''American Factory'' () is a 2019 American
documentary film
A documentary film or documentary is a non-fictional film, motion-picture intended to "document reality, primarily for the purposes of instruction, education or maintaining a Recorded history, historical record". Bill Nichols (film critic), Bil ...
directed by
Steven Bognar and
Julia Reichert
Julia Bell Reichert (June 16, 1946 – December 1, 2022) was an American Academy Award-winning documentary filmmaker, activist, and feminist. She was a co-founder of New Day Films. Reichert's filmmaking career spanned over 50 years as a directo ...
, about Chinese company
Fuyao's factory in
Moraine
A moraine is any accumulation of unconsolidated debris (regolith and rock), sometimes referred to as glacial till, that occurs in both currently and formerly glaciated regions, and that has been previously carried along by a glacier or ice shee ...
, a city near
Dayton
Dayton () is the sixth-largest city in the U.S. state of Ohio and the county seat of Montgomery County. A small part of the city extends into Greene County. The 2020 U.S. census estimate put the city population at 137,644, while Greater Da ...
, Ohio, that occupies
Moraine Assembly
Moraine Assembly was a General Motors automobile factory in Moraine, Ohio, United States, a suburb of Dayton. A Frigidaire appliance plant had originally operated on the site from 1951 to 1979. Starting in 1981, the Chevrolet S-10 small pickup was ...
, a shuttered
General Motors
The General Motors Company (GM) is an American Multinational corporation, multinational Automotive industry, automotive manufacturing company headquartered in Detroit, Michigan, United States. It is the largest automaker in the United States and ...
plant. The film had its festival premiere at the
2019 Sundance Film Festival
The 2019 Sundance Film Festival took place from January 24 to February 3, 2019. The first lineup of competition films was announced on November 28, 2018.
Films
U.S. Dramatic Competition
* '' Before You Know It'' by Hannah Pearl Utt
* ''B ...
. It is distributed by
Netflix
Netflix, Inc. is an American subscription video on-demand over-the-top streaming service and production company based in Los Gatos, California. Founded in 1997 by Reed Hastings and Marc Randolph in Scotts Valley, California, it offers a fil ...
and is the first film acquired by
Barack
Barack Hussein Obama II ( ; born August 4, 1961) is an American politician who served as the 44th president of the United States from 2009 to 2017. A member of the Democratic Party, Obama was the first African-American president of the ...
and
Michelle Obama
Michelle LaVaughn Robinson Obama (born January 17, 1964) is an American attorney and author who served as first lady of the United States from 2009 to 2017. She was the first African-American woman to serve in this position. She is married t ...
's production company,
Higher Ground Productions
Higher Ground Productions, also known simply as Higher Ground, is an American production company founded in 2018 by former United States President Barack Obama and former First Lady Michelle Obama.
History
In May 2018, the Obamas launched Higher ...
.
It won an
Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature
An academy (Attic Greek: Ἀκαδήμεια; Koine Greek Ἀκαδημία) is an institution of secondary education, secondary or tertiary education, tertiary higher education, higher learning (and generally also research or honorary membershi ...
.
Overview
In post-industrial Ohio, a Chinese billionaire opens a factory in an abandoned General Motors plant, hiring two thousand Americans. Early days of hope and optimism give way to setbacks as high-tech China clashes with working-class America.
Production
Filmed from February 2015 until the end of 2017, Reichert and Bognar were granted filming access by
Fuyao at both their
Ohio
Ohio () is a state in the Midwestern region of the United States. Of the fifty U.S. states, it is the 34th-largest by area, and with a population of nearly 11.8 million, is the seventh-most populous and tenth-most densely populated. The sta ...
and Chinese plant locations. They were inspired to make this film as the events they aimed to depict were taking place in the same
Moraine Assembly
Moraine Assembly was a General Motors automobile factory in Moraine, Ohio, United States, a suburb of Dayton. A Frigidaire appliance plant had originally operated on the site from 1951 to 1979. Starting in 1981, the Chevrolet S-10 small pickup was ...
plant once occupied by General Motors, which was the central topic of their 2009 Oscar-nominated documentary short ''
The Last Truck: Closing of a GM Plant.''
The
Mandarin Chinese
Mandarin (; ) is a group of Chinese (Sinitic) dialects that are natively spoken across most of northern and southwestern China. The group includes the Beijing dialect, the basis of the phonology of Standard Chinese, the official language of ...
language portions of the film were facilitated by the inclusion of two Chinese filmmakers, Yiqian Zhang and Mijie Li, one or both of whom would travel to Ohio monthly. The directors credit these two as essential in providing a connection to the Chinese subjects depicted in the film.
