anybodywho
can read its signs,who can make the "stonyeyes" of these pagan
deities"look back at us," thiscrossingharborsa densityofmeanings,
at once habitualand disjunctive, past and future,history
intersecting
29. "Die Wiederkehrdes Flaneurs"'(reviewof Franz Hessel, Spazieren in Berlin,

1929), GS III: 194-99. One mightas well substituteBenjamin's own writingson
Berlin, "Berliner Kindheitum Neunzehnhundert"(1932; an earlier version of
which is "A BerlinChronicle,"R, 3-60), as well as the fragmentsof Einbahnstrasse
(1928) and the series entitled"Denkbilder," GS IV.l: 305-438. The "Denkbild"
(thoughtimage) is the medium of Benjamin's peculiar mode of theorizingwhich
attemptsto resolve the opposition betweena philosophical(Kantian)concept of
experienceand the historical(and thus temporallydisjunctive)textureof the lived
moment.In thiscontext,theimportanceofchildhoodmemoryforBenjamin'swork
cannotbe emphasizedoftenenough,in particularhis insistenceon thehistoricity of
the childhood experience of each generation;see Buck-Morss,"Passagen-Werk,"
217ff.
Hansen 195
Miriam
and myth,loss and desire,individualrecollectionand collectiveun-

conscious.
It is thatmode ofreadingwhichBenjamintriedto theorize,froman
anthropological-historical perspective,in his speculations on the
"mimeticfaculty."LikeKracauer'searlierand Adorno'slaterconcepts
of "mimesis," Benjamin's too has to be distinguished,absolutely,
fromthetraditional, Platonicconceptofmimesisas wellas fromcon-
temporary Marxist theories ofreflection itwas actual-
(Widerspiegelung);
lyin explicitoppositionto thelatter-as muchas in observanceofthe
Biblicaltaboo on representation-thatthe writersof the Frankfurt
School endorsed and redefinedthe idea of mimesis.Moreover,the
concept of mimesis complements the philosophical analysis of
Naturgeschichte, in thatit envisionsa relationshipwithnaturethatis
alternative to the dominantformsof masteryand exploitation,one
thatwould dissolvethecontoursof thesubject/object dichotomyinto
reciprocity and the possibility of reconciliation.30
Benjamin himselfreferredto the firstversionof the essay,"The
Doctrineof Similarity" (written1933),as a "theoryof language"and
explicitly linkeditto his 1916 essay,"On Languageas Such and on the
Languageof Man." Two yearslater,afterfinishing thesecondversion
of the essay, "On the MimeticFaculty"(1935), he thankedGretel
Adorno for sending him Freud's essay on "Psychoanalysisand
Telepathy,"emphasizingitsaffinity withhisownreflections on themi-
meticresidueoflanguage.31 Considering thesetwo of
points reference,
it seems safenot to expectanythingresemblinga realisticconceptof
representation. In semioticterms(followingPeirce),mimesisis not
concernedwithan iconic relationship, a perceptuallikenessbetween
signand reality.Ifthecorrespondences actualizedbythemimeticfac-
to of
ultypertain anyaspect signification, thenitis to therealmofthe
indexical, which involves a relationship materialcontiguity
of hinging
a
upon particular moment in timeand thusbringsintoplay the dis-
junctivetemporality of all reading.32
30. On "mimesis" in Adorno and Benjamin,see Buck-Morss,Origin,87f.The

conceptis central,notonlyto theFrankfurt School's philosophyofhistory, mostno-
tablyHorkheirner and Adorno'sDialecticofEnlightenment(1944), but also to Adorno's
posthumouslypublishedAesthetic Theory(1970).
31. Editors' commentary,GS 11.3: 950-58; another source Benjamin himself
suggestsin a letterto Scholem is the kabbalisticbook of Zohar.
32. Philip Rosen has recentlydrawn attentionto the connection between
andCinema
196 Benjamin
The mimeticfaculty in humanbeingsrepondsto patterns ofsimilar-

or
ity correspondence in nature; it is the capacity recognizeand
to
produce such correspondences in return. Benjamintracesthiscapacity
back to phylogenetic and ontogeneticmodes of imitating nature,the
formera necessaryconforming to nature'ssuperiorforce,the latter
stillpresent,withoutobvious purpose,in the games of children."A
childnot onlyplaysat beinga groceror a teacher,but also at beinga
windmillor a train."33 As bothexamplessuggest,themimeticfaculty,
like the analogicalpatternsthatstimulateit, is subjectto historical
change. Thus, our capacityof perceivingsimilarityhas definitely
diminished;but the similarities we perceiveconsciously(e.g. in faces)
relateto the "countlesssimilarities perceivedunconsciouslyor not at
all" like "the tip of the iceberg" to its submarinevolume. "The
questionis whetherwe are concernedwiththedecayofthisfaculty or
withits transformation." Obviously,thisquestionoverlapswiththe
question of the aura, and the rephrasingof the question,as we shall
an
see, opens up important dimensionin Benjamin'stheoryofexperi-
ence.
A keytermforunderstanding thetransformation ofthemimeticfac-
ultyis thenotionof"non-sensuoussimilarity" Ahnlichkeit")
("unsinnliche
whichBenjaminillustrates, in a characteristic detour,withreference to
astrology(a paradigm he himself relates, in a preliminarynote, to the
questionof the aura; GS 11.3:958; 956). In an archaicpast,he insists,
therewas a mimeticcorrespondencebetweena person'smomentof
birthand the constellationof the stars;more importantyet,it was
perceivedbytheancientsand passed on to thenew-bornas thegiftof
mimeticknowledge.The perceptionofthiscorrespondence, however,
was bound to a momentin time,a fleetinginstant(the momentof
birth,theparticularconstellation ofthestars)and dependedupon the
presence of a reader, individual or collective,foran interpretation.
and temporality
indexicality in the filmtheoryof AndreBazin ("Historyof Image,
Image of History:Subjectand Ontologyin Bazin," WideAngle,forthcoming 1987).
On the basis of Rosen's redemptivecritique of Bazin, there are indeed some
interestingparallels between Bazin and Benjamin, although their concepts of
historyare worlds apart,owing not only to the latter'scommitmentto historical
materialismbut likewiseto a differentreligiousand theologicalbackground.
33. GS 11.1:205, 210. The second versionof theessayis translatedin Reflections,
333-36; the firstversion,translatedby Knut Tarnowski,withan introductionby
Anson Rabinbach,in NewGerman 17 (Spring1979): 65-69. In thefollowingI
Critique
relyon the first,longerversionunless otherwiseindicated.
MiriamHansen 197
Astrologyis merelya belated - and rather"crooked" - theoryin re-

lationto thisearlypractice,reinterpreting - and oftenmisinterpreting
- thelatter'sdateswhichby now have lostany sensuousand experi-
entialbasis of similarity.
Benjaminmightas well have used the example of psychoanalysis:
the Freudiantheoryof repressionsimilarlyrelieson the assumption
thatthereis meaningin everything and thateverything trulysignificant
has alreadyhappened in the past; the repressedmomentsof infancy
returnin our adultlivesas alien,distorted(and distorting),unreadable
signs.But Benjamin leaves the child at
playing being a windmill or a
trainand insteadturns from astrology to another"canon of non-sen-
suous similarities"- language.It need hardlybe repeatedherethat
Benjamin's theory of language is diametricallyopposed to a
Saussureanviewoflanguageas a systemofarbitrary and conventional
signs. This does not necessarily mean that he subscribes to an
onomatopoeticviewof the originof language.34Rather,he shifts, via
theproblemoftranslation - therelationship betweenwordsofdiffer-
ent languagesdenotingan identicalmeaning- to an area centralto
thetraditionof linguisticmysticism: written language,thegraphicim-
age of words and letters."The most importantof theseconnections
may well be the one ... between writtenand spoken language," gov-
erned by a similarityof a highlyabstract,non-sensuousdegree.
At this juncture,psychoanalysisentersthroughthe backdoor of
graphologywhich"has taughtus to recognizeimages,or more pre-
in handwriting"
ciselypicturepuzzles [Vexierbilder], as a hiddentraceof
thewriter's unconscious.35The mimeticfaculty expressedin individual
writing, Benjaminsuggests, must have played evenmoreimportant
an
part in the archaichistoryof writtenlanguage:"Thus, along withlan-
guage, writing has become an archive" - and, he adds later,our
-
"mostcompletearchive" "of non-sensuoussimilarities or non-sen-
suous correspondences." This "magic" aspectoflanguage,however,is
inseparablefromits semioticaspectand the meaningof each mani-
34. "On Language as Such and on the Language of Man" (1916), R, 314- 332;
"The Task of theTranslator"(1923), I, 69-82; 74; "Probleme der Sprachsoziologie:
(1935), GS III, 452-480; also see Rabinbach, "Introduction,"
Ein Sarnmmelreferat"
63.
35. On different directionsin graphology,among whichhe singlesout a more
recentpsychoanalytic approach againstearlierpositions,in particularKlages, see
"Alte und neue Graphologie" (1930), GS IV.1,2: 596-98.
andCinema
198 Benjamin
festsitselfonlythroughthematerialbasisoftheother.Hence, theper-
ceptionof similarity is bound up withthe temporalityof reading,the
momentary and of
ephemeralconfigurations meaning,their"flash-
ing" into a constellation.
Yetthegrowingspeed ofwriting and reading
also enhances "the fusionof the semioticand the mimeticin the
sphereof language,"to a pointwhere(and herethe 1935 versionde-
partsfromthe earlierone) the transformed "powersof mimeticpro-
ductionand comprehension[...] have liquidatedthoseof magic.""3
Ratherthana theoryoflanguageas such,Benjamin'sreflections on
themimeticfaculty implya theoryofreading.The mimeticdimension
ofreadingrespondsto a levelofmeaningwhichRoland Barthes,faute
de mieux,has termed the "third" or "obtuse" meaning.37For
Benjamin,thesemioticaspectoflanguageencompassesbothBarthes's
"informational"and "symbolic"levels of meaning,whetherin ab-
stractphilosophical,political,psychoanalyticor narrativediscourses,
while the mimeticaspect would correspondto the level of phy-
siognomicexcess.As thereference to Barthesimplies,Benjamin'sno-
tionof readingwas not confinedto written material,but rangedfrom
the ancientreadingof constellations on the surfaceof the sky- "to
read whatwas neverwritten"- to a criticalreadingof the "natural"
phenomena of nineteenth-century capitalism.The medium of such
criticalreadingis language,to be sure,but the "temporalabyss,"the
cognitive disjunctionwhichpropelssuchreading,is morethana meta-
phoroftheaporeticnatureofall language.3s Whilelanguageand expe-
riencein Benjaminare intimately interlockingterms,theycan neither
be identified with,nor hierarchicallysubsumedby,each other.
36. R, 336. It is no coincidencethat,in a noterelatingto themimeticfaculty,the

