黑水

全氟辛烷羧酸（perfluorooctanoic acid， PFOA）及其盐类（perfluorooctanoate， PFO），是氟化工领域广泛使用的含氟聚合物合成及加工助剂，也是织物含氟防水/防油/防污整理剂及其消费品中的主要杂质。

PFOA/PFO具有持久性和难降解性，能够在人体和生物体内积累，并对人体和其他生物的代谢、生殖和内分泌系统造成干扰。

世界卫生组织国际癌症研究所于2014年6月发布的《关于人类致癌风险的专题报告》将PFOA/PFO划分为2B类（人类可疑致癌物）。

PFOA(C8)可以用来生产特氟龙，不是C8=特氟龙，但消费者无法准确辨别购买的锅具所使用的特氟龙生产过程中是否使用了PFOA。

我查询自家使用的苏泊尔IH电饭煲的材料说明时，未见到PFOA豁免的告知。

但科学而言，特氟龙耐热260度，仅作为电饭煲使用是没有安全隐患的。

但需要注意的是， 中国环境报在2015年7月的报道《PFOA/PFO环境风险管控需加快进程》中指出：目前中国已经成为国际较大的PFOA/PFO生产、使用和排放国，对其环境防控必须进一步重视。

这就很有意思了。

《黑水》（2019）是一部令人无法忽视的电影。

如今全球99%的人口身体里都含有这种物质，可使胎儿畸形，还可能致使患癌风险。

它就是“特氟龙”，结构稳定不易损坏，将永久留在人类血液中，无法排除。

而罪恶始作俑者就是美国知名化工企业杜邦。

《黑水》根据真实事件改编，源自《纽约时报》上的一则深度报道，名为《一名成为杜邦最大噩梦的律师》。

知名律师就是律师罗伯特·比洛特，他与化工巨头杜邦公司的环境诉讼案长达8年之久，旷日持久的艰难诉讼揭露了杜邦五十多年的化学污染史。

影片开始农场主坦南特发现自己的几百头牛大批量死去，不仅出现各种病症，而且还会产生攻击性，经营农场大半辈子的坦南特认为其中必有蹊跷，一定是附近杜邦公司的化学废料填埋场污染了水源。

鉴于杜邦巨头企业的影响力，没有律师愿意接这样的案子，坦南特自行搜集证据寻求真相，无奈之下他找到了由“绿巨人”马克·鲁弗洛饰演的老乡罗伯特。

盘旋的直升机宣示着警告，坦南特彻夜不眠守护家园。

罗伯特本不愿意趟这趟浑水，毕竟他曾担任过杜邦的辩护律师，不想得罪对方，但碍于祖母的面子亲自去了农场，发现儿时美好的农场如今就是死寂的坟场。

看了死牛的解剖录像，他从一开始的将信将疑，到下定决心为农场主辩护起诉杜邦，个人的力量终究微不足道，杜邦并不care，直接放话“sue me!"。

在浩瀚的材料中，罗伯特一页页仔细查询线索，多次发现PFOA的字眼。

什么是PFOA?询问专家得知PFOA一种表面活性剂，用于制造生产特氟龙，这种化学物质具有高度稳定性，对人体有害。

原本用于军事领域坦克的外层防水涂料，后杜邦公司为谋取利益普及推广，应用于饮水、不粘锅、雨衣、护肤品等生活中。

杜邦公司明知道特氟龙对人体有害，依然没有停止生产，甚至在员工身上进行试验，致使女员工出现胎儿畸形，雇员萨拉出生的婴儿只有一只眼睛一只鼻孔。

事情败露后改换成男员工，造成身患睾丸癌等多种癌症。

看到很多人因此受到伤害，心存正义的律师觉得应该做点什么，杜邦公司也在威胁他，劝他不要毁掉自己的事业，画面中高个子的狡诈巨头大佬和矮小的憨厚律师，形成鲜明的高度压迫，暗示着诉讼之艰难。

但罗伯特一直坚守从未放弃，民众也开始觉醒，专家小组抽取上万份血样进行病变研究。

长达8年之久的诉讼也使他面临来自各方面的压力，被杜邦公司进行人身威胁，还遭遇众人的不理解，有些人依然为杜邦说话，认为帮他们提供了就业机会。

上级领导也在不断施压，家庭压力更是让他喘不过气来，日渐减少的薪水连孩子们的教育都负担不起，安妮·海瑟薇饰演的妻子满肚子委屈。

终于深感无力的罗伯特倒下了，妻子在医院走廊与上司的声嘶力竭让人动容，她说，丈夫冒着所有风险去帮助有所需要的陌生人，我跟你也许不懂那是什么，但那从来都不是失败。

第七年科学家打来了迟到的电话，通过上万份血样研究，特氟龙会导致多种疾病的发生，包括肾癌、睾丸癌、口腔癌、胆固醇增高等等，因为罗伯特的坚持数万名受害者获得了医疗监护。

律师彻底如释重负又异常难过，所有的一切都是谎言，没有人可以保护你，只有自己保护自己。

一直以来所信任的都是被操控的，还不如一个只有小学文化的农夫看的透，是多么滑稽可笑。

对于商业轨道越线的企业终究受到相应的惩罚，2015年，群体诉讼案件开庭，共有3535起案件起诉杜邦公司，共计6亿7千万美元的赔偿金。

法官看着罗伯特问，你还在？

“Still here。

”从1950年，整整半个多世纪，罗伯特一直在与杜邦抗争，虽然影片中规中矩，但这部电影更大的价值在于它的现实意义，它与你我并不是毫无关系，特氟龙已经扩散至全世界，人类健康依然存在隐患。

