Process Genre

SalomÉ Aguilera Skvirsky is Assistant Professor of Cinema and Media Studies at the University of Chicago.

“Thank goodness there are still film genres to discover! Covering a broad historical and geographical range, from Japan to Chile and from early cinema to YouTube, SalomÉ Aguilera Skvirsky's study of the cinematic work of work is both meticulously argued and strikingly original.” - Jonathan Kahana, editor of (The Documentary Film Reader: History, Theory, Criticism) “After reading SalomÉ Aguilera Skvirsky's original take on the process genre one wonders why this essential cinematic genre had not been an object of systematic study earlier. The book draws on the genre's connection to modernity, cinema, magic, and technique, and it develops a textured reading of Latin American cinema and its discourses on labor. With examples ranging from slapstick to process manuals and art cinema, the book is impressive in its historical and contextual depth and textual deftness. Skvirsky's vivid readings convey the unavoidable interest in following a sequence of concerted steps toward a predefined end-in the cinema.” - Ivone Margulies, author of (In Person: Reenactment in Postwar and Contemporary Cinema) "[The appeal of the process genre] is impossible to ignore while reading The Process Genre; even Skvirsky's step-by-step accounts of the texts she cites elicit a distinct sense of gratification." - Madeline Collier (Film Quarterly) "The Process Cinema is the labour of love of a cinephile and academic pursuing a passion; it proves its own point by showing the great ideas that can sprout when humans engage in intellectual work. In this way, it also shows the ethical and political importance of extending this privilege to everyone, whether in the form of work or play." - Juan Velasquez (Bright Lights Film Journal) "[An] absorptive and accomplished monograph.… Skvirsky's clear organization and approachable writing when engaging thematically rich areas make the book appropriate for undergraduate and graduate courses both as a case study in its entirety and through individual chapters that offer new perspective into the cinematic treatment of topics such as labor, the nation, or affect.… For a book about the appeal of watching a precisely accomplished technique, The Process Genre illuminates the pleasure of reading a well-executed scholarly work." - Juan Llamas-Rodriguez (Journal of Cinema and Media Studies) "A meticulous, carefully reasoned, and riveting polemic that argues that the process film is really about celebrating the centrality of work to human activity." - Jonathan Buchsbaum (Discourse) “The Process Genre is clearly a labour of love.... The book’s points are accompanied by small black and white frames throughout, but also through a number of grids.... These beautifully produced and reproduced works in themselves add yet more to the great human pleasure of reading this book.” - Helen Hughes (Historical Journal of Film, Radio and Television) "The Process Genre is required reading for those working in the domains of useful cinema, visual anthropology, labor and capitalism, and national cinemas. . . . It is rare to find a book that brings together so many academic audiences and fields that tend to work independently in an opportunity to reorient our scholarship along our common interests. We need more books that do the same." - Kit Hughes (New Review of Film and Television Studies)

• A Note on the Art  ixAcknowledgments  xiIntroduction: The Process Genre  11. The Process Film in Context  512. On Being Absorbed in Work  773. Aestheticizing Labor  1164. Nation Building  1465. The Limits of the Genre  193Epilogue: The Spoof That Proves the Rule  219Notes  239Bibliography  287Index 305