The New York Times International - 27.08.2019

THE NEW YORK TIMES INTERNATIONAL EDITION TUESDAY, AUGUST 27, 2019 | 13

Culture

The weather has cooled since a Europe-
wide heat wave brought record tem-
peratures here last month. But climate
change is still on people’s minds.
At the just-concluded Edinburgh Fes-
tival Fringe, the largest of the 12 festi-
vals held in the city each year, the topic
dominated the theater program, with
dozens of shows on the subject, and
even some stand-up comedy. At the
smaller, grander Edinburgh Interna-
tional Festival, five international play-
wrights were in residence, writing cli-
mate-change-themed plays. The Edin-
burgh International Book Festival
hosted talks on the subject. And the ac-
tivist group Extinction Rebellion set up
a temporary gallery in town.
But are arts festivals themselves part
of the problem?
An impact study commissioned by an
umbrella body representing all 12 festi-
vals, estimated that they generated the
equivalent of 44,130 tons of carbon in
2010, mostly from audience travel.
That’s equivalent to burning 48.2 million
pounds of coal.
The Fringe — which calls itself the
third-largest ticketed event in the world,
after the Olympics and the soccer World
Cup — has grown significantly since
2010, from around 2,500 shows to
around 3,500. Last summer, Edinburgh
Airport recorded its busiest August
ever, with 1.47 million passengers pass-
ing through.
The Edinburgh International Festi-
val’s artistic director, Fergus Linehan,
said in an interview that all of Edin-
burgh’s festivals needed to take action
on climate change. (According to the im-
pact study, the International Festival
has the third-largest carbon footprint of
the events, after the Fringe and the Mili-
tary Tattoo, a series of massed perform-
ances on bagpipes and drums beloved
by international visitors.) “This whole
festival city itself needs to consider ev-
erything from food to water to accom-
modation to everything else,” he said.
Travel, however, is the biggest prob-
lem, Mr. Linehan added.
Although visiting audiences account
for the most carbon emissions, flying in
the performers can be problematic, too,
Mr. Linehan said. “There are some big,
big questions that need to be asked, par-
ticularly with large companies that are
going to fly long distances,” he added.
This year, the International Festival’s
program included the Los Angeles Phil-
harmonic and a large Australian stage
ensemble, the Sydney Theater Com-
pany.
The 12 festivals have a shared envi-
ronmental policy with a vague aspira-
tion to “continuously seek to improve
environmental performance,” and there
have been some programs to cut waste
and encourage recycling, including a
“Swap Shop” for props and costumes.
Later this year, the International Festi-
val will host a summit of all the city’s fes-
tivals to come up with a better plan of
action, Mr. Linehan said.
Change has been slower coming to
Edinburgh than at other British festi-
vals. This year, the Glastonbury music
festival banned the sale of plastic bottles
and encouraged patrons to arrive by
public transportation. The Hay Festival,
a large literary event in Wales, has its
own sustainability director, and this
year’s edition was powered entirely by

energy from renewable sources like

wind and solar, according to a spokes-

man.

In the absence of action from Edin-

burgh’s festival officials, artists here

have begun to take matters into their

own hands.

A young company called Boxed In

Theater presented a program of plays

about climate change from a temporary

venue, the Greenhouse, which it built

entirely from recycled and reclaimed

materials and which used no electricity.

Oli Savage, the company’s artistic direc-

tor, said in an interview that productions

that deal with climate change onstage

only go so far; he wanted to show that it

was easy for a theater company to run

sustainable premises as well.

Boxed In had kindred spirits at the

Fringe this year, including “How to Save

a Rock,” a sort of dystopian comedy by

Pigfoot Theater, with a carbon neutral

production. The show’s lighting was

generated by a stationary bike that au-

dience members pedaled during the

performance. It caught the eye of the

judges for the Sustainable Fringe

Awards, a new prize that “seeks to rec-

ognize those with the will and the cre-

ativity to tackle climate change.” “How

to Save a Rock” won first prize.

