i disagree with the idea that the film maker's hand is not in the work. if i see a tim burton film i can always tell it was his because it clearly has his hand and his doings in it. my concept in defense of this is that the way a film maker applies his hand is in the form of the idea. the entire film is an exerpt of their imagination manifested in psysical communicating form. how they choose to interpret their idea, and apply their concepts of aesthetics are all a part of their own hand.
i would actually like to sign the bottom of the first things first essay. i completely agree with their take on capitalism. in the benjamin essay he presents us with the idea that int he past art served as a functional thing, a thing that was generally spiritual. in todays society, with its growing technology, we have grown and changed as well. art serves a different function, but it still functions. art serves as an advertising function. people are now exploiting art's concept of retaliation and how it can legislate political views, and they have turned it in their favor. what are we going to do in response to this? looking back on history, what has happened is we have become subject to change. but what can we change? what can we do now? how can we choose to move on further? the only logical thing that comes to mind is what was mentioned earlier in the benjamin essay, which was looking into karl marx's statements on capitalism is that capitalism was going to destroy itself by its own hand.
