TY - CHAP

T1 - The Agency of the Agency. Why do all Corporate Image Films Look the Same?

AU - Hediger, Vinzenz

AU - Hoof, Florian

PY - 2016/3/4

Y1 - 2016/3/4

N2 - What if there were a cinema not only without names, that is a cinema deprived of auteurs and personal style, but a cinema without any style at all, or rather a cinema in which style is not a distinguishing feature because all films look the same? “Who the Devil Made It?” is the title of a book of interviews that Peter Bodganovich’s conducted with Hollywood auteurs. The title refers to that specific quality in a film, that distinguishing trait that makes you ask who is behind it. But what if there were a cinema that makes you ask “Why the devil do they keep on making the same film over and over again?” Regardless of their country of origin or the corporation or branch of industry, contemporary corporate image films distinguish themselves through a staggering uniformity of style and the radical absence of anything even remotely qualifying as a marker of a personal style, or a personal vision. Whether it is BASF, DuPont Chemicals, Tata India, Deutsche Bahn or Maersk, a Danish container shipping company -- corporate image films all use the same images -- or “key visuals” as they are called in the language of advertising agencies --, the same music, the same type of voice-over narration and the same type of rhetoric tropes. More specifically, almost without exception, contemporary corporate image films talk about challenges, responsibility, the future, our children and sustainability, over music that sounds straight out of a toned-down lounge version of Philipp Glass, and they all feature images of large urban centers with futuristic steel and glass architecture, time-lapse photography of city squares and streets with masses of people going in all directions, images of children on playground or happy scientists in laboratories enjoying their teamwork. It is only a slight overstatement to suggest that the only element that varies from film to film is the corporate logo.

AB - What if there were a cinema not only without names, that is a cinema deprived of auteurs and personal style, but a cinema without any style at all, or rather a cinema in which style is not a distinguishing feature because all films look the same? “Who the Devil Made It?” is the title of a book of interviews that Peter Bodganovich’s conducted with Hollywood auteurs. The title refers to that specific quality in a film, that distinguishing trait that makes you ask who is behind it. But what if there were a cinema that makes you ask “Why the devil do they keep on making the same film over and over again?” Regardless of their country of origin or the corporation or branch of industry, contemporary corporate image films distinguish themselves through a staggering uniformity of style and the radical absence of anything even remotely qualifying as a marker of a personal style, or a personal vision. Whether it is BASF, DuPont Chemicals, Tata India, Deutsche Bahn or Maersk, a Danish container shipping company -- corporate image films all use the same images -- or “key visuals” as they are called in the language of advertising agencies --, the same music, the same type of voice-over narration and the same type of rhetoric tropes. More specifically, almost without exception, contemporary corporate image films talk about challenges, responsibility, the future, our children and sustainability, over music that sounds straight out of a toned-down lounge version of Philipp Glass, and they all feature images of large urban centers with futuristic steel and glass architecture, time-lapse photography of city squares and streets with masses of people going in all directions, images of children on playground or happy scientists in laboratories enjoying their teamwork. It is only a slight overstatement to suggest that the only element that varies from film to film is the corporate logo.

KW - Cultural studies

M3 - Contributions to collected editions/anthologies

SN - 978-88-6977-068-5

T3 - Proceedings XXI International Film Studies Conference Udine

SP - 209

EP - 218

BT - A History of Cinema Without Names.

A2 - Cavallotti, Diego

A2 - Giordano, Federico

A2 - Quaresima, Leonardo

PB - Mimesis International

CY - Udine

ER -