美国环保署在2006年发布的禁令中规定，到2015年美国将全面停止使用特氟龙材料。

影片塑造的罗伯特不是高大威猛、富有激情的“绿巨人”，相反在沉闷的氛围中时常感觉到他的无力绝望感，连屏幕前的观众都会感觉喘不过气来，就是这种艰难无言的对抗，更能强烈凸显罗伯特的可敬与伟大。

影片中也出现了真正受害者Bucky Bailey的身影，就是加油站那个问律师球赛的男子，虽然先天畸形依然乐观向上，看到这里怎能不痛心，人不能为了一时的利益而忘了自己为什么要拿这个利益。

这是一部传记片，涉及的时间跨度之大，远可追溯至上世纪40年代的美国“曼哈顿计划”（研究原子弹），近则涉及到今日今时，是的，这件事的影响依旧处于现在进行时。

《黑水》是一部什么样的电影？

戳戳在看完后震撼到以至于不可言喻，撇开任何的电影艺术，单纯的感受其记录之事便足以久久不能释怀。

先简单介绍一下这部电影以及其导演该影片由托德·海因斯所执导，上映于2019年年末，这个导演的作品中多数都是以真实事件和社会问题为主题 海洛因 同性恋 艾滋病… 通过他的影片令大家开始对这些东西真正的注意起来，影片中对毒品的讽刺，对同性恋群体受歧视现状的反应，艾对滋病患者被孤立的同情，这些所给社会带来的影响是不容忽视的，也是具有着非凡意义的。

我们先从PFOA(又名C-8)的诞生说起 PFOA诞生于美国曼哈顿计划期间，这是一种分子结构非常牢固，有着极强的热稳定性和化学稳定性的材料，被用作于坦克飞机等军用设备的防水涂料。

而在曼哈顿计划期间，同政府合作的杜邦公司有着共享计划期间所有技术的权力，战争结束后，很多战时发明的技术便可以通过商业化转为民用，而杜邦公司便同其他公司一样抓住了这个商机，用PFOA为原料研制出了如今大家耳熟能详的“特氟龙”，也就是平底锅上的不沾涂层。

然而新发明的问世总是少不了安全问题，“特氟龙”本身没有问题，很稳定也很安全，而制造“特氟龙”的原料PFOA确实对人体危害巨大的致癌物质，这一点杜邦公司早在上世纪50年代推出此产品之时就已知晓，可在高额利益和昂贵处理成本的驱使下，杜邦选择了对所有人隐瞒此事，并将无数的PFOA废料不经过处理的随意排放填埋。

由少到多 日积月累 这样的一种稳定的化学废料在土地中已经积埋了成千上百万吨，终于，在填埋场附近的倒霉农场主遭殃了，最开始是奶牛的性格变得狂躁，接连死亡，再然后是受水质污染影响身体机能开始逐渐下滑，直至患癌死去。

这些污染物所影响的远不止这个小小的农场，周围的乡镇，城市的饮用水源中都充满着高于安全标准数倍的PFOA含量，（可笑的是这个标准还是杜邦自拟的，当时官方并没有出台这类的安全标准）甚至，生活在地球上超过百分之九十九的人类体内都存有此物，它并不止具有稳定性，更是有着极强的致癌性… “是杜邦公司的疏忽吗？

” “并不是！

” 早在上世纪产品被研发和上市之时，杜邦公司就已做了各种实验，各种测试，其中不人道的部分也数不胜数，实验小白鼠的死去，PFOA生产线岗位上员工的相继患病，妇女们不育不孕，新生儿畸形率大幅上升，这些杜邦公司是知道的，并且早在几十年前就知道，可他们的做法只是撤下在有关PFOA的岗位上工作的那些妇女，替换成男性，对那些已经受害的员工给予关怀，却并没有告诉他们罪魁祸首就是和他们朝夕相处的PFOA。

更为令人发指的是，杜邦在被实验对象不知情的情况下每天给他们提供含有PFOA的香烟进行抽食，结果不出意外的几乎所有人都患上了重病，杜邦则假惺惺的给予关怀。

在高额利润，广阔市场这样的诱惑下，资本的干预渗透到了当时美国的每一处土地，提起杜邦，群众们都只会觉得他们是一家良心企业，给大家提供生活便利，暗藏在美好外表下的丑陋事实是什么呢?用资本干预政府，干预标准，遍及各地，甚至全世界。

就大陆而言，1988年在深圳注册成立“杜邦中国集团有限公司”，这好似就是将资本之手伸向了他国土地，把PFOA带去了东方直接排放。

你以为： “它只是遥远的历史？

” “只是停留在了上个世纪？

” 如果没有那个为正义挺身而出的律师，我们可能今天身体中PFOA的含量会是现在的很多倍，再过十几年患癌人数直线上升，各种莫名病痛也将干扰着我们的身体健康。

可就算是这样，PFOA的污染还是从上世纪50年代一直持续到如今，而它真正被重视则是在2012年检测小组长达七年的调查结果公布，你以为在2013年还是2014年就能出台相关条例制约PFOA生产和杜邦公司吗？

