ART4619C - Walter Benjamin

The comparison of a magician to a surgeon and painter to a cameraman was creative and somewhat unexpected.  It helps to reinforce Benjamin's argument about a painter and a cameraman.  Everyone follows a procedure, but a cameraman is able to create his art with a special procedure of similar shots, like a magician.  While the painter must follow a natural distance from reality analogous to the surgeon.

Also, the ancient statue of Venus, was used as an example for authentic yet changeable.  In describing the object gazed upon at different locations, Walter Benjamin says, "Both of them, however, were equally confronted with its uniqueness, that is, its aura."  The two places where the idol was viewed took on its own form in the mind of the viewer.  However, an actor in a film is known as a man that "has to operate with his whole living person, yet forgoing its aura.  For his aura is tied to his presence..." The man changes and reflects the actions of a man he is to portray, but loses the aura which envelops him.

How is it possible for him to lose the aura instead of it changing?  Is it because the actor is taking the role of another person that "the aura that envelops the actor vanishes, and with it the aura of the figure he portrays."?  How is this different than the man being at different locations (the actor's setting) and still being the same person (even though he is acting)?