The Work of Art in the Age of Technological Reproducibility

The social significance of film, even-and especially-in its most positive form, is inconceivable without its destructive, cathartic side: the liquidation of the value of tradition in the cultural heritage. This phenomenon is most apparent in the great historical films. It is assimilating ever more advanced positions in its spread. When Abel Gance fervently proclaimed in 1927, “Shakespeare, Rembrandt, Beethoven will make films….All legends, all mythologies, and all myths, all the founders of religions, indeed, all religions,…await their celluloid resurrection, and the heroes are pressing at the gates,’) he was inviting the reader, no doubt unawares, to witness a  comprehensive liquidation.