现实情况是直到2017年PFOA才被列为2B类致癌物质，政府才给出官方标准和制约条例，在此之前全由杜邦公司自拟标准。

17年意味着什么？

意味着17年以前PFOA的生产排放都未受到官方的控制，17年以后的很多年内历史残存的PFOA都难以得到有效处理。

戳戳是九零后，自然体内极大概率的存在着的PFOA，可00后，10后，甚至今年出生的20后的孩子们…可想而知。

谈谈影片中的艺术部分，这类真实事件改编的电影，真实事件与人为艺术加入，之间的纠葛是必然存在的，这直接影响到了影片质量和事件的真实还原度。

多了，事情就讲不清 少了，更像是一部伪纪录片 在农场主的109头奶牛坟墓出现在画面中，在那头红着眼怒气十足的奶牛被猎枪击毙后，影片的节奏有了第一次明显的转变，观众们也开始回想起开头那几个误入私人领地嬉水，同影片名称《黑水》相联系起来不由得颈后发凉。

一部电影的节奏很重要，它可以通过多元化的手法表现出来，画面明暗转变，背景音乐风格的转变，当然，这些都是不那么令人眼前一亮的小把戏，也是多数影片中常见的东西，更为重要的是在合适的时间切入合适的冲突，在对人物性格，作风等等进行一定刻画后能在观者心中建立起一个有骨肉的人设。

一个人给人的印象，取决于你和他一起经历的事情，从中在你的脑中构建起一个你对他的认知，在影视作品中，我们之所以会和镜头中的人物产生联系，会因为他在镜头中的好坏走向而产生心理变化，就是因为他做的事情得到了你的认可或者不认可，比如某人当街虐待了自己的宠物，这样一个人如果突然出车祸被撞，观者心中对他的同情自然是几乎没有的，甚至多数人还会有觉得他活该的“快感”。

影片中的律师为什么我们会觉得他是一个正义好人，觉得他会为PFOA事件坚持下去，并且发自内心的对他敬佩？

正是和影片中影响到他的事件有关，潜移默化的在加深观者和片中律师的心里联系，这样的联系建立不是那么容易的，特别是在这类真实事件改编的传记片中，导演并没有选择加上过多的人为的镜头手段，而是用客观的，冷静的，甚至可以说是克制镜头去讲述这个故事，全片看下来甚至有一丝的压抑，给人一种危机四伏却又无发逃离的扼制感。

没有剧烈的冲突和动作戏份，甚至在生气的对话戏上都是那么的克制，全片下来也只有律师的一次怒气发泄；没有丰富多样的运动镜头和那些炫技的难度剪辑，导演只是架好机位，采用多固定机位，慢摇，跟镜这类慢节奏的方式，也偏偏是这种方式，让观众少了被导演牵着鼻子走的感觉，在观影过程中建立属于自己关于影片故事的认知和立场，自己感受自己思考，最后在微妙的镜头语言引导下都汇总在一个大的框架中，产生共鸣，造成影响，也引起社会重视。

片中在等待检测小组出报告结果的七年中，律师由于将过多的精力投入到案件中导致了家庭内部矛盾的爆发，而长时间得不到完结的案件也让他被频繁降薪，直至原来的三分之一，在压力和焦虑以及经济危机的多重打击下，律师的间歇性脑供血不足症状显现了，晕倒在地，被迫住院。

这样一段令人倍感煎熬的七年，在电影中没有占用太多的片长时间，可却分秒灼心，悲惨而又无奈的带入感通过短短的数分钟在观者心中悄悄的放大着，也在报告结果出来的一刻同片中律师一般的得到释放，而杜邦公司的反悔不认账，拒绝支付赔偿的举动又再次让事情恶化，短短的几分钟内“大起大落”的上演让我们前期观影中在心中建立起的正义律师人设一下升至“高潮”，宛若被剧情走向和反转揪住了一般某名难受，这便是前面大篇幅的人物刻画的作用所在，让我们在感受真实事件的情况下内心构建的饱满人物形象变得生动，变得有血有肉，也正因此在律师的人物弧光的细节上显得顺畅无比，丝毫没有任何卡顿，违和感。

这部电影的揭露事件的价值远高于其本身作为电影的艺术价值，而本篇文章中只是粗略介绍了一番。

所以在此，戳戳希望有兴趣的小伙伴们在观影后能够去了解一下该事件的详细始末。

ps.喜欢电影的小伙伴们可以关注戳戳的vx公众号哦ID：胡戳电影

黑水 (2019)8.62019 / 美国 / 剧情 / 托德·海因斯 / 马克·鲁法洛 安妮·海瑟薇

Rob Bilott was a corporate defense attorney for eight years. Then he took on an environmental suit that would upend his entire career — and expose a brazen, decades-long history of chemical pollution.

