AIC, 1988 - AIC Associazione Italiana Autori della Fotografia ...

AIC
vedere cose che altrimenti non
vedremmo, abbiamo con il film
una nuova percezione, osserva
Benjamin; e come potrebbe
essere quindi un "divertimento
di iloti"? C'è dunque una linea
ininterrotta, progressiva, di
affinità sia pure nelle differenze
— e le une e le altre vanno
naturalmente analizzate mentre
il cinema va verso il centenario —
da Gorkij a Tolstoj, da Luka.cs a
Brecht e Beniamin. Majakovskij
anticipa Hauser (che conclude la
sua storia sociale dell'arte "nel
segno-del film") e prima ancora
Brecht e Benjamin, collocandosi
dopo i due grandi scrittori russi.
Portatore di movimento, per il
poeta futurista il cinema
svecchia la letteratura — quella
tradizionale —, demolisce
l'estetica — quella tradizionale —
ed offre una nuova nozione
dell'arte. Il "nuovo congegno"
ha davvero sconvolto "qualcosa"
nella nostra vita di uomini e
nell'attività letteraria e non
soltanto letteraria: è una rivolta
contro vecchi metodi, un
attacco, un assalto; anche se
spesso non ha reso necessaria
una "nuova maniera di scrivere"
e di vivere. "Fintanto che a
dettare la legge è il capitale
cinematografico", aveva
avvertito Benjamin nel 1936,
"non si potrà in generale
attribuire al cinema odierno un
merito rivoluzionario che non sia
quello di promuovere una critica
rivoluzionaria della nozione
tradizionale di arte".
Many are the myths that weave
themselves around us, that we inherit
from birth — too many. The cinema
which has been widely responsible, and
still is, for their creation and
propagation, is itself surrounded by
other myths, like the one concerning its
plebian origins (meant in the
derogatory sense) which for some time
relegated it to the level of a fairground
booth and resulted in its being looked
upon as entertainment fit only for
children's nurses and soldiers on leave.
Entertainment, in fact, for the "helots"
(Duhamel). On the other hand, those
people who were able to see — and
often foresee — this new means of
expression as being a completely
original art form, totally different from
its predecessors, and which would
revolutionize the concept of art,
considered its origins to be patrician.
"This mechanical device, set in motion
by the turning of a crank, will
revolutionize both our lives and our
writing", affirmed Leon Tolstoy in
1908 (the Lumière Brothers showed
their first film publicilty in 1895). "It
rebels against old writing methods,
attacking them, assualting them, and
will force to evolve a new style". Even
before this, in 1896, a few months
after La sortie des ouvriers de l'usine
Lumière, Maxim Gorky spoke of a
film's characters as being "condemned
Bertold Brecht con Paolo Grassi e Giorgio Streheler
to eternity": "It is one of the most
wonderful things in the world, but at
the same time is capable of being
shamefully vulgar". I imagine that they
will now even want to project
advertisements for new lines of
toiletries on the billowing white clouds
that were once the home of our ideals
and dreams ". Gyorgy LukaTcs added his
two cents in 1913: "Something new
and marvellous has been bom (with
the cinema) but instead of accepting it
for what it is, we persist in trying to
analyse it according to old and
inadequate concepts, completely
missing its real significance and value".
Neither did the Lumière Brothers
realize that a new and revolutionary
means of expression was bom with
their cinematograph: for them it was
merely a development of scientific
knowledge which was based on the
principals of photography, followed by
the invention of the necessary
mechanical components. In short, it
was an apparatus which could
photograph people and things as they
moved. As we have seen from the
comments made by Gorky, Tolstoy and
LukaTcs, the cinema is not just a way of
reproducing images which merely
perform a practical function in life and
benefit science, without having any
aesthetic value; they observed that if
the cinema could communicate
movement, it could also communicate
aesthetic qualities, which could be
appreciated by the audience, just like
other forms of "writing" could. They
did not have the attitude towards the
cinema that Baudelaire had towards
photography, maintaining it should
perform the function for which it was
intended: "the cinema should serve
both science and art in the same
humble manner in which shortland
and printing serve literature, without
either trying to imitate or supplant it".