Style
The filmmakers implemented a
fly-on-the-wall
Fly on the wall is a style of documentary-making used in film and television production. The name derived from the idea that events are seen candidly, as a fly on a wall might see them. In the purest form of fly-on-the-wall documentary-making, t ...
documentary filmmaking approach, in which no dialogue external to the subjects of the film is included, and the sounds of the factory and the dialogue of the workers is prioritized. In order to make focal such an audio/visual approach, the filmmakers implemented the use of
lavalier microphone
A lavalier microphone or lavalier (also known as a lav, lapel mic, clip mic, body mic, collar mic, neck mic or personal mic) is a small microphone used for television, theater, and public speaking applications to allow hands-free operation. They a ...
s to effectively balance worker dialogue amid noise emanating from the factory's machinery. The
voice-over
Voice-over (also known as off-camera or off-stage commentary) is a production technique where a voice—that is not part of the narrative (non-Diegetic#Film sound and music, diegetic)—is used in a radio, television production, filmmaking, th ...
narration provided by the factory workers was often recorded at their respective homes, independently from the factory setting. According to Bognar, implementing the film's narration in this way to create an effect of depicting a worker's
inner monologue
Intrapersonal communication is the process by which an individual communicates within themselves, acting as both sender and receiver of messages, and encompasses the use of unspoken words to consciously engage in self-talk and inner speech.
Intr ...
.
Reception
After the film's screening at Sundance, it garnered wide acclaim. On
Rotten Tomatoes
Rotten Tomatoes is an American review-aggregation website for film and television. The company was launched in August 1998 by three undergraduate students at the University of California, Berkeley: Senh Duong, Patrick Y. Lee, and Stephen Wang ...
, the film has an approval rating of based on reviews from critics, with an average of . The site's consensus reads: "''American Factory'' takes a thoughtful – and troubling – look at the dynamic between workers and employers in the 21st-century globalized economy." On
Metacritic
Metacritic is a website that review aggregator, aggregates reviews of films, TV shows, music albums, video games and formerly, books. For each product, the scores from each review are averaged (a weighted arithmetic mean, weighted average). M ...
it has a weighted average score of 86 out of 100 based on 23 critics, indicating "universal acclaim".
David Edelstein of ''
New York Magazine
''New York'' is an American biweekly magazine concerned with life, culture, politics, and style generally, and with a particular emphasis on New York City. Founded by Milton Glaser and Clay Felker in 1968 as a competitor to ''The New Yorker'', ...
'' wrote: "It's a great, expansive, deeply humanist work, angry but empathetic to its core. It gestures toward the end of the working world we know – and to the rise of the machines."
Eric Kohn at ''
IndieWire
IndieWire (sometimes stylized as indieWIRE or Indiewire) is a film industry and review website that was established in 1996. The site's focus was predominantly independent film, although its coverage has grown to "to include all aspects of Hollyw ...
'' described it as "A fascinating tragicomedy about the incompatibility of American and Chinese industries."
The film won
Best Documentary Feature at the
2020 Academy Awards as well as the
Independent Spirit Award
The Independent Spirit Awards (abbreviated Spirit Awards and originally known as the FINDIE or Friends of Independents Awards), founded in 1984, are awards dedicated to independent filmmakers. Winners were typically presented with acrylic glas ...
for the same category.
It also won the
.
Accolades
See also
*''
Detropia
''Detropia'' is a 2012 American documentary film, directed by Heidi Ewing and Rachel Grady, about the city of Detroit, Michigan. It focuses on the decline of the economy of Detroit due to long-term changes in the automobile industry, and the effec ...
'' - 2012 documentary focused on the decline of the economy of Detroit due to long-term changes in the automobile industry
*''
Roger & Me
''Roger & Me'' is a 1989 American documentary film written, produced, directed by, and starring Michael Moore, in his directorial debut. Moore portrays the regional economic impact of General Motors CEO Roger Smith's action of closing several ...
'' - 1989
Michael Moore
Michael Francis Moore (born April 23, 1954) is an American filmmaker, author and left-wing activist. His works frequently address the topics of globalization and capitalism.
Moore won the 2002 Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature for ' ...
documentary about General Motors closing its factory in Flint, Michigan, eliminating 35,000 jobs
*
Working-class culture
Working-class culture is a range of cultures created by or popular among working-class people. The cultures can be contrasted with high culture and folk culture, and are often equated with popular culture and low culture (the counterpart of high ...
References
External links
*
*
{{DEFAULTSORT:American Factory
2019 documentary films
2019 films
American documentary films
Primetime Emmy Award-winning broadcasts
Chinese-language American films
Documentary films about automobiles
Documentary films about globalization
Documentary films about labor relations in the United States
Films about the labor movement
Netflix original documentary films
Best Documentary Feature Academy Award winners
Sundance Film Festival award winners
Montgomery County, Ohio
Economy of Dayton, Ohio
Documentary films about Ohio
Higher Ground Productions films
Films directed by Steven Bognar and Julia Reichert
2010s English-language films
2010s Mandarin-language films
2010s American films
Films about companies