Benjamin on the Blair Witch

First, two quotes from Walter Benjamin's The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction:

“...for the first time – and this is the effect of the film – man has to operate with his whole living person, yet forgoing its aura. For aura is tied to his presence; there can be no replica of it. The aura which, on the stage, emanates from Macbeth, cannot be separated for the spectators from that of the actor. However, the singularity of the shot in the studio is that the camera is substituted for the public. Consequently, the aura that envelops the actor vanishes, and with it the aura of the figure he portrays.”

“Magician and surgeon compare to painter and cameraman. The painter maintains in his work a natural distance from reality, the cameraman penetrates deeply into its web. There is a tremendous difference between the pictures they obtain. That of the painter is a total one, that of the cameraman consists of multiple fragments which are assembled under a new law. Thus, for contemporary man the representation of reality by the film is incomparably more significant than that of the painter, since it offers, precisely because of the thoroughgoing permeation of reality with mechanical equipment, an aspect of reality which is free of all equipment. And that is what one is entitled to ask from a work of art.”

You'd have to imagine that Walter Benjamin would be intrigued by the Blair Witch Project. Inherently, of course, The Blair Witch Project is a film, and lacks the Benjamin's concept of a unique aura. But what it does however, that most other films don't, is realistically (and harrowingly so) recapture the aura of an event. The movie essentially brings to life a fictitious encounter that has an aura of it's own, a different kind than Benjamin is used to.

This aura that the film possesses stems first from the lack of Benjamin's "singularity of the shot in the studio." Benjamin asserts that film loses its aura because of the way it's tactfully prepared for mass reproduction, in via mechanical systems like studios. The Blair Witch Project, however, eliminates the idea of a studio, and serves as a window into an event. Rather than attempt to recreate the aura of something else, it creates an aura for a fictitious but highly realistic event, and by doing so, makes a bold attempt at cutting into reality. 

There are no "fragments" in the camerawork of the film. Rather than using strategic shots, the cameras are held by the actors, who use partially simulated, and partially real fear to guide the camera around in capturing the event. Rather than piece together reality, the film dives straight into it, and embraces the flaws of a handheld, shaky camera. It's the ultimate form of Benjamin's concept of "permeation." The viewer can become totally entrenched in the film's reality, moreso than most other films, and ignore aesthetics and technique. The genius of the technique used for it, is the lack of technique. 

This lack of a certain technique allows the film to transcend the reality of a painting in a different way than Benjamin is used to. Paintings exist on a spectrum ranging from surreal to real, because of the technique with which they are crafted. The filmmaker is given a set of tools incomparably more practical in the quest for reality than the brush, and thus almost always come closer to cutting into reality. But The Blair Witch Project abandons these tools, and embodies the look of teenagers wandering around the forest with a camera. Rather than a film about these derelicts, it's a film by them.

The film also cleverly uses no big name actors, and well recognized locations. These two concepts both allow viewers to be more completely immersed rather than recognizing the characters as fictitious representations reenacted by celebrities. Again, the aura of the film derives from the creation of a new reality, one with its own aura that transcends the film itself.