It is common, in modernist art criticism, to denigrate cause and effect relations between the two ends of the aesthetic chain, the conception and the reception of the work. But why must we consider the cinema of shot-reverse shot and the "domino theory" to be essentially bad? Why, since Adorno, should we feel ashamed for appreciating a film because it gives us pleasure, or because its "use-value" consists of a particular utility? As such, the following seeks to combat these prejudices by demonstrating, notably, that they stem from ideas that are not universal, but produced in specific sociohistoric fields, and which uphold a certain form of irrationalism.