name of Brechtappears as an example of "a language purifiedof all magic ele-
ments" (GS 11.3:956).
37. Roland Barthes,"The Third Meaning: ResearchNotes on Some Eisenstein
Stills"(1970), Image- Music- Text,ed. & trans.StephenHeath (New York:Hill and
Wang, 1977).
38. The mostbrilliantattemptto claim Benjaminforthe traditionof linguistic
skepticismis the late Paul de Man's readingof "The Task of the Translator,"Yale
French Studies69 (1985): 25-46. "Now itis thismotion,thiserrancyoflanguagewhich
neverreaches the mark,which is alwaysdisplaced in relationto what it meant to
reach,itis thiserrancyoflanguage,thisillusionofa lifethatis onlyan afterlife,
that
Benjamincalls history.As such, historyis not human,because it pertainsstrictlyto
theorderoflanguage;it is not natural,forthesame reason;itis notphenomenal,in
thesense thatno cognition,no knowledgeabout man,can be derivedfroma history
whichas such is purelya linguisticcomplication;and itis notreallytemporaleither,
MiriamHansen 199
Whatis at stakeforBenjaminis the possibility of a different useof

language, one that could mobilize the mimetic power con-
historically
centratedin languageagainstthe" 'Once upon a time'ofclassicalhis-
toricalnarrative"(PW,N3,4). Definingthe"pedagogicside" oftheAr-
cades Project,he quotes RudolfBorchardt:"To trainour image-mak-
ingfacultyto look stereoscopically and dimensionally intothedepths
oftheshadowsofhistory"(N 1,8).This heuristic gaze should produce,
not hermeneutical images(in whichpastand presentmutuallyillumi-
nate each otheras a continuum),but "dialecticalimages" -images
"in which the past and the now flash into a constellation."The
dialectical optics of the historicalgaze arreststhe movementof
('natural,'archaic,mythical, dreamlike)imagesin themomentoftheir
"coming into legibility"; givesthema "shock,"thatis, itallegorizes
it
them into quotability.But only"at a standstill"can theybecome gen-
uinelyhistorical images,monads thatresistthecatastrophic continuity
of time.39"The firststagein thisvoyagewillbe to carrythemontage
principleover into history"(N2,6).
BeforeI resumethequestionoffilmbywayofwhatmightseem like
a surreptitious analogy,I willbriefly returnto thenotionof"non-sen-
suous similarity" and theimplieddistinction betweensimilarity (or re-
semblance) and sameness, between and
affinity identity -which is at
leastas crucialto Benjamin'svisionof the cinemaas the principleof
montage.As we could see fromhis genealogyof the mimeticfaculty,
thecategoryofsimilarity itselfhas undergonea changeofmeaning.It
haswithdrawn intonon-sensuous,i.e. figurative,correspondences, not
only because the and
subjective intersubjective of
capability perceiving
similarityhas declined,but because,forrelatedreasons,the statusof
sensuous,i.e. obviousand literal,correspondences is irrevocablycom-
promisedbytheeffects ofuniversalcommodityproductionand a con-
comitantstandardizationof social identityand subjectivity. Indeed,
experience in the emphatic senseconfronts these reified forms ofsimi-
with
larity a different kind of similarity- which Benjamin unfolds in
because thestructure thatanimatesitis nota temporalstructure.

Those disjunctions
in languagedo getexpressedbytemporalmetaphors,but theyare onlymetaphors"
(44). For an early response to deconstructionist
readingsof Benjamin, see Irving
Wohlfarth,"Walter Benjamin's Image of Interpretation," New GermanCritique17
(Spring 1979): 70-98.
39. PW, N2a,5; N3,1. "Theses on the Philosophyof History,"GS 1.2: 702-03,I,
262-64.
his "Image of Proust"(1929): "The similarity ofone thingto another

whichwe areused to,whichoccupiesus in a wakefulstate,reflects only
vaguelythe deeper resemblanceof the dreamworldin whichevery-
thingthat happens appears not in identicalbut in similarguise,
opaquely similarone to another"(I, 204).
In Proust,the logic of unconsciousassociationthatdistinguishes
similarityfromidentity is thatofthememoire involontaire,
theinvolunta-
ry recollection (Eingedenken) which interweaves remembrance and
forgetting into a textual counterpartor, rather, inversion of "Pene-
lope's work,"yetlike hersa workthatstemsitselfagainstthe linear
course of time. Remembrance,in the Proustianas well as Freudian
sense,is incompatiblewithconsciousremembering which
(Erinnerung)
tends to historicize,to fixatethe image of memoryin an already
interpreted narrative event(Erlebnis); notself-reflection,
butan integral
"actuality,"a "bodily,"to some degreeabsent-minded"presenceof
mind,"is itsprerequisite.40 Proustturnedday intonightand remem-
bering into an unceasing, interminable textualprocess,drivenby a
"blind,senseless, obsessive [...] willto happiness,"whichnearlymade
Benjamin's own heartbeatstop in affinity. The "elegiac" directionof
Proust's quest, afterall, was Benjamin's own, just as the writer's
solitaryendeavorto recapture,"synthetically," a formerly collective
mode of experienceremaineda daemonic shadow for the critic's
career,inseparablefrom his politicalitineraryand historiographic
project.Moreover,thecompulsionto transfigure a distortedexistence
into a "prehistoric"world of correspondencesmarks a decisive
ambiguity, in the idea of "eternalrecurrence,"betweenthe mythical
reproduction ofcatastrophic samenessand theutopiancravingof"the
yet once again" which characterizes themovementofdesire,theinex-
haustiblestructure of the wish:
Childrenknowa symbolof thisworld:the stockingwhich

has thestructure ofthisdreamworldwhen,rolledup in the
drawer,itis a "bag" and a "present"at thesame time.And
just as childrendo not tireof quicklychangingthebag and
its contentsintothirdthing-namely, a stocking- Proust
could not get his fillof emptyingthe dummy,his self[die
Attrappe,das Ich],at one strokein orderto keepgarnering
that
40. GS II.1: 311; I, 202; "On Some Motifs in Baudelaire," sections II and III;
"Madame Ariane," R, 89.
Hansen 201
Miriam
thirdthing,
theimagewhichsatisfiedhiscuriosityor,more
assuaged
precisely, his homesickness[...] for
homesickness
in thestateofresemblance,
theworlddistorted a worldin
whichthetruesurrealist
faceofexistence breaksthrough.
[I,
204-5]
The distortion, as IrvingWohlfarth pointsout in an excellentreading
ofthispassage,"lies in theeyeofthebeholderqua identicalsubject."If
the"truefaceofexistence"is "surrealist," theonlyadequate mode of
representation is one of mimetic transformation, figurationor dis-
placement - the "distortionof distortion."4'
It is no coincidencethat the distinctionbetween similarity and
sameness again comes into play, a few years later,in Benjamin's
"Hashish in Marseilles" (1932). A physiognomicexperimentpar
thedrughad evokedin him "a deeplysubmergedfeelingof
excellence,
happiness" which was more difficultto analyze than any other
sensationhe experiencedin thatstate.Gropingfora description,he
recalls a phrase fromJohannes V. Jensen's ExoticNovellas(1919):
" 'Richardwas a youngman witha sense foreverything in theworld
thatwas the same [SinnfiirallesGleichartigein derWelt].'This sentence
had pleased me verymuch. It enabled me now to confrontthe
political and rational sense it had had for me earlier with the
individual,magicalmeaningofmyexperienceyesterday" (R, 142-43).
If beforehe had takenJensen'sphraseto underscorethe significance
of nuancesin an age of unprecedentedstandardization, it acquireda
differentmeaning in conjunction with his artificiallydistorted
perception:"For I saw only nuances, yet these were the same."
Benjamin attributesthis blurringof similarityand sameness to a
sudden "ravenoushungerto tastewhatis the same in all places and
countries,"but he introducesthis hungerby way of a metaphoric
operation,a double tropingof the Marseilleancobblestones(which
might as well have been in Paris) as the bread (loaves) of his
imagination.Towardstheend of thepassage,Benjaminrecallsa train
ofthoughtbeginningwith,"All men are brothers,"whoselastand -
he assuresus - "less triviallink"mighthaveinvolved"imagesofani-
mals."
When,soon after,undertheimpactofthedeepeningpoliticalcrisis,
Benjamin reaches the conclusion that intellectualson the leftcannot
"Image of Interpretation,"
41. Wohlfarth, 80.
but activelypromotethe demolitionof the aura, he finallyseems to

abandon the distinctionbetweensimilarityand samenessaltogether,
collapsingthe mimeticfacultyinto themanifest,'obvious' iconicity
of
photographicrepresentation. The quotationfromJensenreturnsin
the Artwork Essayin a slightly
modifiedform,as a generalmode of
perception whose growing "sense forthingsin theworldthatare the
same [Sinnfiurdas Gleichartige
in der Welt]" has seized even the unique
object by means of technicalreproduction- and youngRichardis
elided in favorof the "contemporary masses" as the collectiveexpo-
nentof thatsense.42IncurringAdorno's chargeof romanticizing the
proletariat,Benjamin splits off the element of similarityfrom his
concept of mimesis and attaches it, as "sense of sameness," to the
masses;he further positivizesitbyplacingitin diametrical opposition
to the aura. Thus, he not onlysurrenders thegroundof his theoryof
experience,the motivating tensionof difference and affinity;he also
makes the discontinuities of memoryand historycongeal into the
linearpresenceof polytechnicaleducation,popular expertiseand a
pseudo-scientificnotionof"testing"whichcannotbe dissociatedfrom
origin.If anythingin Benjamin,it is thislapse
its industrial-capitalist
intopresencewhichwould haveto be considerednostalgic,especially
in light of his later writings(the second Baudelaire essay and
the "Theses on the Philosophyof History") which restore the
dimensionsof dialecticaltemporality to his thought,at a timewhen
the political-and withit his personal- situationhad darkenedbe-
yond recall.
Even in theArtwork Essay,however,thereare glimpsesofmimetic

cognition and figuration,
suggestingthatthecinema'srole in relation
to experientialimpoverishment could go beyondmerelypromoting
and consummating thehistorical
process.Undeniably,themediumof
film,likephotography, in thatprocess.As a technology
participates of
it
reproduction, expands, to an unprecedentedscope, the archive of
"voluntary, discursive
memory" and thus reduces
inevitably the play
42. The firstversionof theArtwork Essaystillincludesa referencetoJensen(GS

