https://www.reddit.com/r/CriticalTheory/comments/1i64h2g/question_about_benjamins_goethes_elective/
created by William_Guest on 20/01/2025 at 23:28 UTC
4 upvotes, 0 top-level comments (showing 0)
I'm currently writing an essay on the ambivalence of works from intellectuals who didn't leave Nazi Germany but tried to maintain opposition between propaganda and censorship.
In my analysis of a film I would like to use a quote from Benjamin. But I'm unsure if I'm oversimplifying his underlying concept too much.
I plan to emphasize the special role of the film's creation, which is shaped by (re-)interpretation by directors and actors, propaganda and censorship, and the specific temporal context of the audience, up to its positive reception in post-war Germany - and compare this circumstance to Benjamin's image of a "paleographer before a parchment, whose faded text is covered by the strokes of a stronger script that refers to it" (Benjamin, Elective Affinities).
While I will consider the influence of time, actors, propaganda, etc on the meaning of the movie I'm not sure, if I fully understand Benjamins concept of critique and I am afraid that it might be weird if I use the quote in this context. (I am still a bit confused by the whole veils thing)
There's nothing here!