Paper Summary:

In this paper, the author analyzes some aspects of the production and reception of the film, "Lawrence of Arabia" (1962), by situating it within the industry that Horkheimer and Adorno describe in order to further an understanding of what is meant by a "dialectical" critique of film as "culture industry". The paper goes on to briefly discuss the relevance of applying this type of analysis to a film like "The Sheik" (1921).

From the Paper:

"In Dialectic of Enlightenment, Horkheimer and Adorno make the claim that film plays a key role in what they call the "culture industries" of the 20th century. Writing in 1944, they describe an "iron system", which is in large part a reference to the Hollywood system and its fascistic employment of the "genre film (Horkheimer 154)." Of the effects of mass culture, they write: "culture now impresses the same stamp on everything. Films, radio and magazines make up a system which is uniform as a whole and in every part (120)." This criticism has specific implications for the feature film: "They are so designed that quickness, powers of observation, and experience are undeniably needed to apprehend them at all? yet sustained thought is out of the question. Even though the effort required for his [the viewer] response is semi-automatic, no scope is left for the imagination (126,127)." The standardization of the spectator, as it were, via the genre film and through the standardization of the viewing experience, is, for Horkheimer and Adorno, the crux of the culture industry where film is concerned. "The culture industry as a whole," they write, "has molded men as a type unfailingly reproduced in every product (127).""

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