ABSTRACT
As a key concept of modernist modes of production and perception, disposition opens up an intertextual reading of the fi lm theory these writers developed. The fi lm camera provided an unprecedented opportunity to examine the way people relate to each other and their surroundings-or disposition-in detail in previously unknown dimensions. Moreover, fi lm brought a new form of mass culture that could be perceived by what Benjamin called a distracted audience, precisely the audience Brecht was interested in, for distracted people perceive the visual world in a noncontemplative way, thus using innovative forms of mimesis (imitation) as a way of social learning. These forms of perception also open up new venues for dealing with history, for they decipher present disposition as a physical form of memory and politics. Reading fi lm in terms of disposition demonstrates how cinema, as a potentially alternative public sphere, can consider history and politics at the same time.