1.2: 440). Zohn's translationof the phrase as "sense of the universalequalityof
things" (I, 223) substitutespolitical pathos for physiognomicperception,ex-
aggeratingBenjamin's own tendencyin the Essay.
MiriamHansen 203
of involuntaryrecollection.Likewise, its mechanical procedures

intervenein temporal and spatial relations,disregarding'natural'
distances,and thus compound the proliferation of shock sensations
that seal human consciousnessin a permanentstate of psychical
defense.And, finally, the cinema epitomizes,in theverystructure of
theapparatus,thedeclineofthehumancapabilityto returnthegaze, a
historicalexperience Benjamin found registeredin Baudelaire's
descriptionofeyesthatcould be said to "have losttheabilityto look"
(I, 189). But preciselybecause of itscontemporaneity and complicity
withthe industrialtransformation of human perception,filmcould
also fulfilla cognitivetask: "Film is the firstart formcapable of
showinghow matterinterferes withpeople's lives.Hence, filmcan be
an excellentmeans of materialist representation" (1, 247). Chaplin's
exercises in fragmentation are a case in point: by chopping up
expressivebody movementinto a sequence of minutemechanical
impulses,he rendersthe law of the apparatusvisibleas the law of
human movement- "he interpretshimselfallegorically"(GS 1.3:
1040; 1047).
Besides allowingforan allegoricalanalysisof the shockeffect, the
mimeticcapabilityoffilmalso extendsto specifictechniquesdesigned
to maketechnologyitselfdisappear.The complexand highlyartificial
mannerin whichfilmcreatesan illusionof reality,Benjaminargues,
givesita particularstatusin thetechnicalmediationof contemporary
life.As ifbya logicofdouble negation,filmgrantsus "an aspectofre-
alitywhichis freeofall equipment,"whichis whathumanbeingsare
"entitledto expectfroma workof art" (I, 234).
The shootingofa film,especiallyofa soundfilm, [...]pres-
entsa processinwhichitis impossible toassigntoa specta-
tora viewpointwhichwouldexcludefromthescenebeing
enactedsuchextraneous accessoriesas cameraequipment,
lightingmachinery,crew, etc.- unless theposition ofhis
eyewereidenticalwiththatofthelens.[...]In thetheater one
is wellawareof theplacefromwhichtheeventson stage
cannotimmediately be detected Thereis no
as illusionary.
such place forthe moviescene thatis beingshot.Its
nature
illusionary isa natureoftheseconddegree, theresult
of editing.That is to say,in thestudiothemechanical equipment
sodeeply
haspenetrated intorealitythatitspureaspect,
freedfrom the
substance
foreign ofequipment, is theresultofa specialprocedure,
namely, froma particular
shooting cameraset-up andlinkingtheshot
withothersimilarones.The equipment-free aspect of reality
andCinema
204 Benjamin
herehas becometheheightofartifice;
thesightofimme-
diatereality inthelandoftech-
hasbecomethe'blueflower'
[I,232f.]
nology.
This passageis one ofthemostpuzzlingin theessayand itis notexact-
lyilluminatedby Zohn's translating of the proverbial'blue flower'of
GermanRomanticism, Novalis'"blaueBlume,"intoan "orchid."What
does Benjaminmean bythe"equipment-free aspectofreality"?How,
one mightask somewhatbluntly,does itdiffer fromtherealityeffect,
themaskingoftechniqueand productionwhichfilmtheoristsofthe
1970s were to pinpointas the ideological basis of classical Holly-
wood cinema?4"Firstofall, therealityconveyedbythecinematicap-
paratusis no more and no less phantasmagoricthan the "natural"
phenomena of the commodityworld it endlesslyreplicates;and
Benjaminknewall too wellthattheprimaryobjectiveofcapitalistfilm
practicewas to perpetuatethatmythical chainofmirrors. Therefore, if
filmwereto have a critical,cognitivefunction,it had to disruptthat
chain and assume the taskof all politicizedart,as Buck-Morsspara-
phrasestheargumentoftheArtwork Essay:"not to duplicatetheillu-
sion as real,but to interpret as
reality itselfillusion.""
Still,whydid Benjaminchoose, albeitwitha shade of irony,the
highlyauraticmetaphoroftheBlue Flower- theunattainableobject
of the romanticquest, the incarnationof desire?45I perceivein the
above passagean echo ofthe"distortionofdistortion"thatBenjamin
tracesin the workof Proust,of whichthe "dialecticaloptics" of the
Surrealistsis just a more contemporary, collectivized(and certainly
less memorable)version.Accordingly, "the equipment-free aspectof
reality"that even generations who have learned to livewith a declin-
ing aura and its false resurrections are "entitled to expect froma
workofart" seems to me linked,in whateveralienatedand refracted
manner,to that"homesicknessfortheworlddistortedin thestateof
43. ChristianMetz, The Imaginary (Bloomington:Indiana University

Signifier
Press, 1982); and Jean-Louis Baudry,"Ideological Effectsof the Basic Cinematic
Apparatus,"repr.in PhilipRosen, ed., Narrative,
Apparatus, Ideology(New York:Co-
lumbia UniversityPress,1986), part3.
44. Buck-Morss,"Passagen-Werk," 214.
45. Also see Benjamin'sreviewof Aragon,"Traumkitsch"(1927), whichbegins
witha referenceto Novalis' Heinrich
vonOflerdingen:"It is not so easy any more to
dream of the Blue Flower" - insteadof opening up a blue distance,the dream
world has turnedgraywithdust (GS 11.2:620).
Miriam
Hansen 205
resemblance"whichProust'swritingpursuedto thepointofasphyx-
iation. Such filmpractice,however,would have to desistfromsub-
mergingthecontradictions ofsecondnaturein mythical imagesofthe
first,itselflong domesticated and enslaved, and instead lend its
mimeticcapabilityto "a world in which the true surrealistface of
existencebreaksthrough."
Benjaminhimselfmaynot have made thatconnectionexplicit(and
mightnot have approvedof it),yetseverallinesof his argumentsug-
gesta positionfromwhichthecinemacould be redeemed- forfilm
history, filmtheoryas wellas filmpractice- as a mediumof experi-
ence. To developtheselines,I willdouble backon thequestionofhu-
man self-representation whichI had mentionedearlier,in conjunction
with Benjamin's shortcircuiting of the iconic quality of cinematic
significationwith the politicalrightsof themasses.In thefirstversion
of the ArtworkEssay, Benjamin elaboratesin greaterdetail on the
relationshipof human beings and technologywhich, instead of
liberating themfrommyth,confronts themas a forceofsecondnature
as
just overwhelming as the forces of a more elementarynaturein
archaic times. This confrontation rehearsed,in the field of art,
is
wheneveran actor plays before a camera instead of the virtually
present theater audience: "To act in the stream of klieglights
(Jupiterlampen]and simultaneouslymeet the requirementsof sound
recordingis a highlydemanding test. Passing this test means to
maintainone's humanityin the face of the apparatus."The screen
actor has to muster a total and bodily presence of mind while
foregoing theaura thatemanatesfromthehereand now,thepresence
of the stage actor. At the same time, he or she knows, when
confronting the inhumangaze of the camera,thatit substitutes for
anothergaze, physicallyabsentyetintentionally -
present thatof a
mass audience. The latter's interestin the actor's performance
preexiststhe individualfilm,storyor characterportrayed:the actor
becomes a stand-in,a representative of theirown dailybattlewithan
alienatingtechnology.
Foritis likewise
an apparatus thatsupervises
[Apparaturl the
processbywhich,everyday,theoverwhelming of
majority
peopleliving inoffices
incitiesandworking andfactories
are
expropriatedof theirhumanity.In the evening,the same
massesflockto themovietheatersto watchan actortakere-
vengein theirplace, not onlyby assertinghishumanity(or
andCinema
206 Benjamin
whatevermayappeartothemas such)inthefaceoftheap-
butbymaking
paratus servehisowntri-
thatveryapparatus
umph.[GS1.2:450]
In the second version of the essay, Benjamin comes close to
reversinghis argument,now emphasizingthe audience's placement
on the side of the cameraand admittingidentification withthe actor
only insofar as the viewer identifieswith the testing,critical,
impersonalattitudeof the apparatus(1, 228) -i.e. trimmingit to a
Brechtianconceptofdistanciation. Bracketingtheobviousidealization
at workin theearlier(thoughjust as much in thelater)version,I still
consider the unrevised passage significantbecause it recognizes
historicaland collectivedimensionseven in a more naive formof
spectatorialinvolvement, aspectsof fascination and identification
that
are not necessarilyexhaustedby the textualinterplayof scopic and
narrative registers."Granted,Benjaminhad everyreasonto mistrust
themasses' interest in thescreenactor,whetheritfuelledthepseudo-
auraticcultofthestaror redefinedstandardsofsuccessin thearenaof
politics(1,247) -an observationeven more to thepointin the 1980s
thanin the 1930s.Ifhe appearsto be takinga morepositiveviewin the
passagequoted above,he does so on no lesspoliticalgrounds.Forthe
rhetoricof New Objectivity and proletarianculturenotwithstanding,
thetriumphoftheactor's"humanity"is,afterall,a Pyrrhic its
victory;
power to move an audience is due to the it
negativereality temporarily
eclipses,the social and historicalexperienceof alienation.Hence the
alternativeto the cinema's mirroringand administering of reified
formsof identity is not simplya positiverepresentation of themasses
but,rather,a filmpracticethatwould giveaestheticexpressionto the
scarsof human self-alienation (Selbstentfremdung).
The mimetictransformation of such scars is not confinedto the
human body; it extends to the relationshipbetweenhuman beings
and theirenvironment-indeed, to invoke the more recent(and
perhaps unique) example of Claude Lanzmann's Shoah,the most
radical sight/siteof human self-alienationmight be that of an
environment evacuatedof humanlife.This possibility is adumbrated
46. Laura Mulvey, "Visual Pleasure and NarrativeSpace"; Stephen Heath,

