Adorno reads George’s dream-mask as prophecy of sound film

Evidence

In the account of dreams in his Tage und Taten, the only work in which he describes his most profound experience of it, Stefan George singled out the image of the speaking mask as one of the utmost horror: ‘I had been given a clay mask which was now mounted on the wall of my room. I invited my friends to come and see how I incited the head to speak. I requested aloud that the head tell me the name of the one to whom I was pointing. When it refused to speak I attempted to force open its lips with my finger. Suddenly it distorted its features and bit my finger. In a state of extreme agitation I now repeated aloud my original demand and pointed at someone else. Thereupon the head named the name. Horrified we all left the room and I knew that I would never again set foot inside it.’ - Stefan George (1933) Tage und Taten. Aufzeichnungen und Skizzen, Gesamt-Ausgabe, vol. 17, Berlin, p. 32. This is a prophecy of sound film. — Theodor W. Adorno, The Culture Industry, 315

Categorization

• BMF: The clay mask that bites the finger and speaks truth under coercion evokes the compelled confessor devices in We (Zamyatin) — the state’s speaking mouth that reveals names — and the horror of the threshold figure forced to speak.
• CANDY: A nightmare where a clay mask bites the dreamer’s finger then names a name on command, and Adorno solemnly calls it a prophecy of cinema — deliciously uncanny and tweetable.
• STORYSTEM: The speaking-mask-as-medium is a perfect image for a horror story about an oracle or ventriloquized truth-teller that harms whoever forces it to speak — the mask names names only after biting the asker.