Cine y experiencia. Siegfried Kracauer, Walter Benjamin y Theodor W. Adorno

Weimar and Now: German Cultural Criticism #44

by Miriam Bratu Hansen, Hugo Salas (Traductor)

“A la manera de un cuidadoso jardinero, Miriam Hansen planta y entrecruza la teoría crítica de Fráncfort, la historia del cine moderno y sus propias pasiones e intereses críticos. Ella constituyó en sí misma un significativo puente transatlántico entre las tradiciones de la ilustración y el arte cinematográfico. No fue solo una mente teórica, sino una persona que supo ejercer una influencia marcada y concreta en la realización cinematográfica. Gracias a ella, el videominuto tuvo su renacimiento, y otro tanto ocurrió con las películas para proyección sobre pantallas múltiples, la recuperación de Max Ophüls y tantas otras cosas. Los autores siempre nos deteníamos a escucharla. Ella, sentada en su oficina de Chicago, dirigiendo de vez en cuando una mirada al lago a través de la ventana, era nuestra profeta”.

Alexander Kluge, Berlin Journal

Genres: Film, Philosophy, Theory, History, Art, Sociology, Nonfiction

448 pages, Paperback

First published September 4, 2011

About the author

Miriam Hansen was a film historian who made important contributions to the study of early cinema and mass culture.

Reviews

[nick · Rating 4 out of 5]

Hansen's glosses on the Frankfurt School are liable to make your head hurt—essays and concepts you thought you knew get exploded, complicated, taken apart and put back together. But when you recover from the overload, these thinkers become workable ("actual") in new ways. In that sense they're less glosses than extensions, redemptions. Call it necromancy: forcing the dead to speak for the future.

[Mary Billyou · Rating 5 out of 5]

big fan of kracauer!

[Bill · Rating 3 out of 5]

I learned more concepts and vocabulary in the first 20 pages than I did in the past 20 books.

The insight into critical theory and into film theory was of personal interest to me. (Plus I loved Kracauer's "From Caligari to Hitler" when I read it in college -- so I was motivated to revisit that pleasant experience.)

In the final analysis (as Harvey Goldberg constantly said) the book KO'd me. I re-read the first 20 pages and found them much more understandable the second time, but I threw in the towel and admitted that I don't have sufficient foundation to really make use of this book. Or, as Miriam might have written: I don't have the discursive horizon for the book's immanent value.

Some day I'll get back to it though!!!

4 stars for dense content; 2 stars for how much I "liked" it.

[Nathan L · Rating 5 out of 5]

Considering its depth, this book is not the easiest read for someone new to film studies--especially those who are unfamiliar with the primary cinema-related texts of Kracauer, Benjamin, and Adorno. However, I hope that doesn't discourage anyone from picking it up. It is an excellent survey of three very interesting thinkers and will likely become a must read for any serious film scholar.