"NarrativeSpace," both reprintedin Rosen, ed. Narrative,
Apparatus, Ideology;
Mary
Ann Doane, "Miscognitionand Identity,"Cine-Tracts3.3 (Fall 1980): 25-32; Teresa
de Lauretis,AliceDoesn't(Bloomington:Indiana UniversityPress,1984), esp. ch. 5.
Miriam
Hansen 207
in Benjamin's"ShortHistoryof Photography" (1931),an essaywhich

anticipates(along with a first
definition the aura) anotherstrandof
of
theArtwork Essay:themetaphorof the"opticalunconscious."In his
of
genealogy photographicrepresentation, Benjamintracesa dialec-
ticalmovementfromearlyimagesofthehumancountenance,thelast
refugeofauraticintimations ofdesireand mortality; throughlate 19th-
centuryportraitphotography, withits masquerade of social identity
againstthebackdropof bourgeoisinteriors; to Atget'sphotographsof
desertedParisstreets,courtyards and shopwindows(shot"like scenes
ofcrime")in whichthehumanformhas been displacedwithserialfor-
mationsofeveryday objects(rowsofbootlasts,hand-trucks, uncleared
tables).Havingthusinitiated"the emancipationoftheobject" froma
deterioratedauraticcontext,Atgetinspiredthe more programmatic
effortsofSurrealistphotography to promotea "therapeuticalienation
betweenenvironment and humanbeings"- therapeutic againin the
of
senseofa "distortion distortion," the dialecticsof defamiliarization
and similarity.Onlya breakwiththepersonality-centered, commercial
traditionof representation,Benjamin concludes, will restore a
physiognomic towardsboththehumanbodyand theworld
sensibility
of things.This is demonstratedby "the bestof Russianfilms"which
teachus that,likethefacesofpeople who have no investment in pho-
tographicimmortality, "even milieuand landscapewillrevealthem-
selvesonlyto thosephotographers who can read thenamelessappear-
ance [namenlose inscribed
Erscheinung] in theircountenance."'47
The "nameless appearance" of thingsand facesis merelya more
mysticaldesignationof the phenomenonforwhichBenjamincoined
theshorthandofthe"opticalunconscious,""[das]Optisch-Unbewusste."
In the 1931 essay,he elaborateson a mimeticaffinity ofphotographic
the of and
technique(especially possibilities enlargement split-second
exposure)withthe physiognomicaspectsof itsmaterial,with"image
worlds [Bildwelten]thatinhabitthe smallestthings,readable though
covertenoughto havefoundshelterin day dreams"(GS II.1: 371). As
he willrepeatin the Artwork Essay,"it is evidentlya differentnature
47. GS II.1: 380; 379. The auratic connotation,inseparablefrom Benjamin's

political assessment of photography,obviously gets lost when "namenloseEr-
scheinung"is translatedas "anonymity" (Screen13.1: 21); for a link between
Benjamin's kabbalisticnotion of the "name" - as in the paradisicallanguage of
names - and his conceptof mimesis,of similarity
as theorganonofexperience,see
PW, 1038; also Buck-Morss,Origin,88-90.
208 Benjamin
andCinema
thatspeaksto thecamerathanthatwhichspeaksto thenakedeye;dif-

ferentabove all because itsubstitutes,fora space interwovenwithhu-
man consciousness,another space, an unconsciouslypermeated
space" (I, 236f.).
The attributionof psychic,physiognomic,even psychoanalytic
facultiesto thecamerais a toposofearly1920sfilmtheory,notablyin
Jean Epsteinand Bela Balkzs.48Benjamin'sconceptualization of the
"optical unconscious" in thecontext of photography, however,points
to a more specificsource,Kracauer'sgreatessayof 1927. Prefiguring
thesuperimposition ofmodernity and prehistorythatBenjaminwas to
advance in his essayon Surrealismand thePassagen-Werk, Kracauer's
reflections on photography locatetheradicalfunctionof themedium
(intercut withan analysisof its ideological,mythologicalfunction)in
thearbitrary momentof exposure,themomentof chancethatmight
capture aspectofnatureat once alienatedand releasedfromthetyr-
an
annyof human intention-the "dregsof history."49 In thattradition
and, like Kracauer,indebted toJewishmysticism, Benjamindevelops
thenotionof an "opticalunconscious"fromtheobservationthatthe
temporality of some earlyphotographs,despiteall preparationand
artistry on the partof bothmodel and photographer, compel the be-
holderto seek the "tinysparkof accident,"the "here and now" by
whichtheimageis brandedwithreality, and thusto findthe "incon-
in
spicuous spot" whichmightyield, the qualityof thatminutelong
past,a "momentoffuturity respondingto theretrospective gaze" (GS
II.1: 371).
Such a belatedformof "magic" is unavailableto the medium of
film,giventhecompulsorytemporality ofthecode ofmovement,not
48. Epstein, BonjourCin6ma,especially the essays "Grossissement"("Magni-

fication,"October3 [1977]: 9-15) and "Le Cin&-Mystique"(Millennium Journal10-
Filmn
11 [Fall-Winter 1982-83]:191-93),both translatedby StuartLiebmanwhomI thank
fordrawingmyattentionto Epstein's reviewof Herbier'sEl Doradoin
L'fspritNou-
veau 14 (Oct./Nov.1921): 1969-70.On the psychoanalytic undercurrent in
filmtheory,see GertrudKoch, "B61a Baltzs: The Physiognomy of Things,"BalLzs's
thisis-
sue. Also see Balizs's amazing essay,"Physiognomie"(1923), whichanticipatesnot
onlythenotionof an opticalunconsciousbut also keyaspectsof Benjamin'stheory
of mimeticreading,includinga similarconceptof "distance," Schrften zurnFilmI,
ed. Helmut H. Diederichs(Munich: Hanser, 1982), 205-8.
49. Kracauer,"Die Photographie"(note3, above),24-25,28, 32, 37-39; also see
Heide Schlfipmann,"Phenomenologyof Film: On SiegfriedKracauer'sWritingsof
the 1920s," thisissue.
Miriam
Hansen 209
to mention narrative.This may be one answer to the question

Benjaminposes in his notes to the ArtworkEssay: "If the aura is in
earlyphotographs, whynotin film?"(GS 1.3: 1048).Whenhe resumes
the metaphorof the "opticalunconscious"withreference to film,he
complicatesand to some extentrevisesthatquestion,thoughagain
evadinganyexplicitdifferentiation betweenthetwomedia. Whilethe
PhotographyEssay illustrated the "optical unconscious" with
examples from and
biophysics botany, Artwork
the Essaydrawson the
imagery of a social and mechanizedworld,the discourseof alienated
experience.Significantly, Benjamin introducesthe "optical uncon-
scious" in the Artwork Essay (second version)with a referenceto
Freud'sPsychopathologyofEveryday Life,notingthe historicalimpactof
this work on the perceptionof conversationalparapraxes ("Fehl-
im Gesprach").
leistungen As Freud has alteredour awarenessof lan-
he
guage, argues, cinematic techniquessuch as close-up,timelapse
and slow motionphotography and, above all, montagehave changed
our perceptionof thevisualworld:
Ourtavernsandcitystreets,
ouroffices
andfurnished rooms,
ourtrain
stationsandfactories
appearedtohaveuslockedup
beyondhope.Thencamefilmand explodedthisprison-
worldwiththedynamiteofone-tenth sothatnow,in
seconds,
themidstofitsfar-flung
ruinsanddebris,wecalmly embark
on adventuroustravels.
[I,236]
In thiscontext,Benjaminemphasizesthefragmenting, destructive,
allegorizingeffect of cinematicdevices,theirtendencyto cut through
the tissueof realitylike a surgicalinstrument (I, 233). Revealingthe
'natural'appearanceof the capitalisteverydayas an allegoricalland-
scape,thecamera'sexploration ofan "unconsciously permeatedspace"
thusoverlapswiththearea ofinvestigation pursued,in different ways,
bytheflaneur,theSurrealist, thedialecticalhistorian.Not surprisingly,
Benjaminenvisionedan "impassioned"filmon thearcheology ofParis
inthePassagen-Werk (C 1,9)- and we add
might examples from a whole
traditionof cityfilmsrangingfromVigo and VertovthroughGodard,
Kluge,Sanderand Ottinger.
Ifthemimeticcapabilitiesoffilmwereput to suchuse, itwould not
onlyfulfila criticalfunction butalso a redemptive one,registering sedi-
mentsofexperiencethatare no longeror notyetclaimedbysocialand
economic rationality,making them readable as emblems of a "forgot-
ten future." In other words, although filmas a medium enhances the
historicaldemolitionof the aura, its particularformof indexical

mediationenablesitto lend a physiognomicexpressionto objects,to
make second naturereturnthelook, similarto auraticexperiencein
phenomenaofthefirst.Such filmpractice,however,would notonly
have to reject the misguided ambition to adapt and prolong the
bourgeoiscultofart;itwould also haveto abandon classicalstandards
of continuityand verisimilitudeand, instead, focus its mimetic
deviceson a non-sensuoussimilarity, on hiddencorrespondencesin
whicheventhedreamworldofcommoditiesmay"encounterus inthe
structures offrailintersubjectivity."
Such a returnofthegaze, in the
emphaticsense, would alwaysinvolvea trans-gressive,unsettlingmo-
ment;it is certainlynot,as in commercialconventionsof directad-
dress, "a question of the photographedanimals,people or babies
'looking at you'whichimplicatesthe customerin such an unsavory
manner."5?
Likehisremarkson filmthroughout theArtwork Essay,Benjamin's
elaborationofthe"opticalunconscious"oscillatesbetweena descrip-
tionoftechnicalinnovationsand theiremancipativepossibilities, be-
tween historicalanalysisand a utopian discourse of redemption.
Ratherthanmerelya case ofmethodologicalconfusion,thisslidingis
motivatedbya dialecticalmovementwithincertainkeyconcepts(e.g.
'nature,''history,''aura') and theoreticaltropes(e.g. 'eternalrecur-
rence,''dreamingcollective')whosemeaningdepends upon thepar-
ticularconstellationin whichtheyare deployed.Thus, therecupera-
tionofthecinemaas a mediumofexperiencebringsintoplaya consti-
tutiveambiguity in Benjamin'sconceptof"shock,"an ambiguity cru-
cial to his endorsementof a "distracted"mode ofreception.
In the historicaletiologyemphasized earlier,shockfiguresas the
stigmaof modem life,synonymouswiththe defensiveshield it pro-
vokesand thuswiththeimpoverishment ofexperience.Butthetermis
50. "Short Historyof Photography,"GS II.1: 371; Screen13.1: 8. Also see

