(Blog-3) The Blair Witch Project

"..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"

Man-made art works were possibly replicated by other men throughout the history of art. However, seeing an original work is different from seeing a replica because the original has its unique traces of physical conditions and changes in its ownership (Benjamin). In his essay of The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction, Walter Benjamin declares that there is such thing called Aura. It is related to authenticity and originality of a work of art. Aura is an “unique existence of the work of art” (Benjamin). Replicas lack the unique existence. In other words, the one and only original works have values that replicas cannot exhibit in themselves.

Film is a medium of the age of Mechanical Reproduction. Unlike original drawings, films can be produced massively at the same time. Although we have easier access to art works through mass reproduction, we cannot experience the aura of the work of art with mass reproduced works of art.

Suppose there are actors presenting the same story on different stages. Although the elements they work with are the same, their different interpretation, manipulation and circumstances give each such different unique characteristics and existences. These works of art creates aura out of their own originality. In film, however, one actor plays one character in the same way, and it is reproduced for mass audience. Everyone sees the same work, which makes it lose uniqueness and originality.

However, in terms of displaying realism, film offers an aspect of reality that is free of equipment (Benjamin). In other words, reality presented in painting depends heavily on a painter’s skills, whereas filmmakers’ skills do not impact as much in representing reality. Representation of reality in painting is more likely distorted and manipulated in the process of painting with artists’ hands.

The Blair Witch Project, directed by Daniel Myrick and Eeuardo Sanchez, came out in 1999. The film, The Blair Witch Project, has such unique approach, documentary conventions, in presenting a story. The film starts with the black screen with the white text, “In October of 1994, three student filmmakers disappeared in the woods near Burkittsville, Maryland while shooting a documentary. A year later their footage was found”. This opening creates such tension and expectation that it may be a real documentary. Unrefined and shaky camera movements reinforce the belief that this can be a real documentary. Unlike other fiction films, the film had no extra technical manipulation such as sound track or refined cinematography- other than simple editing. What is really interesting is the amateurism and rawness of footages make the story seem real.



Without artificial scary sound track, the film could achieve to create strong tension because the fear the actors, or the characters, experience look so real. What we, the audience, visually see strongly insist the footage we see is real and not fictional. Personally, I was not fully convinced the film is fictional until I saw the credit of director on the screen.
Benjamin states, “For aura is tied to his presence; there can be no replica of it”.

As mechanical reproductive medium, The Blair Witch Project cannot presents aura of actors as actors on the stage, in front of audience, would have. However, it surely tries to make the audience, with its delicate manipulation, to believe it is reality that is presented in the film.