Against historicism and aestheticism: Walter Benjamin's critical philosophy of film

Abstract

When "aesthetics" emerged in the eighteenth century, there was no advent of different theories for various branches of art. In the nineteenth century, philosophical aesthetics literature deepened along with works written on various branches of art. Along with the birth of cinema as a new art form in the twentieth century, new questions and problems concerning the nature of art, the ontological status of artwork, the conditions of art practice and aesthetic experience, the role of the artist in society, and the position of the audience appeared. Cinema, which was born in the cultural atmosphere of Continental Europe grappling with fascism, had an influence on the constitution of mass culture as a technically reproducible art form and on the production of propaganda within political discourse to some extent. Benjamin puts the Surrealist principle of montage at the very center of his argument: Firstly, he challenges Kant's continuous conception of space-time and Hegel's progressive conception of history while discussing temporal bases of film. Secondly, he criticizes the autonomous and auratic conception of art while discussing spatial bases of film. Thirdly, he, as a reply to Adorno, shows how mass art can have a revolutionary function. Is cinema a degenerate art for the masses? Or is it a revolutionary practice that can be used as a means to reach the ideal of the classless society by dissolving class differences and something that democratizes art by rendering it accessible to all? Is it a perfect imitation of a dark world? Or is it the door to a "possible world" which points to alternative realities? This thesis seeks an answer to this fundamental problem and examines the argument of Walter Benjamin, who stands for the optimistic wing of this debate.