Greg Spotts - Wal-Mart: The High Cost of Low Price

Greg Spotts

2005 Greg Spotts

Cover image: Daniel Morduchowicz
Back cover photo: Tom Boese (Creative Commons some rights reserved)
Layout: Maya Shmuter

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Library of Congress Control Number: 2005934141

ISBN-13: 978-1-932857-24-5
ISBN-10: 1-932857-24-9

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About the Filmmaker

Robert Greenwald is the director/producer of Outfoxed: Rupert Murdoch's War on Journalism (2004), a documentary exposing the right-wing bias of Fox News. The film was initially distributed solely on DVD, but strong viewer demand led to an unusual post-DVD theatrical release in the summer of 2004.

Greenwald is also the executive producer of a trilogy of Un documentaries: Unprecedented: The 2000 Presidential Election (2002), directed by Richard Ray Perez and Joan Sekler; Uncovered: The Whole Truth About the Iraq War (2003), which Greenwald directed; and Unconstitutional: The War on Our Civil Liberties (2004), directed by Nonny de la Pea.

In addition to his documentary work, Greenwald has produced and/or directed more than fifty television movies, miniseries, and feature films, including The Book of Ruth (2004), based on the best-selling book by Jane Hamilton; The Crooked E: The Unshredded Truth About Enron (2003); Blonde (2001), a miniseries based on Joyce Carol Oates fictionalized biography of Marilyn Monroe; Our Guys: Outrage at Glen Ridge (1999), based on the true story of a rape in a small town; Forgotten Prisoners (1990), about the work of Amnesty International; Hiroshima: Out of the Ashes (1990); Shattered Spirits (1986), about alcoholism, starring Martin Sheen; and The Burning Bed (1984), starring Farrah Fawcett as an abused housewife.

Greenwald also produced and directed the feature film Steal This Movie (2000), starring Vincent D'Onofrio as sixties radical Abbie Hoffman, as well as Breaking Up (1997), starring Russell Crowe and Salma Hayek.

Greenwald's films have garnered twenty-five Emmy nominations, four cable ACE Award nominations, two Golden Globe nominations, the Peabody Award, the Robert Wood Johnson Award, and eight Awards of Excellence from the Film Advisory Board. He was awarded the 2002 Producer of the Year Award by the American Film Institute. He is a co-founder (with Mike Farrell) of Artists United, a group of actors and others opposed to the war in Iraq, which continues to work toward publicizing progressive causes.

Robert Greenwald has been the recipient of the 2003 Southern California ACLU Garden Party Award; the Los Angeles Physicians for Social Responsibility Peacemaker Award; the Office of the Americas Activist in the Trenches Award; Liberty Hill's Upton Sinclair Award; and was honored by the Los Angeles Chapter of the National Lawyers Guild in 2003 as a producer and director who uses his talent and artistry to promote better understanding between people and advance the cause of peace, justice, and freedom.

Introduction

ROBERT GREENWALD

Robert Greenwald with the Panasonic DVX100a camera.

I am writing this at five in the morning, after almost a year of intense work on Wal-Mart: The High Cost of Low Price. It's very hard to have much perspective when there's so much yet to do in finishing the film and getting it out into the world, but the most difficult part is over, and since the deadline for the book has arrived, it's now or never.

Let me say, first off, that it has been an amazing ride. My colleagues at Brave New Films are a remarkable group of dedicated, fearless, and tireless workers. (More about them later.) And I want to acknowledge the Wal-Mart employees, past and present, who have inspired all of us to keep going every exhausting, difficult, and frustrating day. These workers, who punch the time clocks day-in and day-out, are real heroes. They deserve better, and that's one of the many reasons we made this film.

I went into this film knowing very little about Wal-Mart, but I came out furious, saddened, and committed to being part of the long-term effort to change the company. It has immense, global corporate influence, over jobs, sweatshops, communities, and the environment. I have been staggered at the power that Wal-Mart exerts over millions of people's daily lives, without any fingerprints!

I have made more than sixty films, but none as demanding as this one, with its unique combination of funding nightmares, a brutal time deadline, and its enormous size and scope.

Let me explain.

Funding nightmares. After going ahead with my previous documentaries Uncovered and Outfoxed without sufficient funding, relying instead on our friendly banker and loan officer, I vowed I would not do it again. It was too difficult, and created stress that only added to the already intense political and creative pressure we felt. But along came Wal-Mart, and not only did I go ahead with virtually no funding, but I did so with a budget that ultimately rose to $l.6 million during filming, versus the $500,000 of Outfoxed and the $350,000 of Uncovered. This was my mistake and mine alone, since everyone advised against it, and it has been a heavy price to pay in the sense of having to fundraise at the same time as making the film. I thought I had solved the problem, only to have a major source of funds pull out because of fear that Wal-Mart would blacklist him and refuse to carry his company's DVDs and videos in their stores. This was the first (but not the last) incident of serious fear affecting friends and allies whom I had hoped would help with the film.

So my friendly banker came to the rescue again, but this time for big, big