Benjamin and Narrative as the Essence of Film

In his piece, “The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction”, Walter Benjamin discusses the transformative effects of film technology on the sense perception of the audience. I found sections XI, XII, and XIII to be particularly helpful to keep in mind during our viewing of Fight Club and Amelie.

Amelie utilizes many various film techniques, such as the close-up, slow motion, and the long shot (among others) to emphasize and give the audience more insight into the life and pleasures of the protagonist, Amelie. We are told that Amelie takes pleasure in the simple things in life. For example, we are told that she loves dipping her hand in sacks of rice and the camera allows us to experience this with her and allows us to enjoy this simple act as much as the character does. In section XIII on page 680, Benjamin states, “By close-ups of the things around us, by focusing on hidden details of familiar objects, by exploring common place milieus under the ingenious guidance of the camera, the film, on the one hand, extends our comprehension of the necessities which rule our lives.” An excellent example of the camera taking us beyond where the audience’s eye can reach is the scene where Amelie finds the box hidden in the wall of her kitchen. In this scene, the camera penetrates the wall and shows us deep into the hole in the wall where the box was hidden. The close-up is used most often to express the emotions of Amelie and to allow the audience to experience her emotions with her.

Fight Club utilizes these same film techniques and takes the audience beyond what the eye can or chooses to see. Benjamin describes this on page 680, “An unconsciously penetrated space is substituted for a space consciously explored by man…the camera introduces us to unconscious optics…” Slow motion is utilized to emphasize the blow of punchers during the fights. This effect makes the fight scenes much more dramatic, and therefore much more emotional for the audience. Benjamin addresses the effects of these techniques and states, “With the close-up, space expands; with slow motion, movement is extended”. This is true of the effects of these techniques in both Amelie and Fight Club.

These techniques reveal to the audience the most basic details, which make up routine actions and often go unnoticed. The combination of the verbal narrative and this visual insight that the camera gives make up the magic of film. Without narrative, the scenes revealed by the camera would have less weight because often times, the narrative adds significance or relevance to what the camera is showing us. For this reason, I do not believe that promoting narrative as the essence of film is a criminal error. I do not, however, whole-heartedly agree with Dulac’s claim because I believe that it is the combination of narration and visual images, which make up the essence and film and cannot be demonstrated by an alternative media. Yes, silent films were able to tell a story by utilizing music to stimulate the emotions. However, Hollywood films that we know and love require dialogue and some form of verbal narration to be paired with the images that we see in order to have an emotional impact on the audience.