Rob Bilott on land owned by the Tennants near Parkersburg, W.Va. Credit: Bryan Schutmaat for The New York TimesBy Nathaniel Rich Jan. 6, 2016Just months before Rob Bilott made partner at Taft Stettinius & Hollister, he received a call on his direct line from a cattle farmer. The farmer, Wilbur Tennant of Parkersburg, W.Va., said that his cows were dying left and right. He believed that the DuPont chemical company, which until recently operated a site in Parkersburg that is more than 35 times the size of the Pentagon, was responsible. Tennant had tried to seek help locally, he said, but DuPont just about owned the entire town. He had been spurned not only by Parkersburg’s lawyers but also by its politicians, journalists, doctors and veterinarians. The farmer was angry and spoke in a heavy Appalachian accent. Bilott struggled to make sense of everything he was saying. He might have hung up had Tennant not blurted out the name of Bilott’s grandmother, Alma Holland White.White had lived in Vienna, a northern suburb of Parkersburg, and as a child, Bilott often visited her in the summers. In 1973 she brought him to the cattle farm belonging to the Tennants’ neighbors, the Grahams, with whom White was friendly. Bilott spent the weekend riding horses, milking cows and watching Secretariat win the Triple Crown on TV. He was 7 years old. The visit to the Grahams’ farm was one of his happiest childhood memories.When the Grahams heard in 1998 that Wilbur Tennant was looking for legal help, they remembered Bilott, White’s grandson, who had grown up to become an environmental lawyer. They did not understand, however, that Bilott was not the right kind of environmental lawyer. He did not represent plaintiffs or private citizens. Like the other 200 lawyers at Taft, a firm founded in 1885 and tied historically to the family of President William Howard Taft, Bilott worked almost exclusively for large corporate clients. His specialty was defending chemical companies. Several times, Bilott had even worked on cases with DuPont lawyers. Nevertheless, as a favor to his grandmother, he agreed to meet the farmer. ‘‘It just felt like the right thing to do,’’ he says today. ‘‘I felt a connection to those folks.’’The connection was not obvious at their first meeting. About a week after his phone call, Tennant drove from Parkersburg with his wife to Taft’s headquarters in downtown Cincinnati. They hauled cardboard boxes containing videotapes, photographs and documents into the firm’s glassed-in reception area on the 18th floor, where they sat in gray midcentury-modern couches beneath an oil portrait of one of Taft’s founders. Tennant — burly and nearly six feet tall, wearing jeans, a plaid flannel shirt and a baseball cap — did not resemble a typical Taft client. ‘‘He didn’t show up at our offices looking like a bank vice president,’’ says Thomas Terp, a partner who was Bilott’s supervisor. ‘‘Let’s put it that way.’’Terp joined Bilott for the meeting. Wilbur Tennant explained that he and his four siblings had run the cattle farm since their father abandoned them as children. They had seven cows then. Over the decades they steadily acquired land and cattle, until 200 cows roamed more than 600 hilly acres. The property would have been even larger had his brother Jim and Jim’s wife, Della, not sold 66 acres in the early ’80s to DuPont. The company wanted to use the plot for a landfill for waste from its factory near Parkersburg, called Washington Works, where Jim was employed as a laborer. Jim and Della did not want to sell, but Jim had been in poor health for years, mysterious ailments that doctors couldn’t diagnose, and they needed the money.DuPont rechristened the plot Dry Run Landfill, named after the creek that ran through it. The same creek flowed down to a pasture where the Tennants grazed their cows. Not long after the sale, Wilbur told Bilott, the cattle began to act deranged. They had always been like pets to the Tennants. At the sight of a Tennant they would amble over, nuzzle and let themselves be milked. No longer. Now when they saw the farmers, they charged.Wilbur fed a videotape into the VCR. The footage, shot on a camcorder, was grainy and intercut with static. Images jumped and repeated. The sound accelerated and slowed down. It had the quality of a horror movie. In the opening shot the camera pans across the creek. It takes in the surrounding forest, the white ash trees shedding their leaves and the rippling, shallow water, before pausing on what appears to be a snowbank at an elbow in the creek. The camera zooms in, revealing a mound of soapy froth.‘‘I’ve taken two dead deer and two dead cattle off this ripple,’’ Tennant says in voice-over. ‘‘The blood run out of their noses and out their mouths. ... They’re trying to cover this stuff up. But it’s not going to be covered up, because I’m going to bring it out in the open for people to see.’’The video shows a large pipe running into the creek, discharging green water with bubbles on the surface. ‘‘This is what they expect a man’s cows to drink on his own property,’’ Wilbur says. ‘‘It’s about high time that someone in the state department of something-or-another got off their cans.’’At one point, the video cuts to a skinny red cow standing in hay. Patches of its hair are missing, and its back is humped — a result, Wilbur speculates, of a kidney malfunction. Another blast of static is followed by a close-up of a dead black calf lying in the snow, its eye a brilliant, chemical blue. ‘‘One hundred fifty-three of these animals I’ve lost on this farm,’’ Wilbur says later in the video. ‘‘Every veterinarian that I’ve called in Parkersburg, they will not return my phone calls or they don’t want to get involved. Since they don’t want to get involved, I’ll have to dissect this thing myself. ... I’m going to start at this head.’’The video cuts to a calf’s bisected head. Close-ups follow of the calf’s blackened teeth (‘‘They say that’s due to high concentrations of fluoride in the water that they drink’’), its liver, heart, stomachs, kidneys and gall bladder. Each organ is sliced open, and Wilbur points out unusual discolorations — some dark, some green — and textures. ‘‘I don’t even like the looks of them,’’ he says. ‘‘It don’t look like anything I’ve been into before.’’Bilott watched the video and looked at photographs for several hours. He saw cows with stringy tails, malformed hooves, giant lesions protruding from their hides and red, receded eyes; cows suffering constant diarrhea, slobbering white slime the consistency of toothpaste, staggering bowlegged like drunks. Tennant always zoomed in on his cows’ eyes. ‘‘This cow’s done a lot of suffering,’’ he would say, as a blinking eye filled the screen.‘‘This is bad,’’ Bilott said to himself. ‘‘There’s something really bad going on here.’’Bilott decided right away to take the Tennant case. It was, he says again, ‘‘the right thing to do.’’ Bilott might have had the practiced look of a corporate lawyer — soft-spoken, milk-complected, conservatively attired — but the job had not come naturally to him. He did not have a typical Taft résumé. He had not attended college or law school in the Ivy League. His father was a lieutenant colonel in the Air Force, and Bilott spent most of his childhood moving among air bases near Albany; Flint, Mich.; Newport Beach, Calif.; and Wiesbaden, West Germany. Bilott attended eight schools before graduating from Fairborn High, near Ohio’s Wright-Patterson Air Force Base. As a junior, he received a recruitment letter from a tiny liberal-arts school in Sarasota called the New College of Florida, which graded pass/fail and allowed students to design their own curriculums. Many of his friends there were idealistic, progressive — ideological misfits in Reagan’s America. He met with professors individually and came to value critical thinking. ‘‘I learned to question everything you read,’’ he said. ‘‘Don’t take anything at face value. Don’t care what other people say. I liked that philosophy.’’ Bilott studied political science and wrote his thesis about the rise and fall of Dayton. He hoped to become a city manager.But his father, who late in life enrolled in law school, encouraged Bilott to do the same. Surprising his professors, he chose to attend law school at Ohio State, where his favorite course was environmental law. ‘‘It seemed like it would have real-world impact,’’ he said. ‘‘It was something you could do to make a difference.’’ When, after graduation, Taft made him an offer, his mentors and friends from New College were aghast. They didn’t understand how he could join a corporate firm. Bilott didn’t see it that way. He hadn’t really thought about the ethics of it, to be honest. ‘‘My family said that a big firm was where you’d get the most opportunities,’’ he said. ‘‘I knew nobody who had ever worked at a firm, nobody who knew anything about it. I just tried to get the best job I could. I don’t think I had any clue of what that involved.’’At Taft, he asked to join Thomas Terp’s environmental team. Ten years earlier, Congress passed the legislation known as Superfund, which financed the emergency cleanup of hazardous-waste dumps. Superfund was a lucrative development for firms like Taft, creating an entire subfield within environmental law, one that required a deep understanding of the new regulations in order to guide negotiations among municipal agencies and numerous private parties. Terp’s team at Taft was a leader in the field.As an associate, Bilott was asked to determine which companies contributed which toxins and hazardous wastes in what quantities to which sites. He took depositions from plant employees, perused public records and organized huge amounts of historical data. He became an expert on the Environmental Protection Agency’s regulatory framework, the Safe Drinking Water Act, the Clean Air Act, the Toxic Substances Control Act. He mastered the chemistry of the pollutants, despite the fact that chemistry had been his worst subject in high school. ‘‘I learned how these companies work, how the laws work, how you defend these claims,’’ he said. He became the consummate insider.Bilott was proud of the work he did. The main part of his job, as he understood it, was to help clients comply with the new regulations. Many of his clients, including Thiokol and Bee Chemical, disposed of hazardous waste long before the practice became so tightly regulated. He worked long hours and knew few people in Cincinnati. A colleague on Taft’s environmental team, observing that he had little time for a social life, introduced him to a childhood friend named Sarah Barlage. She was a lawyer, too, at another downtown Cincinnati firm, where she defended corporations against worker’s-compensation claims. Bilott joined the two friends for lunch. Sarah doesn’t remember him speaking. ‘‘My first impression was that he was not like other guys,’’ she says. ‘‘I’m pretty chatty. He’s much quieter. We complemented each other.’’

