Critique and Mass

This chapter focuses on Walter Benjamin who, in 1923, wrote that a critique's day is long past. It also reviews Benjamin's writing about film in 1936 where he notes that film puts the public in the position of the critic, implying that critique has become more present than ever as a mass phenomenon. Such critique, that of a theatrical mode of production, is incompossible with the industrial-cinematographic mode of production in which the dialectic of places, perspective, the pit, and critical distance have been erased into a new immanence that makes the stage/stalls, cult/exhibition value, use/exchange value differend insignificant. The chapter points out that critique as a mass phenomenon has become more present than ever but it does not suggest the absolute extenuation of the theatrical technology of critique. It further clarifies that critique indicates how theatrical technology coexists with the industrial cinematographic within an actuality where technologies clash.