1 One might question whether the predominant use of black and white in films
at the time this piece was written worked to subvert the effectiveness with which the
entertainment industry reproduced the real world: reality is not black and white.
Adorno and Horkheimer do talk about the role of technological improvements
(especially in sound) in improving the reproduction, but the use of black and white was
a choice, not a necessity. I would argue (at least as a footnote) that black and white
actually creates a more realistic image, one that resonates more with the our psychical
conception of reality; hence black and white photographs and documentaries seem
to more effectively and intensely capture what is real about a scene. Black and
white differs from reality, surely, but it does this so far as it is more real than reality,
not less real. In any case, one could certainly argue that black and white films gave a
more convincing portrayal of reality than early Technicolor, and it was not until the
quality of color film improved significantly that it was adopted.
2 All quotations are taken from memory and so are approximate.
3 In accord with the cultural level of AH's critique, I have used "authority" rather
than "author," largely in order to avoid addressing the problematization of authorship
carried out by works such as Barthes' "The Death of the Author." However, there is a
relatively unproblematic but suggestive overlap between the ideas of authority and
author in the case of auteur theory; Hitchcock, for example, exists as such a
great cultural authority that he as an author can appear on screen: self-reflexivity, yes,
but hardly subversive.
