Article is from WeChat public account: Guyu Project-Tencent News (ID: guyuproject) , author: Cui Ying, from the title figure: “US factories”
Everyone was patient early in the shoot. The Chinese are patient with Americans, teach them to make glass, and tell them how Fuyao works. Americans are also patient with Chinese people, letting them know how American companies work, and the rules and laws here. But over time, the factory was not profitable, frustration on both sides increased, and patience began to decrease.
On September 15, the United Auto Workers Union announced that about 46,000 General Motors workers in the United States have gone on strike because of controversial negotiations over a new contract.
Less than a month ago, Fuyao Glass’s US factory in Dayton, Ohio, the documentary “American Factory”, premiered on Netflix. In the film, The main contradiction between Chinese management and American workers also revolves around unions. Foyao ’s founder and chairman, Cao Dewang, both in the film and in interviews with the media afterwards, have rejected the union, believing that the western union system is no longer suitable for the development of manufacturing.
In addition to the trade union dispute, “American Factory” also shows how entrepreneurs and managers from China can apply Chinese-style production methods to American workers. How did American workers feel uncomfortable?
“ This movie has no protagonist, it presents a whole. The story has Americans, Chinese, managers, and workers. They belong to different races and different cultures. Background. We hope to show the appearance of this world through the shaping of many individual images. “Steven Bognar, director of” American Factory ” said.
He and Zhu, another director of American FactoryLia Lechette (Julia Reichert) are natives of Dayton. They have long paid attention to issues such as local workers and manufacturing. Before that, they also filmed a documentary about the closure of the Dayton General Motors plant-Fuyao’s Dayton Plant, which uses the old GM factory area. In early 2015, shortly after Cao Dewang purchased the factory, the two directors obtained Cao Dewang’s shooting permission, and have been filming for three years.
Fuyao Glass Dayton Plant, Ohio, USA
After the broadcast of “American Factory”, it triggered a large-scale discussion in the United States and China.
“This documentary is a study of what is going to happen, that is, the dizzying cultural and labor politics between China and the United States,” said film critic Austin Collins in Vanity Fair. He believes that “American Factory” subtly presents the differences between Eastern and Western cultures and ideologies. The purpose of these differences and collisions is to strive to make the new factory alive. The film lets people see how local workers are forced to adapt to various new ways of working, but it is also urgent that foreign entrepreneurs who invest in the United States may also need to change and adapt to the new investment environment.
American film critic David Edelstein wrote in the New York Times website, Vulture, that the hard-to-neglect information in the film is that Chinese workers are slim, graceful, and smiley, while American workers are bloated , Sluggish. Moreover, American workers often complain that when they have to work in a hot environment for 10 minutes, they show exhaustion without concealment. But Edelstein also believes that the living conditions of Chinese workers in “American Factory” are a “tragedy.”
The American “Rolling Stone” magazine published a review of David Phil’s book, noting that the film outlines the common pressures facing the labor market and presents the situation of both employers and employees. Sino-US production model, workersThe differences can be attributed to the confrontation of collectivism and individualism, the contradiction between output and speed, the contradiction between quantity and quality, the sense of accomplishment of workers’ work, and the contradiction of workers just to make money, and so on. No matter how many confrontations, as the workers in the film say, they are sandwiched. But at the end of the film, it is shuddering that automatic mechanization is the common enemy facing Chinese and American workers, because they are likely to be replaced by each other, and the arrival of this enemy may be more than expected early.
Stills of Chinese and American Workers Documentary “American Factory”
So, what does the director think of this documentary? What challenges did they encounter in the filming, and how did they view the differences between the Chinese and American labor systems? Recently, Gu Yu interviewed the director Steven Bergner to hear the story behind the filming of “American Factory”.
“We did not anticipate what happened in the film at all”
Gu Yu: You and Julia Lecht are both Dayton natives. In your eyes, what kind of place is Dayton?
Steven Bergner: Dayton is a small, beautiful community. It is known as the cradle of innovation. The Wright brothers grew up here and designed and built airplanes here. Many inventions were born in Dayton, where per capita patents for inventions exceed any other city in the United States.
This is also a place full of fighting spirit. Why full of fighting spirit? Because the people living here are in a difficult situation, people will fight. In recent decades, this town has witnessed many bumps, many people are unemployed, and many rich people choose to leave. But there are also many people who do not give up like us and fight for the community.
In this small town, many people know each other and have a true sense of community. There are also some problems in this town, such as the phenomenon of apartheid. Some people will have racial discrimination. If you are a person of color, you are born here.Life will be difficult.
Recently, Dayton has had a difficult summer. Tornadoes have destroyed many houses and caused a lot of inconvenience. In the past August, there were bad shootings in the neighborhood where we often eat and bar. But people were not afraid of it. After the shooting, people gathered in the same neighborhood and encouraged each other. This scene is moving. Such experiences let us know the importance of the community.
Dayton, Ohio, USA
Gu Yu: Both of the documentaries you shot are related to Dayton. One is the short film “The Last Truck: Closing a General Motors Factory.” It tells the story of the closing of the Dayton GM factory at the end of 2008. The department is the American Factory. What is the connection between the two films?
Steven Bergner: The General Motors factory has been in Dayton for decades and has played a very important role in this community. Generations have worked in GM factories, and that’s a good job. Workers can afford a house, albeit not the expensive one; workers can afford a car, have enough money to go on vacation, and send their children to college—even if they have never attended college themselves. And they come from different races, and African Americans have the opportunity to enter the middle class. It can be said that The workers at the time lived a blue-collar middle class life, and they could be proud and dignified for this job.
But in 2008, the factory closed, which caused a devastating blow to workers. We felt the need to make a movie to tell the story. We want people in other parts of the world to understand what the closure of this factory means for workers: Does losing a job mean losing their future?
“The Last Truck: Closing a General Motors Factory” was filmed for HBO. “American Factory” aired on Netflix. The two stories are related because they happened in the same factory building. After the GM plant closed, this huge building remained vacant for many years until Chairman Cao (Cao Dewang) decided to buy it and rebuild it, and opened the Fuyao Glass US factory. If Chairman Cao bought a piece of land elsewhere in Ohio and built a new factory from scratch, it would be much cheaper. But he understood the significance of revitalizing the factory that had been dead for many years, and decided to rebuild it on the site and make a statement through this action.
Poster “Last Truck: Closing a General Motors Factory” poster
Gu Yu: How did you decide to follow this story? What expectations did you have for the story at that time? What was unexpected?
Steven Bergner: Chairman Cao bought GM’s old factory in 2014, but it really started to recover in early 2015, and it was then that we decided to shoot. The plant was still empty at the time, and many buildings were still under construction.
We expect this to be an interesting story, but we do not make any predictions about what will happen later. In documentaries, if there is a lot of expectation, you are likely to miss something very important that is happening. Therefore, “Abandoning expectations” is an important principle of our documentary filmmaking, and we keep as open as possible.
Of course, we know that there will be many cultural collisions at Fuyao Glass’s American factory, but what happened in the film we did not expect at all. We did not expect Fuyao Group to resist American unions, and did not expect union disputes-although the original intentions of both parties were goodwill. When we started filming, we didn’t expect to be able to shoot in China. This was an unforgettable shooting experience.
Gu Yu: How did you get the trust of American workers and Chinese managers when filming? Do many workers refuse to be photographed?
Steven Bergner: Chairman Cao agreed that we shoot in his factory. He was very generous and brave to do so.