In the basement of the sprawling

Summerhall arts center, Extinction Re-

bellion put together an exhibition of vis-

ual art that sought to persuade govern-

ments and the public to take urgent ac-

tion on climate change. The exhibition

included Gabrielle Gillott’s “Safe Ha-

ven,” a droll satirical installation about

hoarding for the apocalypse, and Sally

Price’s “Slick,” in which everyday plas-

tic objects were slicked black with the oil

that goes into their making.

Natalie Taylor, a spokeswoman for

Extinction Rebellion, said that while Ed-

inburgh’s festivals needed to become

more sustainable, the group wanted to

work within them rather than protest

them. The festivals were hardly the

most environmentally damaging enter-

prise in Scotland, she said, pointing to

the oil and gas industries that are a large

part of the local economy.

Ms. Taylor added that the sheer popu-

larity of the festivals made them a good

opportunity for Extinction Rebellion to

spread its message. “To be in that forum

is absolutely key to us,” she said.

Many of the artists in the exhibition

were Edinburgh locals, but elsewhere in

the city, performers had traveled long

distances to spread the climate mes-

sage. Alanna Mitchell, a Canadian writ-

er and journalist based in Toronto, per-

formed a one-woman show, “Sea Sick,”

about the acidification of the oceans. She

was one of 25 artists whose participa-

tion in the Fringe was supported by Can-

adaHub, a showcase of Canadian per-

formance with several environment-

themed works on its bill.

Michael Rubenfield, CanadaHub’s

producer, said in an email that bringing

these shows to Edinburgh could be par-

adoxical. “We’ve not solved the conun-

drum of our desire to bring artists to the

Fringe while also negotiating the prob-

lems of overseas flying,” he said.

Mr. Linehan, the festival director, said

that as well as getting audiences to think

about climate change, international arts

festivals could also benefit the envi-

ronment by bringing many artists and

performers together in a single place, so

that local audiences wouldn’t need to

travel.

People often assume that large gath-

erings of people “are in and of them-

selves environmentally problematic,”

he said. “Gathering one large group of

people together is a more environmen-

tally efficient way of doing things than

saying, ‘I’m going to tour to 25 different

towns,’” he added.

Still, Edinburgh’s festivals will have to

change to secure their long-term future,

Mr. Linehan said. “People under the age

of 30 are just so much more attuned to

this in terms of consumer habits than

people of an older age,” he added. If the

festivals are seen as environmentally

unfriendly, he said, younger people

won’t come.

“Put simply,” he said, “it’s an exist-

ential threat.”

Arts festivals carry heavy baggage

EDINBURGH

Events like Edinburgh’s

raise issues of waste

and big carbon footprints

BY ANDRZEJ LUKOWSKI

GETTY IMAGES

LARA TILLOTSON

Clockwise from above: an entertainer in

Edinburgh this month; some of the many

posters crucial to luring audiences; and

members of the Boxed In theater com-

pany in their temporary structure.

EWAN BOOTMAN/NURPHOTO, VIA GETTY IMAGES

“The most important thing is not how
much money we earn,” the Chinese
billionaire Cao Dewang says in “Ameri-
can Factory” soon before we see him
on a private jet. What’s important, he
says, are Americans’ views toward
China and its people.
In 2016, Cao opened a division of
Fuyao, his global auto-glass manufac-
turing company, in a shuttered General
Motors factory near Dayton, Ohio.
Blaming slumping S.U.V. sales, G.M.
had closed the plant — known as the
General Motors Moraine Assembly
Plant — in December 2008, throwing
thousands out of work the same month
the American government began a
multibillion-dollar bailout of the auto
industry. The Dayton factory remained
idle until Fuyao announced it was
taking it over, investing millions and
hiring hundreds of local workers, num-
bers it soon increased.
The veteran filmmakers Steven
Bognar and Julia Reichert, who are a

couple and live outside Dayton, docu-

mented the G.M. plant when it closed.

They included the image of the last

truck rolling off the line in their 2009

short, “The Last Truck: Closing of a

GM Plant.” That crystallizing image

also appears in “American Factory,”

which revisits the plant six years later.

