Oscar-winning documentarian celebrates 50 years of films about working people
Updated: 1:10 p.m.
Julia Reichert sees parallels between her Oscar-winning documentary feature, "American Factory," and this year’s best-picture winner, “Parasite,” the Korean comedy horror drama.
"Both 'Parasite' and 'American Factory' are about class … and how it's operating in the world. We didn't make our film obviously about class or about capitalism, but it certainly leaves you thinking about that," Reichert said in an interview ahead of two appearances at the Walker Art Center this weekend.
The events, which will celebrate Reichert’s 50-year career making extraordinary films about working people, come on the heels of an appearance at the Walker by “Parasite” director Bong Joon-ho.
Reichert and co-director Steven Bognar shot "American Factory" over the span of two years.
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"This is the story of what happens when a former GM plant, left for dead, is bought by a Chinese billionaire, who brings it back to life and hires 2,000 Americans,” Bognar said. The billionaire also brings over 200 to 300 Chinese workers to train the Americans.
“And then it gets complicated," he said.
“American Factory” follows the refitting of a truck plant in Dayton, Ohio, to make it a car windshield factory. It also follows the friction between the Americans and the Chinese workers. The film crew shot some 1,200 hours of film, but Reichert says the fact that their crew lived less than a half hour from the Dayton plant is key to the film's success.
"We thought it would be a local story, and here we won the Oscar for it," she said. "And we could never have told that story if we lived in Los Angeles or we lived in New York."
Reichert grew up in what she says was “a working class and a very Republican town” in New Jersey. A Cold War kid, she had an inkling early on that she wanted to tell stories. She remembers scanning the skies for Soviet missiles and satellites.
"I remember explicitly thinking, ‘I want to be a journalist because there would be no more wars, there would be no more conflict — if people really understood each other,’" she said. "That was a very naive thought, but it really motivated me."
She went to Antioch College in Ohio and has lived in the state ever since. She made "Growing Up Female" in 1971. It's regarded as one of the first feminist documentaries.
The film begins with shots of a mother and kindergarten-aged daughter walking to school, wearing matching floral print clothes as the narrator describes their world: "The American woman: Society teaches us that when we reach the age of 21 we are free to live our lives as we choose. But by the time a woman comes of age, what choices does she really have?"
Reichert and her collaborator, Jim Klein, taught themselves how to shoot film and record sound as they made the film.
In it, Reichert interviews ordinary girls and women about what they expect from life. She also talks to the men and women who enforce the rules about how women and girls should behave, dress, and work.
It's startling to watch now, 50 years later, not just because of the attitudes expressed, but how accepting the women are of their limited situation.
Reichert says the way images of women were created by men at the time frustrated early feminist filmmakers. She said they came to a realization: "We have to learn to do this stuff ourselves. We have to create our own images of women and tell our own stories, because it's never been done, basically."
Not only did they have to teach themselves how to make movies, they also had to learn how to get their finished work in front of audiences. That was very hands-on, too.
"As far as distribution, it was very much me and a print and a Greyhound Bus," she said.
In the years that followed, Reichert made films telling women's stories, including female labor organizers in "Union Maids." Released in 1976, it was nominated for an Oscar, as was "Seeing Red: Stories of American Communists," released in 1983.
Reichert and Bognar were nominated again for a short documentary Oscar for “The Last Truck,” which is about the closure of the plant in “American Factory.”
Reichert will present a program including "Growing Up Female" on Friday at the Walker. On Saturday, she will show clips and be in conversation with film critic Eric Hynes.
“American Factory” was her first Oscar win. She says she's very happy, as are community members back in Ohio. But after 50 years of the hard graft of documentary making, what does winning an Oscar mean to Reichert?
"It's not going to change things we do," she said. "It might make it easier in the sense we might get more funding than we have in the past."
But she's not betting on it. It is available on Netflix, however — far more convenient that Julia Reichert taking a print, and sometimes a projector, on the Greyhound.
Correction (Feb. 28, 2020): This story has been updated with new information about the Friday program at the Walker Art Center.