The road to one of the Tennant farms. Credit: Bryan Schutmaat for The New York TimesThey married in 1996. The first of their three sons was born two years later. He felt secure enough at Taft for Barlage to quit her job and raise their children full-time. Terp, his supervisor, recalls him as ‘‘a real standout lawyer: incredibly bright, energetic, tenacious and very, very thorough.’’ He was a model Taft lawyer. Then Wilbur Tennant came along.The Tennant case put Taft in a highly unusual position. The law firm was in the business of representing chemical corporations, not suing them. The prospect of taking on DuPont ‘‘did cause us pause,’’ Terp concedes. ‘‘But it was not a terribly difficult decision for us. I’m a firm believer that our work on the plaintiff’s side makes us better defense lawyers.’’Bilott sought help with the Tennant case from a West Virginia lawyer named Larry Winter. For many years, Winter was a partner at Spilman, Thomas & Battle — one of the firms that represented DuPont in West Virginia — though he had left Spilman to start a practice specializing in personal-injury cases. He was amazed that Bilott would sue DuPont while remaining at Taft.‘‘His taking on the Tennant case,’’ Winter says, ‘‘given the type of practice Taft had, I found to be inconceivable.’’Bilott, for his part, is reluctant to discuss his motivations for taking the case. The closest he came to elaborating was after being asked whether, having set out ‘‘to make a difference’’ in the world, he had any misgivings about the path his career had taken.‘‘There was a reason why I was interested in helping out the Tennants,’’ he said after a pause. ‘‘It was a great opportunity to use my background for people who really needed it.’’Bilott filed a federal suit against DuPont in the summer of 1999 in the Southern District of West Virginia. In response, DuPont’s in-house lawyer, Bernard Reilly, informed him that DuPont and the E.P.A. would commission a study of the property, conducted by three veterinarians chosen by DuPont and three chosen by the E.P.A. Their report did not find DuPont responsible for the cattle’s health problems. The culprit, instead, was poor husbandry: ‘‘poor nutrition, inadequate veterinary care and lack of fly control.’’ In other words, the Tennants didn’t know how to raise cattle; if the cows were dying, it was their own fault.This did not sit well with the Tennants, who began to suffer the consequences of antagonizing Parkersburg’s main employer. Lifelong friends ignored the Tennants on the streets of Parkersburg and walked out of restaurants when they entered. ‘‘I’m not allowed to talk to you,’’ they said, when confronted. Four different times, the Tennants changed churches.Wilbur called the office nearly every day, but Bilott had little to tell him. He was doing for the Tennants what he would have done for any of his corporate clients — pulling permits, studying land deeds and requesting from DuPont all documentation related to Dry Run Landfill — but he could find no evidence that explained what was happening to the cattle. ‘‘We were getting frustrated,’’ Bilott said. ‘‘I couldn’t blame the Tennants for getting angry.’’FURTHER READINGFor more about DuPont's FPOA pollution, see ‘‘The Teflon Toxin’’ by Sharon Lerner (The Intercept, Aug. 17, 2015) and ‘‘Welcome to Beautiful Parkersburg, West Virginia’’ by Mariah Blake (The Huffington Post, Aug. 27, 2015).With the trial looming, Bilott stumbled upon a letter DuPont had sent to the E.P.A. that mentioned a substance at the landfill with a cryptic name: ‘‘PFOA.’’ In all his years working with chemical companies, Bilott had never heard of PFOA. It did not appear on any list of regulated materials, nor could he find it in Taft’s in-house library. The chemistry expert that he had retained for the case did, however, vaguely recall an article in a trade journal about a similar-sounding compound: PFOS, a soaplike agent used by the technology conglomerate 3M in the fabrication of Scotchgard.Bilott hunted through his files for other references to PFOA, which he learned was short for perfluorooctanoic acid. But there was nothing. He asked DuPont to share all documentation related to the substance; DuPont refused. In the fall of 2000, Bilott requested a court order to force them. Against DuPont’s protests, the order was granted. Dozens of boxes containing thousands of unorganized documents began to arrive at Taft’s headquarters: private internal correspondence, medical and health reports and confidential studies conducted by DuPont scientists. There were more than 110,000 pages in all, some half a century old. Bilott spent the next few months on the floor of his office, poring over the documents and arranging them in chronological order. He stopped answering his office phone. When people called his secretary, she explained that he was in the office but had not been able to reach the phone in time, because he was trapped on all sides by boxes.‘‘I started seeing a story,’’ Bilott said. ‘‘I may have been the first one to actually go through them all. It became apparent what was going on: They had known for a long time that this stuff was bad.’’Bilott is given to understatement. (‘‘To say that Rob Bilott is understated,’’ his colleague Edison Hill says, ‘‘is an understatement.’’) The story that Bilott began to see, cross-legged on his office floor, was astounding in its breadth, specificity and sheer brazenness. ‘‘I was shocked,’’ he said. That was another understatement. Bilott could not believe the scale of incriminating material that DuPont had sent him. The company appeared not to realize what it had handed over. ‘‘It was one of those things where you can’t believe you’re reading what you’re reading,’’ he said. ‘‘That it’s actually been put in writing. It was the kind of stuff you always heard about happening but you never thought you’d see written down.’’The story began in 1951, when DuPont started purchasing PFOA (which the company refers to as C8) from 3M for use in the manufacturing of Teflon. 