If a film was going to capture the modern American landscape authentically, it’s hard to imagine doing so without including Amazon’s vast fulfillment operations as a supporting character.
“Nomadland,” which just picked up Golden Globe awards last Sunday for best dramatic picture and best director, managed to get the tech giant onboard, and it’s an interesting backstory to learn how.
Currently streaming on Hulu, “Nomadland” stars Frances McDormand as Fern, a widow set to roaming the country from job to job after the death of her husband and the town in which they lived. Based on the 2017 book by Jessica Bruder, the film features real-life workers doing seasonal jobs everywhere from RV parks to an Amazon fulfillment center.
The Hollywood Reporter previously revealed that McDormand can be credited with landing Amazon’s permission to film inside one of its massive packaging facilities. The actress wrote a letter to Jeff Blackburn, the Amazon senior VP of business and corporate development who just left the company after 21 years. Here’s what McDormand told THR:
“I explained that we were telling the story about a woman who did migrant work and one of the jobs that she did was CamperForce with Amazon. It was right before they started giving people $15 an hour. This was a really smart move for them because … we are telling a story about a person who is benefiting from hard work, and working at the Amazon fulfillment center is hard work, but it pays a wage.”
CamperForce is Amazon’s program for a “traveling retiree army,” as THR puts it, that takes seasonal work for the online retailer during the holidays. Amazon pays these associates $120 weekly to go toward their campground expenses.
In the film, Fern is shown taking part in a pre-shift safety meeting, packaging goods and taping boxes, and picking product from a robotic cart. McDormand told THR that one downside of Amazon letting her in was that “some people got some packages that I packaged that were pretty bad.”
“Nomadland” cinematographer Joshua James Richards told The Wrap that it was great to show Fern working in an actual Amazon FC, that the company was “totally accommodating” and that McDormand did real work.
“They had read the book and they pretty much knew what we were doing with the film,” Richards said. “I think they knew it wasn’t a film about them. It’s about the people.”
Amazon’s role in the film is certainly representative of the role it is taking on in the current economy. The Seattle-based tech giant has grown to employ nearly 1.3 million people globally and it’s fulfillment centers, trucks, delivery vans and airplanes are an increasing part of what people picture when they envision e-commerce, and what they really see when they drive across America.
What happens when Amazon becomes an integral part of the economy and culture of a community? GeekWire explored that question in a recent podcast aimed at better understanding the company’s rapidly expanding fulfillment and distribution network through the lens of its large footprint in Southern California’s Inland Empire.
Beyond the nomadic workers in “Nomadland,” Amazon’s future workforce is facing critical issues such as the fight to unionize in Alabama, and a growing wave of robotics and automation.