It is obvious that it never was a
question, and still is not, of the
cinema's supplanting literature or the
figurative arts: they each express
themselves in a different language,
even though they have a reciprocal
influence on one another. The cinema
is also a fusion of art and science: both
psychobgy and psychoanalysis play a
significant role in the creation of a
film, showing us aspects of human
behaviour we would not normally
preceive: "the camera is able to
percevice something different to that
which the eye can perceive."
In order to demonstrate the cinema's
"artistic citizenship", neither Tolstoy,
Gorky nor LukaTcs (nor others I shall
quote later) attributes to it the cultic
or traditional elements it doesn't
possess. None of them attempts to
judge it according either to classic,
romantic or bourgeoise standards.
What they did was ask themselves:
"whether the discovery of photography
first, then film, hadn',t radically
changed the complex nature of artistic
expression". "The cinema is the
ultimate modem art form and,
therefore, is bound to triumph."
affirmed Vladimir Majakovskij in
1913. "For you, cinema is
entertainment; for me, it's a new
concept of the world!" he declared
later, in 1922. "The cinema stimulates
art, rejuvenates literature, demolishes
classic aesthetic concepts and spreads
new ideas" maintained Bertolt Brecht
in 1931. "It is cinema, with all the
possibilities it has to offer, that will
eliminate old fashioned concepts and
methods of communicating in art; the
cinema does indeed need art — but not
in its traditional form" — he insisted —
" as they are at lioggerheads: we have,
in fact, to create a new concept of art".
It is this new concept of art that will,
amongst other things, solve one of the
main problems experienced by the
idealists in recognizing a film as a work
of art: that of its having been created
"technically" and, connected with this,
its having more than one "author". A
film obviously has to be a joint work.
Consequently, it can only achieve that
which a group can achieve. However,
the fact that it is a joint creation
already gives it more possibilities
regarding artistic expression which, in
itself, takes it out of the category of
traditional art.
In this era in which "art" can be
reproduced technically, the "aura"
which surrounds it with that feeling of
uniqueness, of "here and now", and
infuses it with all those wonderful
mystic and sacral qualities which set it
apart and give it an almost
"aristocratic" feeling, is greatly
diminished. Walter Benjamin
maintained that: "In transforming a
unique creation into a series of
reproductions" — by being able to
strike any number of prints from a
negative — "the cinema is fully
responsible for the fading, gradual
disappearance and complete
transformation of the aura.
"If the camera is able to perceive
something different to that which the
eye can perceive and the cinema is able
to reveal things to us of which we
would not normally be aware, then
film obviously does offer us a new way
of seeing." observes Benjamin. This
being the case, how can it possibily be
entertainment for the "helots"?
There is a single, progressive train of
thought — reflected even in the
divergences of opinion — from Gorky to
Tolstoy, from LukaTcs to Brecht and
Benjamin — and now that the cinema
is about to celebrate its centenary,
both sides of the argument have
naturally to be re-examined.
Majakovskij, coming after the two
great Russian writers, anticipated
Brecht and Benjamin, and then Hauer
(who concluded his social history of art
with the art of the cinema). For the
Futuristic poet, the cinema stimulated
art, rejuvenated literature — traditional
literature, that is — demolished
traditional aesthetic concepts and
create a new concept of art.
The "mechanical device" has indeed
caused a revolution in our cultural
lives, and also in literary and artistic
expression It rebels against old
methods, attacks them, assaults them
— even if we don't always have to
change our way of living or manner of
writing.
"As long as it is the film-makers
money which dictates the law",
Benjamin observed in 1936, "the only
revolutionary act that one, generally
speaking, can attribute to the cinema
is that of having revolutionized art
criticism."