Oscar favorite Nomadland faces Amazon controversy

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Quietly poetic drama about people living almost invisibly on the fringes of American society, director Chloe Zhao’s “Nomadland” made a lot of noise – and was anything but an marginal player – during backwards awards season of this year.

Since its premiere last September at the Venice Film Festival, where it won first prize at the Golden Lion, “Nomadland” has won virtually every award on its journey, from the Golden Globes to the Producers Guild Awards to the BAFTAs. from last weekend. As the Oscars approach on April 25, Searchlight Pictures’ release is nominated for six awards, including Best Picture and Best Director, and is widely regarded as the film to beat.

But being the frontrunner brings another level of scrutiny, and “Nomadland” has received its fair share of criticism since its theatrical and Hulu release in February. While many praised the film for its sensitive and genuine portrayal of itinerant workers, others criticized it for ignoring the harsh realities of modern concert economics and, in particular, what it is. is that of working in an Amazon warehouse and participating in the company’s CamperForce seasonal program.

In a recent Times editorial, ProPublica reporter Alec MacGillis, author of “Fulfillment: Winning and Losing in One-Click America,” supported the film, which focused on the experience of a nomad named Fern, played by the Oscar winner. Frances McDormand avoids what he says are dehumanizing and potentially damaging working conditions at Amazon. “The visual power of the film and its emotional core, Fern’s grief over the loss of her husband and her past life, occupies the audience’s attention, not Amazon’s issues,” MacGillis wrote. “One could easily come out of the film having a benign view of the toll Amazon is inflicting on its workers, including the temporary ones.”

Critics see the film, adapted by Zhao from journalist Jessica Bruder’s 2017 book “Nomadland: Surviving America in the Twenty-First Century,” as a missed opportunity that omits the most damning passages of the documentary work. Others counter that the critically acclaimed image is a moving character study, not muckraking journalism work.

The debate has gained momentum in recent weeks amid a closely watched and ultimately unsuccessful organizing effort by workers at an Amazon factory in Bessemer, Ala. Union pressure has highlighted what many Amazon critics are punishing for working conditions in company warehouses, with workers relentlessly doing monotonous and physically demanding work at an ever faster pace in order to keep up. hitting targets prescribed by the algorithm, subjecting himself to potential repetitive motion injuries – criticisms Amazon has long fought against.

“I thought there were a lot of things in the movie that were very beautiful, but it left me with more than a bitter taste in my mouth,” said Tim Shadix, legal director of the advocacy organization. California-based Workers’ Rights Warehouse Worker Resource Center, which highlights a 2019 study that found that the injury rate in Amazon warehouses was more than twice that in the general warehousing industry . “I felt like the depiction of all the work in the film, but in particular the work of Amazon, portrays a very misleading picture of what our economy looks like. It shows Amazon as a place to earn money. money and allow someone’s personal journey, without really considering the fact that you have businesses that often take advantage of seniors who should be retired but, due to economic circumstances, are working in horrible conditions. dangerous.

McDormand and director Chloe Zhao on the set of “Nomadland”

(Joshua Richards / Searchlight Pictures)

In a statement, Amazon spokesperson Andre Woodson told The Times: “We are proud of our innovative CamperForce program and the opportunities it provides individuals to combine earning extra cash during the season. holidays with camping in a motorhome. CamperForce provides employees with at least $ 15 an hour, partial campsites and hookups for their vehicles … Hundreds of our seasonal employees are part of our CamperForce program, many of whom return year after year to help meet on customer orders during our peak season. Within the CamperForce program in particular, we see a lot of these employees coming back and sharing their positive experiences with us. “

While researching his book, Bruder spent a week working in an Amazon warehouse in Texas and witnessed some of its potential dangers. She is talking about 70-year-old CamperForce employee, Chuck Stout, who was parked near a conveyor belt when a box flew up and knocked him over, causing his head to bang against the concrete floor. After Amazon intern medics determined he had not suffered a concussion, Stout was fired from work which required him to walk about 15 miles a day.