Benjamin's remarkson the complementaryrelationshipbetweenstarcult and the
"cult of the public" in the ArtworkEssay, firstversion(GS 1.2: 452; 456) which
anticipatean importantpointof Horkheimerand Adorno's critiqueof the Culture
Industry.On the question of the "fourthlook" - the look of the characterat the
spectatorwhich breaks the voyeuristicfiction- see Paul Willemen,"Letter to
John," Screen21.2 (Summer 1980): 53-65, 56; Peter Lehman, "Looking at Ivy
Lookingat Us Lookingat Her: The Camera and the Garter,"WideAngle5.3 (1983):
59-63.
MiriamHansen 211
also used to describethemomentof sexual recognition (as in Baude-

laire'ssonnet"A une passante,"I, 169)which,whilelinkedto a partic-
ular historicalexperience(thealienationinflicted upon love by urban
life),an experienceofloss,exemplifies thecatastrophicand dislocating
impactofauraticexperiencein general.5'In thisdialecticalambiguity,
however,shockmayassume a strategic - as an artificial
significance
means of propellingthe human body into momentsof recognition.
Introducinga "tactile"elementinto the fieldof "optical reception"
(GS 1.2: 466), allegoricaldeviceslikeframing and montagewould thus
havea therapeutic functionsimilarto otherprocedures- theplanned
rituals of extraordinaryphysical and mental states, like drug
experiments, flaneuristwalking,Surrealistseances or psychoanalytic
sessions - proceduresdesigned to activatelayersof unconscious
memoryburied in the reifiedstructures "From this
of subjectivity.
perspective, film and photography could be considered as staged
events[Veranstaltungen] forreclaimingcollectiveand anthropological
experiences which become 'quotable' as such
[menschheitsgeschichtliche]
only at the point when theiractual,historically pervertedsubstance
disintegrates."52
It is the possibilityof such criticalreinscription,finally,which
makesthecinemaindispensibleto a newepic culture(intheBrechtian
sense),as Benjaminsuggestsin his 1930 reviewofD iblin's Berlin Alex-
anderplatz.The cinema'spromiseofcollectivity resideslessin themi-
raculousconversionofeconomicallymotivatedquantityintopolitical
qualitysuggestedin theArtwork Essay(I, 244), thanin theshock-like
or
configuration, re-figuration, of social documents - images,
sounds, textualfragments of an alienated yetcommon experience.
The revolutionary potentialofmontagethushingesnotonlyupon the
formalrehearsalofthe shock-effect but also, and perhapsprimarily,
upon the mimetic power ofits elements, the"complicityoffilmtech-
nique with the milieu." Since the unconsciouslypermeatedspace re-
51. Cf. For conflicting

interpretationsof Benjamin'snotionof"shock," see Karl
Heinz Bohrer,Die Asthetik des Schreckens:
Die pessimistische
RomantikundErnstJiingers
Friihwerk(Munich: Hanser, 1978), partIII, and AnsgarHillach, "Erfahrungsverlust
und 'chockfoirmigeWahrnehmung': Benjamins Ortsbestimmnung der Wahr-
nehmungim Zeitalterdes Hochkapitalismus,"Alternative 132/33(1980): 110-118;
also see Stoessel,238f.
52. Stoessel, 161.
juncturecan onlybe a collectiveone, thecine-

vealed at thishistorical
a in
ma becomes place whichtraditionalclass structures collapse,al-
lowingthebourgeoisintellectualto crossover,a possibility- and no
doubt an autobiographicalneed - which Benjamin had already
spelled out in his defenseofPotemkin:"The proletariatis the hero of
thosespaces whose adventuresmakethebourgeoisabandon himself
witha throbbingheartin the movie theater,because he mustrelish
the 'beautiful'even and especiallywhereit speaks to him of the de-
structionof his own class."53
The discontinuousreturnofan auraticmode ofexperiencethrough

thebackdoorofthe"opticalunconscious"allowsus to reconsiderthe
concept of aura itself and perhaps to demystifysome of its
implications.The physiognomicqualitythatthe Surrealists- and
beforethemProust- soughtin themostordinaryobjectsmayinvite
Marxisttermsofanalysisbutultimately eludes theoriesofcommodity
fetishismand reification.When Adorno proposed a clarification of
the notionof aura along those lines,suggestingthatthe traceof the
"forgotten human residue in things [des vergessenen
Menschlichen
am
Ding]"'was thatofreifiedhumanlabor,Benjamininsistedthatthiswas
and rememberinghe had in
not necessarilythe object of forgetting
mind in the Baudelaireessay."The treeand thebush thatwe endow
[withan answeringgaze] were not createdby human hand. Hence,
theremustbe a humanelementin objectswhichis nottheresultofla-
bor."54Thatforgotten human element,as MarleenStoesselarguesin
heringeniouscommentary, is nothingbut thematerialorigin- and
finality- thathuman beingssharewithnon-humannature,thephys-
ical aspectofcreationwhichBenjaminhimselfeclipsesfromhisread-
ing of Genesis in the 1916 essay on language. The dialectic of
53. "Erwiderungan Oscar A.H. Schmitz" (1927), GS 11.2: 753. The reviewof
BerlinAlexanderplatzis entitled"The Crisis of the Novel," GS III: 230- 36; on
montage, 232f. The functionof film,as of D6blin's novel, is similar to that
Benjaminascribedto theflaneuras "epic narrator"- a sharpeningof the"sense of
reality,a sense forchronicle,document,detail" (III: 194).
54. LetterfromAdorno to Benjamin,29 February1940; Benjamin'sresponse,7
May, 1940, repr.GS 1.3: 1130-35; 1132.
MiriamHansen 213
forgettingand rememberingwhich constituteshis theoryof ex-

perience thereforehas more to do witha differentkindof fetishism:
the curiouseconomyof knowledgeand beliefthatoccupied Freud.55
The pull of thepast thatmaintainstheauraticwishas unsatisfiable
maybe veiledin metaphorsof prehistory - Baudelaire'svieanterieure
- but it has a psychicsource whichis, quite literally,
too close to
home. The desirethatbeckonsBenjaminfromGoethe'sline,"Ach,du
warstin abgelebten oder meineFrau" ("Oh you were
ZeitenmeineSchwester
in bygonetimesmysisterormywife")56is clearlytransgressive. And
Benjamin'sautobiographical revelation(inthelettertoAdornoquoted
above) as to the "root of [his]'theoryof experience'" leads us straight
to whatwe mighthave suspectedall along. Rememberingchildhood
summervacationswithhis family,he recallshis brothersaying,after
obligatory walksthroughidylliclandscapes,"Da warenwirnungewesen"
("therewe would now havebeen"). The curioustemporality ofauratic
memory - the utopianglimpse of a prehistoric
past at once familiar
and disturbinglystrange- not coincidentallyresembles certain
dreamsthatFreuddescribesin hisessayon "The Uncanny"(1919),re-
latingthemto a male perceptionof thefemalegenitaliaas something
uncanny (unheimlich):
Thisunheimlich is theentrance
place,however, totheformer
Heimat[home]of all humanbeings,to the place where
everyone dweltonce upon a timeand in the beginning.
Thereis a humoroussaying:'Love is home-sickness'; and
whenevera persondreamsof a place or a landscape
thinking, to me. I
stillin thedream,'thisplaceis familiar
havebeentherebefore,' wemayinterpret theplaceas being
the mother'sgenitalsor herbody.In thiscase,too, the
55. Stoessel,61f., 72-77, and ch. 5, especially 130ff.Adorno, in his letterto

Benjamin,had proposed a distinctionbetweentwo kinds of forgetting thatcome
into play in Benjamin's theoryof experience, an "epic" and a "reflectory"
forgetting
["reflektorisches"] (GS 1.3: 1131). It would be interestingto consider this
distinctionin light of the ambiguitythat riddles Freud's own interpretation of
fetishism,as to whetherthe fetishist'sinconsistencyis located in processes of
repression(i.e. in the unconscious) and a compromise-formation ("Fetishism"
[1927]) or whetheritactuallyentailsa splittingon thesame level,as in his latertext,
"Splittingof theEgo in theProcessof Defense"(1938);J.Laplanche& J.-B.Pontalis,
TheLanguageofPsychoanalysis, trans.D. Nicholson-Smith(New York: W.W.Norton,
1973), 119.
56. I, 187; myemphasis.
is whatwasonceheimisch,
unheimlich home-like, the
familiar;
"un"
prefix is the of
mark repression.57
The pre-Oedipalwish can only surviveas repressed,as displaced
and transformed denialwhichforFreud,in anycase, is a
byfetishistic
defenseagainstthethreatofcastration. Benjamin'swriting seemsdriv-
en by a desireat once to reverseand to rehearsethatdisplacement, to
destroy the illusion
fetishistic while the of
preserving promise happi-
ness thatit allowed to sustain.His theoryof experiencehoversover
and aroundthebodyofthemother- as a memoryofan intensity that
becomes the measureof all cognition,of criticalthought.As he an-
nouncesin one oftheearliestsectionsofthePassagen-Werk: "Whatthe
child(and,weaklyremembering, theman) findsin theold foldsofthe
mother'sskirtthathe held on to - that'swhatthesepages should
contain" (K2,2). Yet even this rare referenceto the mother'sbody
succumbsto fetishistic mediation- memoryresidesin the fabricof
the cloth- and thusrefersus to the sectionon fashion(Konvolut B);
here fetishismis explicitlylinked to death, the "sex appeal of the
inorganic"which guides the senses throughthe "landscape of the
[female]body" (B3,8; B9,1). The image of the mother'sbody, as
disturbingto Benjamin as to patriarchaldiscourse in general,
shortcircuitsdesireand mortality - ofwhichcastration is perhapsthe
mostpowerfulmetaphor.
More often, therefore,the source of anxiety and fetishistic
displacement remains textually unacknowledged (or ironically
distanced):threatand promiseof thepre-Oedipalwishare in a sense
re-fetishized,held in a semi-repressiveabeyancewhichallowshim to
garnerthereflections ofitspsychic,aestheticand experientialintensity.
This complexstrategy ofallusionand evasionis nowhereas evidentas
in Benjamin'sconceptofthegaze, pitchedbetweenauraticvisionand
the historicalreorganization In a note to his essayon
of subjectivity.
themimeticfaculty (1935),Benjaminspeculateson theconnectionbe-
tweentheaura and astrology: "Are notthestarswiththeirdistantgaze
theUrphdnomen oftheaura? Can we concludethatthegaze was thefirst
mentorof the mimeticfaculty?"(GS 11.3:958) Again,a prehistoric,
phylogeneticperspectiveis offeredinsteadof a more obvious one,
namely,the constitutionof the gaze in the relationshipbetween
57. Freud, On Creativity

