Aura, which is literally “a distinctive atmosphere surrounding a given source” (Merriam Webster, 2020a) has become a concept related to the reception process of the artwork with Benjamin's definition. According to Benjamin, before the mechanical reproduction era aura is about the uniqueness, originality, and authenticity but with the mass production and film industry “could create a new kind of ideological magic and aura through the cult of celebrity and techniques like the close-up that fetishized certain stars or images via the technology of the cinema” (Durham & Kellner, 2006: 5).
Published in Chapter:
The Transformation of Ion Perdicaris to Eden Perdicaris as a Retro Scenario and Orientalist Codes in Art: Woman and East “To Be Saved” From Eastern
Gizem Parlayandemir (Faculty of Communication, Istanbul University, Turkey)
Copyright: © 2021
|Pages: 13
DOI: 10.4018/978-1-7998-7180-4.ch049
Abstract
Based on mainly the perspectives of three thinkers, Walter Benjamin, Edward Said, and Jean Baudrillard, in this study, beyond the general perception and “Barbarian” and “Berbers,” the film The Wind and The Lion, which was written and directed by John Milius in 1975 and inspired by a “real” life event that happened in 1904, and the transformation of the man kidnapped in real life, Ion Perdicaris, into a woman, Eden Pedecaris, in the film, and the relationship of this transformation with the “orient” perception, the economic and political infrastructures of this relationship, its roots in Orientalist painting will be discussed through intertextual reading and discourse analysis. The analysis of this film's discourse sustains its importance since not only film scholars but also audiences can receive the discourse of the film via new media presently.