Surgeons and Cameramen
Benjamin uses an extended metaphor as an example of the how film has changed the nature of art over time. He argues that a magician, who would heal the sick simply by laying his hands on them, is analogous to a painter, who engages with reality at a distance. By contrast, the surgeon "penetrates" the patient and the cameraman does the same with reality, using the camera to exploit a number of different angles and perspectives (235).
Dada and Tactility
"...the work of art of the Dadaists became an instrument of ballistics. It hit the spectator like a bullet, it happened to him, thus acquiring a tactile quality" (240).
In this simile, Benjamin compares the work of the Dadaists to the violent disruption of a bullet. He uses this simile to argue that this particular artistic movement forced spectators to engage with reproduction at the center of art. The Dadaists, Benjamin argues, were less concerned with market value for their art than they were with its "uselessness for contemplative immersion," highlighting the art's detachment from aura and tradition (240).
Atget's Photography
“It has quite justly been said of him that he photographed them like scenes of crime" (228).
Here, Benjamin describes the work of Eugène Atget, who in the early 1900s photographed the empty streets of Paris. Benjamin compares the photographs to scenes of a crime because they were some of the first pieces in the photography medium that did not feature human faces or bodies.