3M invented PFOA just four years earlier; it was used to keep coatings like Teflon from clumping during production. Though PFOA was not classified by the government as a hazardous substance, 3M sent DuPont recommendations on how to dispose of it. It was to be incinerated or sent to chemical-waste facilities. DuPont’s own instructions specified that it was not to be flushed into surface water or sewers. But over the decades that followed, DuPont pumped hundreds of thousands of pounds of PFOA powder through the outfall pipes of the Parkersburg facility into the Ohio River. The company dumped 7,100 tons of PFOA-laced sludge into ‘‘digestion ponds’’: open, unlined pits on the Washington Works property, from which the chemical could seep straight into the ground. PFOA entered the local water table, which supplied drinking water to the communities of Parkersburg, Vienna, Little Hocking and Lubeck — more than 100,000 people in all.Bilott learned from the documents that 3M and DuPont had been conducting secret medical studies on PFOA for more than four decades. In 1961, DuPont researchers found that the chemical could increase the size of the liver in rats and rabbits. A year later, they replicated these results in studies with dogs. PFOA’s peculiar chemical structure made it uncannily resistant to degradation. It also bound to plasma proteins in the blood, circulating through each organ in the body. In the 1970s, DuPont discovered that there were high concentrations of PFOA in the blood of factory workers at Washington Works. They did not tell the E.P.A. at the time. In 1981, 3M — which continued to serve as the supplier of PFOA to DuPont and other corporations — found that ingestion of the substance caused birth defects in rats. After 3M shared this information, DuPont tested the children of pregnant employees in their Teflon division. Of seven births, two had eye defects. DuPont did not make this information public.In 1984, DuPont became aware that dust vented from factory chimneys settled well beyond the property line and, more disturbing, that PFOA was present in the local water supply. DuPont declined to disclose this finding. In 1991, DuPont scientists determined an internal safety limit for PFOA concentration in drinking water: one part per billion. The same year, DuPont found that water in one local district contained PFOA levels at three times that figure. Despite internal debate, it declined to make the information public.(In a statement, DuPont claimed that it did volunteer health information about PFOA to the E.P.A. during those decades. When asked for evidence, it forwarded two letters written to West Virginian government agencies from 1982 and 1992, both of which cited internal studies that called into question links between PFOA exposure and human health problems.)By the ’90s, Bilott discovered, DuPont understood that PFOA caused cancerous testicular, pancreatic and liver tumors in lab animals. One laboratory study suggested possible DNA damage from PFOA exposure, and a study of workers linked exposure with prostate cancer. DuPont at last hastened to develop an alternative to PFOA. An interoffice memo sent in 1993 announced that ‘‘for the first time, we have a viable candidate’’ that appeared to be less toxic and stayed in the body for a much shorter duration of time. Discussions were held at DuPont’s corporate headquarters to discuss switching to the new compound. DuPont decided against it. The risk was too great: Products manufactured with PFOA were an important part of DuPont’s business, worth $1 billion in annual profit.‘His taking on the Tennant case, given the type of practice Taft had, I found to be inconceivable.’But the crucial discovery for the Tennant case was this: By the late 1980s, as DuPont became increasingly concerned about the health effects of PFOA waste, it decided it needed to find a landfill for the toxic sludge dumped on company property. Fortunately they had recently bought 66 acres from a low-level employee at the Washington Works facility that would do perfectly.By 1990, DuPont had dumped 7,100 tons of PFOA sludge into Dry Run Landfill. DuPont’s scientists understood that the landfill drained into the Tennants’ remaining property, and they tested the water in Dry Run Creek. It contained an extraordinarily high concentration of PFOA. DuPont did not tell this to the Tennants at the time, nor did it disclose the fact in the cattle report that it commissioned for the Tennant case a decade later — the report that blamed poor husbandry for the deaths of their cows. Bilott had what he needed.In August 2000, Bilott called DuPont’s lawyer, Bernard Reilly, and explained that he knew what was going on. It was a brief conversation.The Tennants settled. The firm would receive its contingency fee. The whole business might have ended right there. But Bilott was not satisfied.‘‘I was irritated,’’ he says.DuPont was nothing like the corporations he had represented at Taft in the Superfund cases. ‘‘This was a completely different scenario. DuPont had for decades been actively trying to conceal their actions. They knew this stuff was harmful, and they put it in the water anyway. These were bad facts.’’ He had seen what the PFOA-tainted drinking water had done to cattle. What was it doing to the tens of thousands of people in the areas around Parkersburg who drank it daily from their taps? What did the insides of their heads look like? Were their internal organs green?Bilott spent the following months drafting a public brief against DuPont. It was 972 pages long, including 136 attached exhibits. His colleagues call it ‘‘Rob’s Famous Letter.’’ ‘‘We have confirmed that the chemicals and pollutants released into the environment by DuPont at its Dry Run Landfill and other nearby DuPont-owned facilities may pose an imminent and substantial threat to health or the environment,’’ Bilott wrote. He demanded immediate action to regulate PFOA and provide clean water to those living near the factory. On March 6, 2001, he sent the letter to the director of every relevant regulatory authority, including Christie Whitman, administrator of the E.P.A., and the United States attorney general, John Ashcroft.DuPont reacted quickly, requesting a gag order to block Bilott from providing the information he had discovered in the Tennant case to the government. A federal court denied it. Bilott sent his entire case file to the E.P.A.‘‘DuPont freaked out when they realized that this guy was onto them,’’ says Ned McWilliams, a young trial lawyer who later joined Bilott’s legal team. ‘‘For a corporation to seek a gag order to prevent somebody from speaking to the E.P.A. is an extraordinary remedy. You could realize how bad that looks. They must have known that there was a small chance of winning. But they were so afraid that they were willing to roll the dice.’’With the Famous Letter, Bilott crossed a line. Though nominally representing the Tennants — their settlement had yet to be concluded — Bilott spoke for the public, claiming extensive fraud and wrongdoing. He had become a threat not merely to DuPont but also to, in the words of one internal memo, ‘‘the entire fluoropolymers industry’’ — an industry responsible for the high-performance plastics used in many modern devices, including kitchen products, computer cables, implantable medical devices and bearings and seals used in cars and airplanes. PFOA was only one of more than 60,000 synthetic chemicals that companies produced and released into the world without regulatory oversight.

