ABSTRACT
Given growing interest in environmental aspects of film, this chapter proposes an energo-critical approach to industrial film, notable for depicting combustive processes, by suggesting four registers for reading such thermodynamic imagery: First the sensorial, which quantifies aspects of energy conversion. Second, energy is recognized in a physicist’s sense, as a capacity to do work, pointing to the augmentation and denigration of human labour. Third, the imperative to save energy via increasing efficiency, a central characteristic of industrial film, manifest in portrayals of power transfers and transformations. Fourth the motif of friction is affirmed as various off-screen resistances impose themselves on the extractive processes of industry. Far from comprehensive, these registers offer starting points for reading energy’s increasing pertinence back into film.
