Films That Work: Industrial Film and the Productivity of Media

The history of industrial films - an orphan genre of twentieth-century cinema composed of government-produced and industrially sponsored movies that sought to achieve the goals of their sponsors, rather than the creative artists involved - seems to have left no trace in filmic cultural discourse. At its height the industrial film industry employed thousands, produced several trade journals and festival circuits, engaged with giants of twentieth-century industry like Shell and AT & T, and featured the talents of iconic actors and directors such as Buster Keaton, John Grierson and Alain Resnais. This is the first full-length book, anthology, and annotated bibliography to analyse the industrial film and its remarkable history. Exploring the potential of the industrial film to uncover renewed and unexplored areas of media studies, this remarkable volume brings together renowned scholars such as Rick Prelinger and Thomas Elsaesser in a discussion of the radical potential and new possibilities in considering the history of this unexplored corporate medium.

Vinzenz Hediger is a professor of cinema studies at Goethe-Universität Frankfurt where he directs the Graudate Research Training Program ＂Configurations of film＂. He is a founding member of the Permanent Seminar on Histories of Film Theories, a co-founder and former steering committee member of NECS - European Network of Cinema and Media Studies (www.necs.org) and a member of the Mainz Academy of Sciences and Literature. His publications include ＂Films That Work Harder. The Circulations of Industrial Film＂ (forthcoming from AUP) and ＂Nostalgia for the Coming Attraction. American Movie Trailers and the Culture of Film Consumption＂ (forthcoming from Columbia UP). Patrick Vonderau is an assistant professor in the department of media studies at the same university.