That Other Film Will Suffice: Towards ‘Total’ Documentation and Transnational Saturation in Scandinavian Industrial Films 1945-1975

This essay follows the development of how film was understood and used as documentation for Scandinavian industrial companies acting as a consumer, producer and/or commissioner in the years 1945-1975. Firstly, trends of use of film as documentation about industry is perceived through the concept of saturation from within companies and through their transnational connections. By reading Björkin’s (2009) concept of a “total” system’ of industrial film as a system moving towards ‘total documentation’ in the eyes of industry, the needs for local commission of films within one company over time is seen as challenged by what and how industry had been audiovisually documented in the past.To argue this concept, film commissions by the Swedish industrial company Stora Kopparbergs Bergslags AB are considered as case studies for this period. By chronologically tracing correspondences in the company records as well as discourse in trade journals, a narrative emerges for how transnational developments affected how film was seen as useful to document industry. In the 1940s-1950s, the company adapted to international praxis. Movement towards ‘total’ documentation emerged in line with technological and documentary approaches, as well as developments of films being understood as a total system. In the next two decades, documentation became ‘total’ through saturation and self-saturation in international productions, television and own films that applied widely used documentation perspectives. With this saturation, the approach to films changed, offering new, cost-efficient outsider forms of documentation.