and theUnconscious
(New York: Harper & Row, 1958),
152-53; trans.modified.
Miriam
Hansen 215
motherand child. The memoryof what is all too close has to be

projectedinto a stellardistance;yetthismetaphoricdefenseallows
Benjaminto conceptualizea dimensionofreciprocity whichdefiesthe
social and historicalorganizationof looking,withitsceaselessrepro-
ductionof thesubjectin termsofmirroridentity, unity,presenceand
mastery.
Benjamincomes closestto namingtheabsentmentorofthegaze in
thesecond Baudelaireessay,whenhe citesProustas implicitly touch-
a
ingupon theory of the aura: " 'Some people who are fond of secrets
flatterthemselvesthatobjects retaina trace of the looks thatonce
restedupon them.'(Whatelse but the abilityof returning thegaze.)"
(I, 188). The prototype of a look thatleaves a residue, thatlingersbe-
yond its actualization in space and time, is the maternal look thatchil-
dren (of both sexes) knowupon themselveseven as theyare separat-
ing,and whichactuallyenables themto separate.5" Assimilatedto an
Oedipal economy,the memoryof this imaginedglance is likelyto
succumbto repression- and hence bound to returnas distantand
strange.ElucidatingProust's"evasive" remarks,Benjamin shiftsto
Valery'scharacterization of perceptionin dreams("The thingsI see,
see me just as much as I see them") to arriveat Baudelaire'slines,
"L'homme y passed travers desforets de symboles avecdes
/ Qui 1'observent
The
regardsfamiliers."59"gaze heavy with distance" that Benjaminreads
in Baudelaire's"regard familier" turns on the same axis that,according
to Freud,links"unheimlich" to "heimlich,"a psychicambivalencewhich
challengesthe narcissistic complacencyof the gaze: "The deeper the
absenceofthecounterpart whicha gaze had to overcome,thestronger
its spell. In eyes thatmerelymirrorthe other,thisabsence remains
undiminished"(1, 189-90).
Benjamin undeniablyparticipatesin a patriarchaldiscourse on
visioninsofaras theauraticgaze dependsupon a veilofforgetting, that
is,a reflective yetunacknowledged form of fetishism which reinscribes
thefemalebodyas sourceofbothfascination and threat.In hisalmost
obsessive and experimental undoing of that verydefense,however,he
seems to be seekinga positionin relationto vision,to theimage and
58. Jessica Benjamin,"A Desire of One's Own: Psychoanalytic

Feminismand
IntersubjectiveSpace," CenterforTwentiethCenturyStudies,Milwaukee,Working
Papers2 (Fall 1985), 9ff.
59. "Man wends his way throughforestsof symbols/ Whichlook at him with
theirfamiliarglances" (1, 181-82; 189).
the eye,whichhas traditionally been assignedto women,as a group

historically excluded from scopic mastery.Insofar as the social
organization of vision is predicated on sexual difference,it is
epitomized in the conventions of classicalcinema whichcenterthe
viewerin a positionof voyeuristic separationand fetishistic
distance.
Given the centrality of the female image to a voyeuristically and
defined
fetishistically spectatorial pleasure,the woman's look occupies
a precarious(ifnot impossible)place, because it remainstoo close to
thebody,narcissistically over-identified withtheimage.Y The distance
thatappears in the auraticgaze is not exactlythe same thingas the
fetishistic
distancethataffords themale subjectpleasurewithoutanxi-
ety(nor is the "absence" that the gaze has overcometo be equated
with a Lacanian "lack").61 On the contrary, thepre-Oedipalwishthat
propels,albeitin a semi-repressed mode, Benjamin'sconceptof the
gaze potentially upsets the balanceofknowledgeand belief,
fetishistic
callinginto question the binaryoppositionof distanceand proximity
that governs 'normal' vision, along with its alignmentof sexual
difference, subjectivityand identity. If anything,
theauraticgaze seeks
to unravelthe compromisethatsustains"the dummy,the self"so as
to conjureup thememoryof a different world,a "worlddistortedin
the state of resemblance." By definition,such a mode of vision
destabilizesthe identical subject: "I have experience,"Benjamin
quotes from Kafka,"and I am not joking when I say thatit is a
seasicknesson dryland" (I, 130).
To recapitulate: theregister ofdistanceand proximity in Benjamin's
concept of the gaze - and theory of experience - exceeds spatial
parameters,just as thegaze itselfcomprisesboththevisualsense and
thatof a phenomenologicalintentionality.Not onlyare distanceand
60. MaryAnn Doane, "Film and theMasquerade: TheorizingtheFemale Spec-

tator,"Screen23.3-4 (Sept.-Oct.1982): 74-87; 78-80.
61. TerryEagleton attemptsto read Benjamin's concept of the gaze through
Lacan ("Of the Gaze as ObjectPetita") in WalterBenjaminor Towardsa Revolutionary
Criticism(London: Verso, 1981), 38f.; this attempt - as most of the book - bears
out themetaphorof cannibalismwhichculminatestheauthor'spoem, "Homage to
WalterBenjamin" (184). Undoubtedly,thereare a numberof contiguitiesbetween
Benjamin and Lacan's concept of the gaze (perhaps owing to a common
phenomenologicalundercurrent), but thereare also crucialdifferences:
Benjamin,
like Freud, was obsessed with questions of temporalityand memory; Lacan's
concepts,as faras I can tell,fundamentally
relyupon spatialmodels,whichmayac-
count fortheiroftencriticizedlack of historicitv.
MiriamHansen 217
proximity entwinedin a singlemetaphorof psychicambivalence,but

their political significanceis bound up with the question of
temporality, at once to themnemonicslantofexperienceand
referring
to the historicalconditionsof itspossibility; indeed,thecongealingof
the temporal dialectic of experience into spatial categories(the
negativedistance of reifiedlabor or aestheticcontemplation,the
illusorycloseness of the commodifiedimage) is itselfa sign of the
times.Withthe"opticalunconscious,"Benjaminreadmitsdimensions
oftemporality and historicityintohisvisionofthecinema,againsthis
own endorsementof it as the mediumof presenceand tracelessness.
The materialfissurebetweena consciouslyand an "unconsciouslyper-
meatedspace" opens up a temporalgap fortheviewer,a disjunction
thatmay triggerrecollection, and withit promisesof reciprocity and
That
intersubjectivity.62 these promises remain largely unrealized,
giventhe imbricationof vision,narrativeand subjectivity in classical
cinema, does not diminish the force
critical of theargument.Rather,it
remindsus thattheprivatized, isolatingand one-sidedvoyeurismthat
defines spectatorshipin classical cinema representsa particular
historicalformation- and not necessarily an ontologicalfunctionof
the apparatusas theorized,forinstance,by Metz and Baudry.
Moreover,thenotionoftheopticalunconsciousoffers a perspective
on marginalizedformsof spectatorship, historicallyassociated not
only with early cinema (the"cinema of attractions")but also withthe
precariousposition of female audiences in relationto classicalmodes
of narrationand address.Whetherdefensively stereotypedby male
or
commentators articulated in women's own analysisoftheirKinosucht
(addictionto thecinema),femalespectatorship was oftenperceivedas
a mode ofreceptionat once excessiveand compensatory, as seekinga
distancein thegaze whichwas increasingly denied by social reality-
and, forthatmatter,bydominantfilmpractice.63 In her 1914 studyof
62. This temporalgap thatopens up in the world of thingshas nothingto do

withthe time-lagbetweenseeing and knowingthatassures the male child a cogni-
tivesuperiority withregardto theregimeofcastration(Doane, "Masquerade," 79f.).
closer to the effectof "trompe
Rather,it is structurally l'oeil"whichDoane describes
in her essay on "The Moving Image" (note 18, above), 45-49, as an undoing of a
psychicaldefenseby staggeringand therebybreakingdown into its elementsthe
compromiseof knowledgeand beliefthatconstitutesfetishism.
63. Patrice Petro, "Perceptions of Difference:Contours of a Discourse on
Sexuality in Early German Film Theory," this issue; Heide Schlipmann,
"Kinosucht,"FrauenundFilm33 (Oct. 1982): 45-52; Hansen, "EarlySilentCinema:
andCinema
218 Benjamin
motionpictureaudiences,Emilie Altenlohfoundwomen - across

class boundaries- generallyrespondingmore stronglythan male
moviegoersto the synaesthetic and kineticaspects of film,besides
a
expressing greater interestin social melodramas,especiallyif they
featuredfemaleprotagonists; and eventhoughtheywerelikelyto have
forgotten plot or titleof a particularfilm,the women interviewed
vividly remembered sentimentalsituations,as well as images of
waterfalls,ocean wavesor drifting ice-floes.In the over-identification
withsuchimages,in thefailureto maintaina narratively stabilizeddis-
tance,is therenot an elementof Benjamin's"daydreamingsurrender
to farawaythings"(I, 191)? Whatis more,thisdifferent economyof
distanceand proximity also recallsa differentorganizationof public
and privatespheres,a time when lookingwas not yet reduced to
voyeuristic isolation.To quote Horkheimerand Adorno's notorious
statement: "Inspiteofthefilmswhichare intendedto enhanceherin-
tegration, housewifefindsin the darknessof the movie theatera
the
place of refugewhereshe can sitfora fewhoursfreeof obligations
just as she used to gaze out of thewindow,whenthere
[unkontrolliert],
werestillhomesand thehouraftera day'swork[Feierabend]."64 Such a
mode ofabsorptionmaybe regressive, to be sure,just as theidentifica-
tion - to the point of tears - with sentimentalsituationsmay not be
whollyunrelatedto masochism,yetitalso has a cognitivefunction, in
Adorno'swords,in giving"temporary release[...]to theawarenessthat
one has missedfulfillment."65
The affinitywitha dispositionattributedto femalespectatorship
cruciallydistinguishesBenjamin's notion of "distraction"from a
Brechtianconceptofdistanciation(Verfremdung). Certainly,thepolitical
valorizationof a distractedmode of reception(as firstelaboratedby
Whose Public Sphere," New GermanCritique29 (Spring/Summer1983): 147-84;

