By Ray Pride Pride@moviecitynews.com
Groupthink: how Robert Greenwald sees his distrib model
Activist director Robert Greenwald is optimistic about social change as his doc WAL-MART: The High Cost of Low Price opens in the UK, he tells the Telegraph’s Marc Lee. Most notable are his observations about his grassroots distribution model: “The film has achieved what it has [in leading WAL-MART to announce potential changes], says Greenwald, because of its connection to a growing social movement, one that its mould-breaking distribution tapped into. “That took a huge amount of effort… And it is not a model to make money. We had 750,000 people at 8,000 screenings, but they didn’t pay nine or 10 dollars each to see the film: a church bought one copy and showed it to 300 people, a student dorm bought one copy and had 50 people see it. However, from the point of view of reaching people, it is absolutely great. Would I have preferred to see it go straight to TV? No, I wouldn’t. When people see the film in a group, their mindset is different. There’s going to be discussion afterwards, and, in some cases, they are going to take action.” Reviewing the pic in the FT, Martin Hoyle writes: “Greenwald’s method is to let the interviewees talk. Far from a bunch of disgruntled ex-workers (or Wal-Mart’s imaginative term “associates”), the flood of speakers ranges from small-town family firms bulldozed out of business by the leviathan, to Wal-Mart managers of 17 years’ standing…
The society that prides itself on private enterprise subsidises Wal-Mart to a whopping degree in medical care and food stamps for poorly paid employees. Judges have used words such as “corruption” and “lying” of apparent cover-ups. An activist ex-employee describes one manager as resenting “people like you”. She asked what he meant: A woman? Black? “Two out of two isn’t bad,” he laughed… Progress is a fine thing, but this is regression in everything but the naked profit motive.” [A link to the movie’s site here.]
