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 hi... Read allIn 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.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.
- Won 1 Oscar
- 19 wins & 49 nominations total
- Self - Furnace Off-Loader
- (as Bobby)
Storyline
Did you know
- TriviaDirectors Steven Bognar and Julia Reichert previously worked on the short documentary The Last Truck: Closing of a GM Plant (2009). It is about how the plant was shut down by General Motors, a topic in this movie.
- Quotes
Himself - Fuyao Safety Director: Everybody at every level will say that we really, really want to be safe. But safety doesn't pay the bills.
- ConnectionsFeatured in The Oscars (2020)
At the Q&A at the premiere at IFC Center, co-director Julia Reichert was at pains to stress that the film was never meant to be polemical, that this was an effort to immerse and learn. While some of the silllier aspects of both cultures, (but especially the regimented and self-congratulatory aspects of the Chinese). come through with particular acuity, you can't help buy muse on how Americans have acted with equal tin-earedness and cultural arrogance around the world, over many more decades than the Chinese have been at this game.
At the same time, America's neediness of manufacturing jobs, even if they don't pay a living wage, and the ways that so many of what we would normally consider our core values go out the window to accommodate anyone who will invest in them, come through particularly clearly. This all comes together in a fight over the establishment of a union that would protect workers' rights and uphold our eroding safety and environmental standards that is the vivid core of the movie.
A final note: This film has an extraordinarily compelling musical score by someone names Chad Cannon that propels and highlights the narrative and is amazingly effective on its own terms. Although the idiom is different, Cannon's score does for this film much of what Philip Glass's have done over the years for the films of Errol Morris, and that is high praise indeed.
- Mengedegna
- Aug 22, 2019
- How long is American Factory?Powered by Alexa
Details
- Runtime1 hour 50 minutes
- Color
- Sound mix
- Aspect ratio
- 1.78 : 1
- 1.85 : 1