Hamilton on Kracauer's Film Theory

Weimar and Realist Film Theory: Siegfried Kracauer
By Chloe Hamilton

Recently, our class bravely dove into a two-day discussion of film theorist Siegfried Kracauer and three of his essays: “Cult of Distraction” (1926), “Little Shopgirls Go to the Movies” (1927) and “Roller Coaster” (1928).  At one point we even attempted to apply Kracauer’s theories to contemporary society. 

To give us a little context to work with, Professor Carol Donelan opened the class with Kracauer’s background in Weimar Germany where, as a member of the Frankfurt School, he waxed theoretical with the likes of other big-gun intellectuals, Theodor Adorno and Walter Benjamin.  Maybe you’re thinking, “but they’re not quite film theorists.”  That’s true, but neither is Kracauer purely a film theorist.  He is not only looking at film, but at society and its response to film. 

It’s the machine age in 1920’s Berlin and film theorist Siegfried Kracauer wants a revolution.  In his writings Kracauer describes a society that is divided into two main sections.  For one, there is the dominating social class, the bourgeoisie.  Kracauer identifies them as those who “maintain the illusory claim that they are still the guardians of culture and education.”  It is the bourgeoisie whose conceit, “keeps the masses down and denigrates their amusement” (“Cult of Distraction,” 93). 

The second part of society is the oppressed class, the working-class masses or if you will, the proletariats.  The following description of the proletariat is a composite that I have constructed based on Kracauer’s writings and Professor Donelan’s lecture:  In this machine age, the proletariat labors all day in the factory as a part of an assembly line.  He pulls widgets from one machine and feeds it into another.  It is a fragmented existence and he may not even recognize the finished product that he worked to construct.  The proletariat is stripped of his humanity; he has become a mere cog in the wheel of production.  In this sense, his life is fragmented, but he is only one of many encountering this alienating experience.  The arrogance of the bourgeoisie and the plight of the proletariat troubles Kracauer. 

He wants change, recognition that it is the proletariat who is of the many and the bourgeoisie is of the few.  He writes, “The more people perceive themselves as a mass, however, the sooner the masses will also develop productive powers in the spiritual and cultural domain which are worth financing” (93).  When the proletariat realizes he is not alone but actually a part of a whole dissatisfied mass, he with his comrades can demand change this will result in a revolution.  For Kracauer, the catalyst that will spark this revolution lies in film.

Aided by this context we broke into a discussion of the readings.  We found that Kracauer’s main arguments center around what he refers to as distraction.  There are two forms of distraction.  One is progressive:  This form is seen in the film itself but in the surface nature or what Kracauer calls its “pure externalities” and allows the proletariat viewer a chance to recognize his alienation from the dominant social class.  The other form of distraction is reactionary:  Here, from movie producers, all the way down to movie house managers distraction is created that is centered around pleasure.  These concepts are what we based our discussion around. 

Progressive distraction is not progressive in itself, but its use has radical potential.  Films in the 1920’s and even to this day are fragmented.  Here, multiple shots like close-ups and medium shots are recorded from different angles.  They are then edited and pieced together to create a storyline that logically makes sense, but can be visually disorienting.  This lack of visual cohesion is a fragmentation that Kracauer relates to the proletariat’s experience in the factory, described before, as a cog in a wheel with little sense of the whole.  So Kracauer wants the worker to recognize his alienation from society by way of distracting film aesthetics. 

However, the bourgeoisie domesticate this potential in several ways.  It’s not that they recognize film aesthetics as potentially radical and they seek to neuter this aspect because the proletariats must not unite.  That’s just paranoia.  Instead, the bourgeoisie create distraction knowing, as Kracauer does, that the proletariat off-duty is looking for escape and for compensation.  The motive behind reactionary distraction is to attract the masses of proletariats and their wallets and thusly bring a tidy profit. 

One result of this is taking the film viewing experience and elevating it to a cultural experience.  This is done through making the movie house more like an opera house with elaborate architectural elements such as columns and wall sconces.  The movie house becomes more like a decadent palace, what Professor Donelan refers to in class as “sacred chamber architecture.”  This angers Kracauer because rendering the movie-going experience as something of high art alienates it from the masses. 

Another thing that troubles Kracauer is the creation of the movie going “event.”  Instead of making the movie the only element, it is made into just a portion of a unified experience that includes musical performances, maybe a stage act, and then the movie.  Kracauer believes that taking the focus off of the film and making it more of an afterthought eliminates its potential to awaken the masses.   

However, what seems to be the worst offense imposed by the bourgeoisie is in the narratives that they develop for mass consumption.  The bourgeois film producer, like Kracauer recognizes the potential dissatisfaction of the worker.  He uses this as a means to create a narrative that will relate to the viewer and drive him back to the theater again and again.  This manipulation just kills Kracauer, because producers end up making movies that seem to speak to the proletariat and his wishes and desires for a better life.  Yet though these issues are brought up, they are quickly sublimated.  In such a film, the hero is a proletariat suffering as others do, but by luck is plucked from the masses and rendered a success.  He maybe lost his job, but later becomes a millionaire.  Kracauer sees this solution, or what we pinned down in class as the “happy ending,” as a sort of recuperative strategy on the part of the filmmakers.  Satisfying the masses with a happy ending eliminates their need for to address the same issues, such as poverty, that occur in their own lives.  This distraction does not distance and alienate the proletariat from society as Kracauer wants it to.  Instead, it absorbs him.    

There is potential for revolution in film, only if the worker is made to feel his alienation, but why would he want to put himself through that?  In class, Gordie so aptly quipped, “why wouldn’t you want to be distracted?”  Gordie isn’t speaking of the fragmenting and jarring distraction that Kracauer wants the proletariat to feel.  Gordy is speaking of the absorbing kind of distraction and ultimately that is what the viewer seeks out.  He wants something to soothe him, to dull his sense of the real world, what Charles called “an anesthetic.”   

Comments

[Mak Wai Han, your mom]

Just bump into Google and found out all your works of art and other interest articles.
I love you, will tell Dad and Bubble about it. Mom

[Ming-mei Hung]

I enjoyed Chloe’s analysis and summary of Kracauer’s theory. She provided a really good review for me before I took the midterm. I agree with Chloe arguments. In an industrial age, the worker is often reduced to a mere number in a long assembly line. There was a sense of anonymity and alienation in everyday life. It is ironic that the working class sought out entertainment made possible by the very machines and technology upon which they toiled all day long. People flocked to the cinemas and amusement parks (such as Coney Island) in search of release from daily pressures. The fragmentation of film and the jolts of the amusement park ride reproduced the "assaults" or "shocks" of everyday life in urban industrial modernity. Kracauer discusses this in his essay "Roller Coaster" (1928) by remarking that the instinct to scream and let everything out is usually “suffocated by the solid construction of things.” Meanwhile, the great picture palaces emphasized sensory overload. The cinematic thrill became less about the film, however, and more about the overall experience. Spectators were bombarded by distractions beyond the film (architecture, lights, dancing, American style programming, and the combination of two-dimensional entertainment with that of the three-dimensional), which rendered the whole experience "bourgeois" and undermined the radical potential the film may have had.

Kracauer was interested in film reception, as evidenced in his essay “Little Shopgirls Go to the Movies” (1927). As a critic and journalist (and a spectator himself), he observed pop culture and was frustrated with how workers/viewers simply received the films without questioning them or being critical. His essay on distraction (“Cult of Distraction”) serves almost as a wake-up call to viewers, which I believe can also be applied to me, to be more aware.