The central character of the book, Linda May, who plays herself in the film, developed a debilitating repetitive motion wrist injury using a portable barcode reader for hours every day, with pain radiating all over her body. length of his arm. During the Christmas rush, Bruder writes that Linda May felt like “a cog in the world’s largest vending machine.”

However, none of these dangers are seen in the film, in which Fern is shown packing boxes and placing products on shelves in an Amazon warehouse, at one point stating that the gig is “a lot of money”.

Zhao, who is also in the midst of post-production for Marvel’s upcoming epic “The Eternals,” did not respond directly to critics, but did indicate that the film was not meant to downplay the difficulties of the mode. of nomadic life. “If you take a closer look, the issue of caring for the elderly as a victim of capitalism is present in every picture,” Zhao said in a profile for a New York magazine in February. “That’s right, yeah, there’s the beautiful sunset behind it.”

In a statement, Amazon’s Woodson said, “The health and safety of our employees is our number one priority – and has been since day one. We work closely with health and safety experts and scientists, conduct thousands of safety inspections every day in our buildings and have made hundreds of changes as a result of employee feedback on how we can improve. their well-being at work.

To gain access to the shoot at an Amazon fulfillment center in Fernley, Nevada, McDormand, who also produced the film, wrote a letter to Jeff Blackburn, Amazon’s senior vice president of business and corporate development. “It was right before they started giving people $ 15 an hour,” McDormand told The Hollywood Reporter last year. “It was a really smart move for them because… we are telling the story of a person who benefits from hard work, and working at Amazon’s fulfillment center is hard work, but it pays a salary. ”

The real nomad Bob Wells in a scene from “Nomadland”

(Photos of the projectors)

Bob Wells, advocate for the nomadic community and co-founder of the Home on Wheels Alliance, argues that criticism of Amazon’s portrayal in “Nomadland,” while understandable, is ultimately misplaced. Although Wells, who himself stars in the film, has never personally worked at Amazon, over the years he has spoken to many nomads who have. Although he has heard first-hand accounts of the physical difficulty of the job, especially for older workers, he says the CamperForce program – which was launched in 2008 and operates in more than 25 Amazon facilities across the country. North America – is in high demand as an average program to earn a lot of money fairly quickly.

“I think people are confusing regular Amazon employees who are there year-round, year after year, with the CamperForce, and I’m not sure that’s a fair comparison,” Wells said. “The truth is, I think the CamperForce is treated reasonably well. I think people take their massive hatred for the corporate world, which in my mind is 100% valid, and they try to put CamperForce in there as evidence to back up their point. Businesses must be controlled. But the CamperForce is not a prime example of the fault. I think if you are basically healthy the CamperForce is a really good thing.

In Hollywood, support for “Nomadland” appears to remain strong, as evidenced by the film’s continued dominance over awards season. With the film industry struggling to come back from the pandemic, the competition for awards this year has been relatively sympathetic, and few appear to have an appetite to publicly pursue a perceived favorite over a potential vulnerability. (Hardball campaigns can easily backfire, and several recent films have won Oscar gold despite controversy, including contenders as diverse as “Bohemian Rhapsody,” “Green Book,” and “Joker.”)

Meanwhile, Amazon itself is a big player this awards season with its film division having released the nominated tracks “Borat After Moviefilm”, “One Night In Miami …”, “Sound of Metal” and “Time” .

Speaking to The Times in February, Bruder had nothing but praise for “Nomadland,” crediting Zhao – who, after taking top honors last weekend at the Directors Guild Awards, could become the first woman of color to win. the Oscar for Achievement – for presenting viewers with a window into an aspect of life in America that has so far been largely overlooked.

“I always hoped and expected Chloe to do it with a light touch that would show the full nuance of the situation,” said Bruder. “Part of what happens, hopefully, in a narrative non-fiction book or movie is that it becomes a vehicle for empathy. Rather than an exotic group of people, you recognize in them pieces of people you know and pieces of yourself. Maybe that makes me sound like a little hippie. But I see this as a sort of conjunctive narrative.

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