173ff.The term"Kinosucht" is used in Emilie Altenloh'sdissertation,ZurSoziologie
desKino(Leipzig: SpamerscheBuchdruckerei,1914), 65. Benjaminhimself,in the
firstversionof the ArtworkEssay, singlesout women as a particularly susceptible
targetforthe capitalistfilmindustry'sstrategiesof illusorymass participation(GS
1.1: 456). On theotherhand,he motivateshis "philosophical"interestin fashionby
referring to "the extraordinary whichthe femalecollectivehas for
scent[Witterung]
thingsawaitingus in the future"(PW, Bla,1).
64. Max Horkheimerand Theodor W. Adorno,DialecticofEnlightenment (1944;
1947), trans.John Cumming(New York: SeaburyPress,1969), 139.
65. Adorno, "On Popular Music," Studiesin Philosophy and Social Science9.1
(1941): 41-42.
Miriam
Hansen 219
Kracauer)convergeswiththeintentions of epic theaterin itsnegation

of the bourgeoiscult of culture,in its radical critiqueof fetishistic
illusionismand correspondingattitudesof individualcontemplation
and catharsis.Likewise,we can see how Benjamin,in his searchfor
contemporaryaestheticmodels, might have assimilated Brecht's
strategyof demonstrating patternsof alienation(Entfremdung) through
devicesofestrangement to
(Verfremdung) his own notion of a dialectical
optics, the mimetic displacement he traced in Proust and the
Surrealists.Yet the temporalgap that opens up with the optical
unconscious,the surrenderof spatialorientation to the gravity of the
gaze, thememoryimagethatseizesthebeholderratherthanviceversa
- these aspects of Benjamin's theory of experience belie his
endorsementof entertainmentas criticalexpertise. If anything,
distractionstill contains the possibilityof losing oneself, albeit
intermittently,of abandoning one's wakingself to the dreamlike,
discontinuoussequenceof senseimpressionsthatBenjaminsoughtin
his own experimentswith hashish or driftingthroughthe Paris
Arcades.
The psychoanalyticundercurrentof Benjamin's quest for
experience,finally,links the Marxian analysisof alienationto the
frontierbetweenpsycheand body,the realmwhichFreudtropedas
the bodily ego. The notion of human self-alienation implies the
historicalexchangewithnatureas Naturgeschichte, just as the idea of a
reconciliationwithnaturecruciallyentailsaccepting the memoryof
thoseaspectsofhumannaturewhichare sacrificed, fromgenerationto
generation, for the sake of the social domination of non-human
nature.While Benjamin knewwell enough thatideologyand class
interestweremosteffective on theleveloftheunconscious,especially
if propped onto Oedipal necessity,he nevertheless- like Adorno
and, forthatmatter,Marcuse- tookeros to be a sourceofresistance
against social forms of identity,a defiance of fate.66Invariably,
however,the subject'srelationshipto the body is governedby the
66. See PW, 01,1, wherehe linkssexual libido to thekabbalisticconceptof the

"name": "The name itselfis thecryof nakedlust." Also see "Eduard Fuchs,Collec-
tor and Historian" (1937), trans.Knut Tarnowski,New Germnan Critique5 (Spring
1975); 27-58; 50-54. The idea of a reconciliation
withnaturein theend turnson this
libidinalmaterialism, just as thenotionof a "complicityof naturewiththeliberated
humanbeing" whichchildrenknowfromfairytalesis associatedwiththerareexpe-
rienceof eroticbliss (Gliick)(I, 102).
andCinema
220 Benjamin
same dialecticofforgetting and remembering as theauraticgaze and,

like the latter,can be traced only through tropes of psychic
ambivalence- distanceand proximity, strangenessand familiarity.
Thus Benjaminspeaksin his essayon Kafkaof the body,"one's own
body," as "that most forgotten alien land [Fremde]" (I1,132; 126), a
as
territory strange and familiar as thefrontiercreatures thatpopulate
Kafka'stales.
Forgettingmaybe theprerequisite ofauraticexperience;butthereis
an aspectto forgetting whichdoes not necessarily reachthereflective
leveloffetishism. Whetheror notitplaysa partin fetishism, themost
purposeful form of is
forgettingrepression, and the of
price repression
is distortion,"the formthatthingsassume in oblivion"(I, 133). The
projectionof a "mysteriousguilt"thatBenjaminobservesin Kafka's
figuresofdistortion (or in Tieck's"Fair Eckbert"67) takesus backonce
again intothe domain of the uncanny. For the selfwhich auraticvision
calls up froma prehistoricpast, unsolicitedand unexpected,is a
daemonic double, more likelyan antagonistthan a narcissistic ego-
ideal.68Althoughhe would not have concurredwiththe Freudian
readingofthisdouble,GershomScholemelucidatestheimportanceof
this figure in his speculations on "Benjamin's Angel," as a
condensationof utopian, satanic and melancholystrandsin his
friend'stroubledgenius. Benjaminhimselfoftenenough associated
auraticvisionwitha momentof danger,even the confrontation of
death,as in thespeechon Prousthe deliveredon hisforthieth birthday
(see epigraph).Accordingto Scholem,thiswas thedateofhisintended
- though at the time not executed - suicide.69
67. Stoessel points out that the repressedwhich returnsin Tieck's storyas
uncannyis the"forgotten"knowledgethatthehero's deceased wifewas actuallyhis
(Aura,138f.).Though Benjamin invokesthisstoryagain in his exchange
half-sister
withAdornoconcerningthequestionofforgetting, avoids anyreference
he carefully
to the incestuousnatureof the "mysteriousguilt."
68. Freud discusses the phenomenon of the daemonic double in his essay on
and theUnconscious,140-143). At a later point in the essay,
the uncanny (On Creativity
he reportstwo incidents- one autobiographicaland one involvingthe physicist
ErnstMach - illustrating the shock of seeing oneselfor, rather,mistakingone's
own image forsomeone else's, in Mach's case a "shabby-lookingschool-master"
and in his personal case an unpleasantlooking elderlygentleman(156). Doane
elaborateson thiseffect(whichin both cases is linkedto movement)as an instance
of thetrompel'oeil("When the Direction...,"44ff.).
69. Scholern,"WalterBenjaminand His Angel" (1972), in OnJewsandJudaism in
Crisis(New York: SchockenBooks, 1976), 198-236; 236. Also see Scholern'sWalter
MiriamHansen 221
Bythesame token,thegap ofhumanself-alienation thatopens itself

to thetechnicallymediatedgaze byvirtueoftheopticalunconsciousis
not exactly of an idyllic, harmless, let alone nostalgic quality.
Benjamin'srecourseto psychoanalysis, especiallyin connectionwith
the cinema,takeson itsfullsignificance onlyagainstthe backdropof
In the firstversionof
the particularsocial and politicalconstellation.
the ArtworkEssay,the referenceto Freud'sPsychopathology ofEveryday
Lifeis missing;instead,the sectionon the "optical unconscious"is
entitled"MickeyMouse" and continues,pasttheendingofthesection
in the second version,witha speculationon itseponymichero.With
its techniquesof mimeticfiguration,Benjamin suggests,film can
visualizea wholerangeofexperiential modes outsideso-callednormal
-
perception deformations, displacements,catastrophes,formsof
psychosis,hallucinations, dreams and nightmares - a processwhich
involvestranslatingindividualexperienceintoa collectiveform:"Film
has launchedan attackagainsttheold Heracliteantruth, thatin waking
we sharea worldwhilesleepingwe are each in separateworlds."This
is evident, according to Benjamin, not so much in cinematic
renderingsof the dreamworld,but in "the creationof figuresof the
collectivedream such as the earth-encircling MickeyMouse" (GS 1.2:
462).
The collectivedreamis as muchsubjectto historical changeas indi-
vidual dreams,and just as he attemptedto put a phenomenologyof
dreaming and waking at the service of historicalmaterialism,
Benjaminalso insistedon the historicity of dreamsthemselves:"The
statistical of
analysis dreams would push beyondthe serenity of anec-
dotal landscapesintothewasteland of battlefields.Dreams have de-
creedwars,and warssincethebeginningoftimehavesettledrightand
wrongand have definedthe limitsof dreams."70Adorno,as is well
known,had severeobjectionsto Benjamin'snotionof the "collective
dream,"notonlybecause he suspectedshades ofJungbut because in
hisviewanyexistingcollectivity could onlybe false.7"Rightas he may
Benjamin:TheStory trans.HarryZohn (Philadelphia:JewishPublication

