Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction and AMELIE

In “The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction”, Walter Benjamin argues that technology in the mechanical age can manipulate the eye, and therefore also manipulate the mind. In essence, I agree that the camera is a powerful tool to make people see, but it is dependent on the viewer for its power. An ignorant viewer will buy exactly what is seen on the screen, whereas a knowledgeable viewer will see the media as a whole and determine on his or her own volition whether to buy into it or not. Film technology only promotes narrative as criminal when the viewer cannot disengage from the material and look at it with a distance before deciding to engage within the film’s realm.

In Amelie, the camera works to pull us into the dimensions of the film. It attempts to create a truth through the imitation of reality. As an audience, we have the privilege of being somewhat omniscient—we are spectators that watch the story unfold. We are able to engage extremely intimately with Amelie in our spectatorship through the camera. We are able to see things the way that Amelie perceives them (her goldfish and imaginary friends), and therefore we can also emotionally engage with Amelie’s feelings—we share her biases, her interests, her disinterests—we are manipulated into feeling how she feels.

Her distaste for the manager of the vegetable stand, her penchant for matchmaking, her love for Nino and her personal habits become our rituals. The camera allows us to see Amelie’s past through Aaradine’s last moments, or Amelie’s internal reflections (in the form of movies that play on the T.V. screen), or even experience her own sexual arousal (in which she ventures into the haunted house and is stroked carefully by Nino). We are able to put the events of her life under scrutinizing dissection. Through these vicarious experiences, we come to see the world the way Amelie has always seen it.

The narrative may be considered criminal in this aspect, as film is the only art form that can take place in real time. The time it takes for Amelie to free a goldfish, break the shell on a crème brulee or hold a conversation with a friend, is the same as the time that is deprived from our own rituals of life. It seems criminal that movies can steal away your life experience in order to experience someone else’s.

Furthermore, film is powerful in that it can manipulate you to believe in an alternate reality. Though Amelie was a beautifully crafted narrative, its basis could be seen as extremely unrealistic. In another light, she can easily be seen as a severe vandal, a keen stalker, or malevolent gossip. However, the camera works to manipulate our sympathies. With our own morals ingrained within us, we enter the movie theater to judge its politics against our own. We can choose to accept its perspective or we can choose to reject it. When we cannot disassociate from the media in order to make that judgment however, we are trapped within the criminal felony that has been committed against us.