| Description |
1 online resource (xvii, 316 pages) : illustrations |
| Contents |
The process film in context -- On being absorbed in work -- Aestheticizing labor -- Nation building -- The limits of the genre -- Epilogue: The spoof that proves the rule |
| Summary |
"The process genre proposes the recognition of the process genre as an essential-and essentially cinematic-genre. 'The process genre' includes the wide array of films that represent people or machines completing a given task or producing something anew. While the representation of process is not solely the province of cinema-it can show up in any observed linear progression through steps to an intended end, including recipes, manuals, and other pictorial instruction-Skvirsky shows how the cinematic presentation of process is unique in that it makes labor visible. As process genre films from the experimental to the didactic engage viewers in mundane and minute tasks, they offer up a world that can be understood, known, or mastered by anyone. The political effects of this kind of cinematic humanism and the visibility of its labors are particularly important, Skvirsky argues, in an age of affective and freelance work that is increasingly resistant to this kind of holistic view and processual representation. Chapter 1 introduces a collage of different films, each an exemplar of how the viewer is drawn into the detailed actions of the subjects-whether the process involves pulling off a heist (such as in Jules Dassin's Rififi [1955]) or bathing oneself (as in Chantal Akerman's experimental Jeanne Dielman [1975]). These films are then interwoven through the arguments of the following chapters, giving depth to each chapter's theoretical assertions. Chapter 2 seeks to historicize the process film by situating it among other genres of the twentieth century-the educational, the industrial, and the ethnographic film genres. Chapter 3 connects a discussion of narrative theory to the unique capacity for process films to draw the viewer in, highlighting in particular Mr. Rogers's ability to engage viewers in the processes of a crayon factory. From there, Skvirsky builds the framework of a theory of the process genre, with an eye to the political effects of the genre in Latin American cinema. For Skvirsky, the politics of making concealed labor visible in a detailed and absorbing format illustrates the special relationship between the process genre and modernity. Chapters 3 and 4 delve into the process genre as it relates to labor, and particularly how it engenders a certain set of aesthetics of labor, while chapter 5 considers New Latin American Cinema and labor history, particularly in relation to development and use of the process genre in anticapitalist political projects. Skvirsky also grapples with affective labor and returns to Akerman's Jeanne Dielman as an exemplar of immaterial labor, producing the intangible like an emotional response. This book will interest readers in cinema and media studies, as well as readers in narrative theory, semiotics, Latin American film, Marxist theory, and labor studies"-- Provided by publisher |
| Bibliography |
Includes bibliographical references and index |
| Notes |
Description based on online resource; title from digital title page (viewed on May 18, 2020) |
| Subject |
Work in motion pictures.
|
|
Process films -- History and criticism
|
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PERFORMING ARTS / Film & Video / History & Criticism
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Work in motion pictures
|
| Genre/Form |
Criticism, interpretation, etc.
|
| Form |
Electronic book
|
| LC no. |
2019032752 |
| ISBN |
9781478007074 |
|
1478007079 |
|