Jim Tennant and his wife, Della, sold DuPont a 66-acre tract of land that became part of the Dry Run Landfill.‘‘Rob’s letter lifted the curtain on a whole new theater,’’ says Harry Deitzler, a plaintiff’s lawyer in West Virginia who works with Bilott. ‘‘Before that letter, corporations could rely upon the public misperception that if a chemical was dangerous, it was regulated.’’ Under the 1976 Toxic Substances Control Act, the E.P.A. can test chemicals only when it has been provided evidence of harm. This arrangement, which largely allows chemical companies to regulate themselves, is the reason that the E.P.A. has restricted only five chemicals, out of tens of thousands on the market, in the last 40 years.It was especially damning to see these allegations against DuPont under the letterhead of one of the nation’s most prestigious corporate defense firms. ‘‘You can imagine what some of the other companies that Taft was representing — a Dow Chemical — might have thought of a Taft lawyer taking on DuPont,’’ Larry Winter says. ‘‘There was a threat that the firm would suffer financially.’’ When I asked Thomas Terp about Taft’s reaction to the Famous Letter, he replied, not quite convincingly, that he didn’t recall one. ‘‘Our partners,’’ he said, ‘‘are proud of the work that he has done.’’Bilott, however, worried that corporations doing business with Taft might see things differently. ‘‘I’m not stupid, and the people around me aren’t stupid,’’ he said. ‘‘You can’t ignore the economic realities of the ways that business is run and the way clients think. I perceived that there were some ‘What the hell are you doing?’ responses.’’The letter led, four years later, in 2005, to DuPont’s reaching a $16.5 million settlement with the E.P.A., which had accused the company of concealing its knowledge of PFOA’s toxicity and presence in the environment in violation of the Toxic Substances Control Act. (DuPont was not required to admit liability.) At the time, it was the largest civil administrative penalty the E.P.A. had obtained in its history, a statement that sounds more impressive than it is. The fine represented less than 2 percent of the profits earned by DuPont on PFOA that year.Bilott never represented a corporate client again.The obvious next step was to file a class-action lawsuit against DuPont on behalf of everyone whose water was tainted by PFOA. In all ways but one, Bilott himself was in the ideal position to file such a suit. He understood PFOA’s history as well as anyone inside DuPont did. He had the technical and regulatory expertise, as he had proved in the Tennant case. The only part that didn’t make sense was his firm: No Taft lawyer, to anyone’s recollection, had ever filed a class-action lawsuit.It was one thing to pursue a sentimental case on behalf of a few West Virginia cattle farmers and even write a public letter to the E.P.A. But an industry-threatening class-action suit against one of the world’s largest chemical corporations was different. It might establish a precedent for suing corporations over unregulated substances and imperil Taft’s bottom line. This point was made to Terp by Bernard Reilly, DuPont’s in-house lawyer, according to accounts from Bilott’s plaintiff’s-lawyer colleagues; they say Reilly called to demand that Bilott back off the case. (Terp confirms that Reilly called him but will not disclose the content of the call; Bilott and Reilly decline to speak about it, citing continuing litigation.) Given what Bilott had documented in his Famous Letter, Taft stood by its partner.A lead plaintiff soon presented himself. Joseph Kiger, a night-school teacher in Parkersburg, called Bilott to ask for help. About nine months earlier, he received a peculiar note from the Lubeck water district. It arrived on Halloween day, enclosed in the monthly water bill. The note explained that an unregulated chemical named PFOA had been detected in the drinking water in ‘‘low concentrations,’’ but that it was not a health risk. Kiger had underlined statements that he found particularly baffling, like: ‘‘DuPont reports that it has toxicological and epidemiological data to support confidence that exposure guidelines established by DuPont are protective of human health.’’ The term ‘‘support confidence’’ seemed bizarre, as did ‘‘protective of human health,’’ not to mention the claim that DuPont’s own data supported its confidence in its own guidelines.Still, Kiger might have forgotten about it had his wife, Darlene, not already spent much of her adulthood thinking about PFOA. Darlene’s first husband had been a chemist in DuPont’s PFOA lab. (Darlene asked that he not be named so that he wouldn’t be involved in the local politics around the case.) ‘‘When you worked at DuPont in this town,’’ Darlene says today, ‘‘you could have everything you wanted.’’ DuPont paid for his education, it secured him a mortgage and it paid him a generous salary. DuPont even gave him a free supply of PFOA, which, Darlene says, she used as soap in the family’s dishwasher and to clean the car. Sometimes her husband came home from work sick — fever, nausea, diarrhea, vomiting — after working in one of the PFOA storage tanks. It was a common occurrence at Washington Works. Darlene says the men at the plant called it ‘‘Teflon flu.’’In 1976, after Darlene gave birth to their second child, her husband told her that he was not allowed to bring his work clothes home anymore. DuPont, he said, had found out that PFOA was causing health problems for women and birth defects in children. Darlene would remember this six years later when, at 36, she had to have an emergency hysterectomy and again eight years later, when she had a second surgery. When the strange letter from the water district arrived, Darlene says, ‘‘I kept thinking back to his clothing, to my hysterectomy. I asked myself, what does DuPont have to do with our drinking water?’’