ofa Friendship,
Societyof America,1981), 186ff.
70. "Traurnkitsch," GS 11.2:620.
71. Adorno, "On the FetishCharacterin Music and the Regressionof Listen-
ing" (1938), repr. in TheEssentialFrankfurt
SchoolReader,ed. AndrewArato & Eike
Gebhardt(New York:Urizen, 1978),270-99; thisessaywas intendedas a responseto
theArtworkEssay.Also see lettersto Benjamin,tr.H. Zohn, in Aesthetics
and Politics
(London: NLB, 1977), 113, 118f.,123f.
222 Benjamin
andCinema
havebeen in questioningBenjamin'spoliticalillusionsconcerningthe
self-organization of theproletariat, he underratedhis friend'sinsights
intomass psychology. The bourgeoistaboo on sexuality, as Benjamin
argues in another context, has imposedparticular forms of repression
upon the masses,therebyfostering the developmentof sadisticand
masochisticcomplexeswhichcould in turnbe used forpurposesof
domination.72 Thus, while references to Disneyin the Passagen-Werk
stressthe utopian content,albeit weakened and repressed,of the
collectivefantasy, theArtwork EssayreadsthefigureofMickeyMouse
more specifically in termsof the politicalconstellationof the 1930s.
Giventhetechnologically enhanceddangerofmass psychosis,certain
filmsmay functionas a kind of psychicvaccination:hyperbolizing
sadisticphantasiesand masochisticparanoia,theyallowtheirviewersa
prematureand therapeuticactingout throughcollectivelaughter.In
this historicalconstellation, MickeyMouse joins the traditionof the
Americanslapstickfilm,up to and includingChaplin,and as withthe
latterBenjaminneverforgetsthat"the laughter[thesefilms]provoke
hoversoveran abyssof horror."73
Benjamin'sreflections on MickeyMouse, cutfromthefinalversion
on Adorno's advice, are remarkableespeciallyin comparisonwith
Horkheimerand Adorno's indictmentof Donald Duck in their
chapteron the "CultureIndustry"in Dialectic ofEnlightenment (1944).
Much as the Disney films themselvesmay have changed in the
interveningyears, Horkheimer and Adorno's analysis of the
sadomasochisticmechanismsoperatingin "the iron bath of fun"
reveals a relativelyreductive,behavioristmodel of spectatorship:
"Donald Duck in thecartoons,liketheunfortunate in real life,getsa
beating so that the viewers can get used to the same treatment."74
of
Benjamin'sconception spectatorship is in theend more complex,
because he is lessinterested in a critiqueofideologythanin redeeming
thereifiedimagesofmasscultureand modernity fora theoryand poli-
ticsof experience.
72. "Eduard Fuchs," 51.

73. GS 1.2: 462; 11.2: 753. In Benjamin's radically anti-auraticessay,
"Experienceand Poverty"(1933), MickeyMouse appears in a somewhatambiguous
roleas thedreamhero ofthosewho are fedup withtheaccumulatedexperiencesof
cultureand humanity(GS II.1: 218f.). In the materialaccompanyingthe Artwork
Essay,however,we findthefragmentary note:"The availabilityof Disney'smethod
forfascism"(GS 1.3: 1045).
74. DialecticofEnlightenment,
138 (trans. modified).
Hansen 223
Miriam
Grantingfilmdimensions of figurativedifferenceand mimetic expe-

rience that Horkheimer and Adorno reserved only for works of high
art,Benjamin could envision a cinema thatwould be more than a me-
dium of illusionist presence, a cinema that would release its archaic
dream into a practice of profane illumination. To be sure, this vision
has to be grounded in a criticalanalysisof the cultureindustryor, to use
Hans Magnus Enzensberger'sterm,the "consciousness industry"- all
the more since Horkheimer and Adorno's pessimisticassessment has
not only been vindicated in retrospectbut is daily being surpassed by
political reality.Benjamin's concept of experience, however, with its
emphasis on memory, historicityand intersubjectivity, remains a cru-
cial ingredientin theories concerned with an alternativeorganization
of the media, in particular Oskar Negt and Alexander Kluge's study,
PublicSphereand Experience (1972). Adorno himself,especially in some
of his lateressays, resumed Benjamin's perspective,to some extentre-
visinghis earlierobjections surroundingthe issue of collectivityand re-
ception.75I conclude with a quotation from Adorno's "Prologue to
Television" (1953) which asserts the utopian promise of auratic dis-
tance in the very technology that appropriates and reproduces the
viewer's desire as that of a consumer.
It is impossibleto prophesywhatwillbecome of television;

its currentstatehas nothingto do withthe inventionitself,
noteventheparticular formsofitscommercialexploitation,
in and by whichthe miracleis
but withthe social totality
harnessed.The clichewhichclaimsthatmodem technology
thefantasiesofthefairytalesonlyceasesto be a
has fulfilled
cliche if one adds to it the fairytale wisdom that the
fulfillmentof wishesrarelybenefitsthosewho make them.
The rightwayof wishingis themostdifficult artof all, and
we are taughtto unlearnit fromchildhoodon. Justas the
man whom thefairyhas grantedthreewishesspends them
on wishinga sausageon his wife'snose and thenwishingit
awayagain,the contemporary whom the geniusof human
domination of nature allows to see into the distance
perceivestherenothingbuttheusual,embellishedbythelie
thatitis different
whichlendsa cloakoffalsemeaningto his
existence.His dream of omnipotenceis consummatedas
75. See especiallyhis essay,"Transparencieson Film" (1966), trans.Thomas Y.

Levin,NewGerman Critique 1981-82): 199-205;further
24-25 (Fall/Winter references
in my introductionto thisessay, 186-198.
impotence.To thisday,Utopiashave been realizedonlyto

disabuse human beingsof any utopiandesireand commit
themall themorethoroughly to thestatusquo, to fate.For
television [Fernsehen]to realize the promise that still
resonatesin its name, it would have to emancipateitself
fromeverything that revokesits innermostprinciple,the
mostdaringsenseof wishfulfillment, by betrayingtheidea
of Great Happiness to the departmentstoreof the small
comforts[dieIdeedes GrossenGliicksverrdt
ans Warenhausfiirs
kleine].76
76. Adorno,Eingirffe Suhrkarnp,1963), 80.

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Benjamin, Cinema and Experience: "The Blue Flower in the Land of Technology"

Author(s): Miriam Hansen

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Benjamin's reputation in contemporary film theory and criticism

1. "Das Kunstwerkim ZeitalterseinertechnischenReproduzierbarkeit"("The

essay was writtenunder the influence of Brecht facilitatedits

Artworkin the Age of Its Technical Reproducibility"), Gesammelte (=GS),

pear, Gunningcontends,the cinemaof attraction continued"under-

2. Tom Gunning,"The Cinema ofAttraction: EarlyFilm,Its Spectatorand the

concernwiththe photographicmedia stillparticipatesin the avant-

4. JuirgenHabermas, "Consciousness-Raisingor RedemptiveCriticism: The

From this perspective,reproductiontechnologyfiguresas an

482-95; "Theories of GermanFascism,"NewGerman 17 (Spring1979): 120-

reproduction.Thus is manifestedin the fieldof perception

and illusionistabsorption.9In its emphasis on formaldiscontinuity

9. Kracauer,"Cult of Distraction"(1926), Ornament derMasse, translationin this

he callsa "new,positiveconceptofbarbarism.""In lightofthisagen-

The self-denigrating slantof the ArtworkEssay comes into focus

11. "Erfahrungund Armut" (1933), GS I1.1: 213-219. Other essays in which

Benjamin'sattitudetowardsthe decline of the aura is profoundly

12. Marleen Stoessel,Aura,das vergessene Zu SpracheundEtfahrung

returningthe gaze. This experiencecorrespondsto the data of the

Indeed, an importantaspectof Benjamin'snotionof theaura is its

13, 198-99).The emphasison the momentary, epiphanticcharacterof auraticexpe-

auraticexperiencein the reciprocityof the eroticgaze, linkingindividualsexual

The possibility oftransforming an auraticmode ofexperience,ofre-

his major essayon Goethe'sElective (1922), to hiswritingsof thefinalyears,

be read and transformedinto historicalimages, into strategiesof wak-

Benjamin found this perspective prefigured in the Surrealists,

24. Buck-Morss, "Passagen-Werk,"213-14.

nitivemode, transformed by the historicaldemolitionoftheaura un-

27. Habermas, "Consciousness-Raisingor RedemptiveCriticism,"45-46.

Benjamin's intellectualpersona than the Surrealistsis that of the

29. "Die Wiederkehrdes Flaneurs"'(reviewof Franz Hessel, Spazieren in Berlin,

and myth,loss and desire,individualrecollectionand collectiveun-

30. On "mimesis" in Adorno and Benjamin,see Buck-Morss,Origin,87f.The

The mimeticfaculty in humanbeingsrepondsto patterns ofsimilar-

Astrologyis merelya belated - and rather"crooked" - theoryin re-

36. R, 336. It is no coincidencethat,in a noterelatingto themimeticfaculty,the

Whatis at stakeforBenjaminis the possibility of a different useof

because thestructure thatanimatesitis nota temporalstructure.

his "Image of Proust"(1929): "The similarity ofone thingto another

Childrenknowa symbolof thisworld:the stockingwhich

but activelypromotethe demolitionof the aura, he finallyseems to

Even in theArtwork Essay,however,thereare glimpsesofmimetic

42. The firstversionof theArtwork Essaystillincludesa referencetoJensen(GS

of involuntaryrecollection.Likewise, its mechanical procedures

43. ChristianMetz, The Imaginary (Bloomington:Indiana University

46. Laura Mulvey, "Visual Pleasure and NarrativeSpace"; Stephen Heath,

in Benjamin's"ShortHistoryof Photography" (1931),an essaywhich

47. GS II.1: 380; 379. The auratic connotation,inseparablefrom Benjamin's

thatspeaksto thecamerathanthatwhichspeaksto thenakedeye;dif-

48. Epstein, BonjourCin6ma,especially the essays "Grossissement"("Magni-

to mention narrative.This may be one answer to the question

historicaldemolitionof the aura, its particularformof indexical

50. "Short Historyof Photography,"GS II.1: 371; Screen13.1: 8. Also see

also used to describethemomentof sexual recognition (as in Baude-

51. Cf. For conflicting

juncturecan onlybe a collectiveone, thecine-

The discontinuousreturnofan auraticmode ofexperiencethrough

forgettingand rememberingwhich constituteshis theoryof ex-

55. Stoessel,61f., 72-77, and ch. 5, especially 130ff.Adorno, in his letterto

57. Freud, On Creativity