Introduction to Adorno, "Transparencies on Film" (1966)

Abstract

If the reader of Industry Reconsidered detected a shift of emphasis, a modification of Adorno's thesis of universal manipulation and delusion,' the reader of Transparencies on Film may be even more surprised. First published in November 1966 (only three years after the radio lecture just mentioned), this essay seems to suspend some of the major fixations of Adorno's theory on Culture Industry. Moreover, it encourages a reading against the grain of Adorno's writings on film and mass culture which, for the most part, date from the period of his exile.2