Content area
Full Text
Ewa Mazierska, ed.. Work in Cinema: Labor and the Human Condition (New York: Palgrave Macmillan 2013)
THIS COLLECTION claims to correct a lack of attention from film critics and his- torians to the many complex ways films have represented work and the labour process. It aims to respond to new devel- opments in global capitalism, particularly the ongoing domination of neoliberalism and its ruthless attacks on a weakened labour movement and drastic reconfigu- ration of work and labour relations, and to new developments in theoretical and conceptual debate, within, and post-, Marxism. A modest, if worthy, number of previous books and essays in film stud- ies have focused on the representation of the working class, particularly conceived as the industrial proletariat in specific national cinemas, or in the work of class- conscious filmmakers, such as Ken Loach or Aki Kaurismäki. The contributions here have a broader ambition.
Mazierska provides an introductory foundation for the contributions with a succinct and thoughtful canvas of key concepts in Marx and Engels that relate to the centrality of labour in human his- tory - value, alienation, consumption, class, globalization, perhaps the open- ended imagination of a post-capitalist future. All have been developed by subse- quent Marxists and post-Marxists, such as Harvey, Hardt and Negri, Foucault, and Badiou, and these thinkers inspire many of the essays. Not surprisingly, the key analytical frame for the book is the rise and triumph of neoliberalism as the dominant political and social regime for contemporary global capitalism, and its rollback of gains of the Left and the la- bour movement everywhere.
The first section covers work in this neoliberal world. Highlights include two astute readings of recent Hollywood films that focus on neoliberal ways of organizing work and leisure. Each ques- tions our comprehension of contem- porary social life. The recently popular concept of affective labour seems to de- scribe the cruel, soulless corporate world of Up in the Air and finally shows...