The feature-length story they tell here

is complex, stirring, timely and beauti-

fully shaped, spanning continents as it

surveys the past, present and possible

future of American labor. (This is the

first movie that Barack and Michelle

Obama’s company Higher Ground

Productions is releasing with Netflix.)

“American Factory” opens with a

brief, teary look back at the plant’s

closing that sketches in the past and

foreshadows the difficult times ahead.

The story proper begins in 2015 amid

the optimistic bustle of new begin-

nings, including a rah-rah Fuyao pre-

sentation for American job seekers.

Bognar and Reichert, who shot the

movie with several others — the editor

is Lindsay Utz — have a great eye for

faces, and they quickly narrow in on

the range of expressions in the room.

Some applicants sit and listen sto-

ically; one woman, her hand over her

mouth, gently rocks in her seat, tap-

ping out a nervous rhythm as the

Fuyao representative delivers his

pitch.

With detail and sweep, interviews

and you-are-there visuals, the filmmak-

ers quickly establish a clear, strong

narrative line as the new enterprise —

Fuyao Glass America — gets off the

ground. The optimism of the workers is

palpable; the access the filmmakers

secured remarkable. Bognar and

Reichert spent a number of years

making “American Factory,” a commit-

ment that’s evident in its layered story-

telling and the trust they earned.

American and visiting Chinese work-

ers alike open their homes and hearts,

including Wong He, an engaging, qui-

etly melancholic furnace engineer who

speaks movingly of his wife and chil-

dren back in China.

His is just one story in an emotion-

ally and politically trenchant chronicle

of capitalism, propaganda, conflicting

values and labor rights. As the factory

ramps up, optimism gives way to

unease, dissent and fear. Some work-

ers are hurt, others are at risk; glass

breaks, tempers fray. Both the Chinese

and American management complain

about production and especially about

the American workers, who in turn

seem mainly grateful for a new shot. A

forklift operator named Jill Lamantia

is living in her sister’s basement when

we first meet her. A job at Fuyao allows

her to move into her own apartment,

but like everyone else she struggles

with the company’s demands.

By the time the documentary shifts

to China, for a visit by American man-

agers to the Fuyao mother ship, it has

become clear that something will have

to give. The American subsidiary is

losing money, and Chairman Cao, as

he’s called, is not happy. His frustration

can seem amusing, but as his dissatis-

faction mounts, the temperature grows

colder and management becomes

openly hostile. For viewers who have

never peered inside a Chinese factory,

these scenes — with their singalongs,

team-building exercises and extrava-

gant pageants — may seem strange or

perhaps a gung-ho variation on con-

temporary corporate management

practice (cue the next Apple confab).

“American Factory” is political with-

out being self-servingly didactic or

strident, connecting the sociopolitical

dots intelligently, sometimes with the

help of a stirring score from Chad

Cannon that evokes Aaron Copland.

The filmmakers don’t villainize any-

one, though a few participants come

awfully close to twirling waxed mus-

taches, like an American manager who

jokes to a Chinese colleague that it

would be a good idea to duct-tape the

mouths of talky American workers. It’s

a shocking exchange — only the Chi-

nese manager appears concerned that

they’re on camera — simply because of

the openness of the antagonism toward

the company’s own labor force.

It’s these men and women — Timi

Jernigan, John Crane, Shawnea Rosser,

Robert Allen and so many others —

whose optimism and disappointment

give the movie its emotional through-

line and whose stories stand in con-

trast to Cao’s own self-made tale. He

recalls that the China of his youth was

poor; now he is, according to Forbes,

one of “China’s richest,” and his hob-

bies include golfing and collecting art.

You see the fruits of his endeavors in

“American Factory,” in scenes of him

relaxing and pontificating. And work-

ing, too, of course, always working,

including in a luxurious office where a

couple of socialist realist paintings

show him against the sky like a sleekly

updated Mao — an image that the

filmmakers linger on, letting its mean-

ing bloom like a hundred flowers.

The new global haves and have-nots

MOVIE REVIEW

A look at what happened

when a Chinese firm took

over a closed U.S. factory

BY MANOHLA DARGIS

Co-workers in “American Factory,” directed by Steven Bognar and Julia Reichert.

NETFLIX