Questions for Reading #2

Benjamin notes that once mechanical reproduction became popular, the idea of "authentic aura" soon disappeared. This is relatable to things we see today that are mass-produced and mass-re-created.  Do you think that the more something is re-created the more value and power the original piece loses? Or do people become detached from the ideas that the piece was originally meant to hold

With this loss of the "aura," Benjamin speaks a lot about regaining the aura, and perhaps doing it in film. Is it necessary to regain the idea of the aura in film, when the director or camera man are shifting the perceptions and views how they see fit? An aura is dependent on the viewer and always subjective, while with film, there in a specific intent most of the time.

"We define the aura of the latter as the unique phenomenon of a distance, however close it may be. If, while resting on a summer afternoon, you follow with your eyes a mountain range on the horizon or a branch which casts its shadow over you, you experience the aura of those mountains, of that branch. This image makes it easy to comprehend the social bases of the contemporary decay of the aura. It rests on two circumstances, both of which are related to the increasing significance of the masses in contemporary life. Namely, the desire of contemporary masses to bring things “closer” spatially and humanly, which is just as ardent as their bent toward overcoming the uniqueness of every reality by accepting its reproduction."