Compatible to assemblage art, the benshi treats the completed film as found footage to attach their own cultural terminology to the images. The benshi is known to focus their attention on the background scenery, such as the weather, location, architecture, and clothes. In essence, they are reediting the film for the audience as they sit there. Not by cutting the actual movie, but by having their audience's watchfulness drawn away from the actual events in the film. To the general public, film is usually treated on a higher ground than poetry.
More people go to films than readings or buying poetry.
Great poets have used cinema as a source for poetry, but never has poetry been demonstrated in such a translucent flow from screen to benshi's mouth. The artistry of the benshi makes the emotions transparent. This spectacle is similar to an Italian opera and not knowing Italian. Watching Phantom of the Opera with a benshi had a pronounced aftereffect on me. For the first time I had witnessed an organic relationship between live theater and film.