Images in context

In the next section of The Work of Art in the age of Mechanical Reproduction, Benjamin notes the differences between the actor on the screen and the actor on stage. He tells of the way the actor is portrayed to the audience as a means of explaining the aura. The cameraman on the actor in film continually changes the position and angles of the camera, so that "the performance of the actor are subjected to a series of optical tests" (437). Thus, the actor's performance is presented by means of the camera. Furthermore, due to the fact that the actor in the film does not have an audience in front of him, he or she lacks the opportunity to adjust to the audience during the performance. The audience members, which include anyone and everyone seeing the film on a screen, are unable to experience any personal connection with the actor and can thus "take the position of a critic" (437). The audience's identification with the actor is really just the identification with the camera, according to Banjamin. In a film, we see the actor in whatever way the camera wants us too, instead of witnessing the actor's performance on stage from a singular and common angle.
Benjamin discusses the deterioration of a film actor's aura due to this lack of connection between actor and audience. The camera "is substituted from the public."An actor's aura is joined with his presence, and when it is the camera that is separating the two from the audience, the aura of the actor and the figure he portrays both vanish (437). Instead of identifying himself withe character of his role as the actor on stage does, the film actor's creation is "composed of many separate performances" (437). It is the mechanical equipment and lighting along with the will of the camera are what separate the actor's performance into a series of episodes. Thus, according to Benjamin, it is an equipment-free aspect of reality that characterizes art.
So what is the difference between a painter and a cameraman? Benjamin uses the analogy of the magician, one who keeps a distance between the patient and himself, and the surgeon, who decreases the distance between the patient and himself by cutting into the body and interacting with the organs. Magician = painter (free form all equipment); surgeon = cameraman.
Banjamin seems to suggest further on that art has been replaced by moving images on a screen in film. These images can not provoke thought because the thoughts are being presented with snapshots at a rate too fast for the mind to grasp. He quotes Duhamel, who detests film and says that he no longer has time to think.
I tend to believe that although mechanical reproduction, film and photographs, etc. may have recently changed art on the stage, as it were, artistic reflection is still very much there. Along with all of these films comes an evolution in the minds of the audience to see them. Rapid images of the actor may be flashing in front of us at a rapid pace, but it is because of this and the order that they appear that they are able to convey messages. Modern audiences have had practice with this idea - and it is because of this practice that an audience member is able to properly judge the quality of film.
On another note, Is it that one simply cannot keep up with the tragedy on the screen because "thoughts are ebing replaced by moving images"? Or could it be that a genre of tragedy, for example, requires such swift transitions to other images in order to have effect? In The Lord of the Rings, there are several groups of individuals fighting - and it is necessary to change from one group to another very rapidly in order to keep the audience informed so that the audience can truly feel for the fate of Middle Earth, for example. We would never know how the story would unfold if the camera were fixed on a single position of an individual, the way it would be on a stage. Therefore, transitions between images is essential in some films for the progression of a story or the implementation of a particular genre.