Walter Benjamin (1892-1940), in his critical analysis of art in the age of its technological reproducibility, came to the conclusions that art needed to be politicized else politics become aestheticized instead which could only lead to war.

Despite some of its negative characteristics such as the self-alienation of the actor and destruction of the "aura" in comparison to that of traditional theatre, he found potential for the politicizing of art in film's mass reception.

Film could become the battleground of ideological differences and a vehicle for driving the progressive social changes such as those required for Marxism to overcome Fascism.