ABSTRACT
A difficulty arises in any attempt to discuss collage in the context of film, imbedded in the very form of the medium. All film is literally made up of "montage," in the specific sense of the material linking together of a succession of still images. A consideration of the "copy" in film makes clear how film problematizes the idea of authenticity in a work of art, in several different registers. The medium of film denies the idea that the valuation of the artwork inheres in the opposition of the original versus the copy. Film production processes, as well, reject the valuation of the "here and now" of human presence observed in both the performing and plastic arts, what Walter Benjamin termed "aura." As Benjamin continues, the effect of film is that the human being is placed in a position where he must operate with his whole living person, while forgoing its aura.
