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 thepotential of the industrial film to uncoverrenewed 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.

Table of Contents:
Introduction, I Navigating the Archive, Archives and Archaeologies, Record, Rhetoric, Rationalization, Vernacular Archiving, II Visuality and Efficiency, Early Industrial Moving Pictures in Germany, Layers of Cheese, Images of Efficiency, “What Hollywood Is to America, the Corporate Film Is to Switzerland”, Poussières,1 Thermodynamic Kitsch, III Films and Factories, Touring as a Cultural Technique, Corporate Films of Industrial Work, Filming Work on Behalf of the Automobile Firm, Eccentricity, Education and the Evolution of Corporate Speech, Centron, an Industrial/Educational Film Studio, 1947-1981, Films from Beyond the Well, IV See, Learn, Control, The Personnel Is Political, Behaviorism, Animation, and Effective Cinema, Technologies of Organizational Learning, The Central Film Library of Vocational Education, “Reality Is There, but It’s Manipulated”, V Urbanity, Industry, Film, Modernism, Industry, Film, A Modern Medium for a Modern Message, Harbor, Architecture, Film, Industrial Films, The Desiderata of Business-Film Research1, Contributors, Index of Names, Index of Film Titles, Index of Subjects.