Joe called the West Virginia Department of Natural Resources (‘‘They treated me like I had the plague’’), the Parkersburg office of the state’s Department of Environmental Protection (‘‘nothing to worry about’’), the water division (‘‘I got shut down’’), the local health department (‘‘just plain rude’’), even DuPont (‘‘I was fed the biggest line of [expletive] anybody could have been fed’’), before a scientist in the regional E.P.A. office finally took his call.‘‘Good God, Joe,’’ the scientist said. ‘‘What the hell is that stuff doing in your water?’’ He sent Kiger information about the Tennant lawsuit. On the court papers Kiger kept seeing the same name: Robert Bilott, of Taft Stettinius & Hollister, in Cincinnati.Bilott had anticipated suing on behalf of the one or two water districts closest to Washington Works. But tests revealed that six districts, as well as dozens of private wells, were tainted with levels of PFOA higher than DuPont’s own internal safety standard. In Little Hocking, the water tested positive for PFOA at seven times the limit. All told, 70,000 people were drinking poisoned water. Some had been doing so for decades.But Bilott faced a vexing legal problem. PFOA was not a regulated substance. It appeared on no federal or state list of contaminants. How could Bilott claim that 70,000 people had been poisoned if the government didn’t recognize PFOA as a toxin — if PFOA, legally speaking, was no different than water itself? In 2001, it could not even be proved that exposure to PFOA in public drinking water caused health problems. There was scant information available about its impact on large populations. How could the class prove it had been harmed by PFOA when the health effects were largely unknown?The best metric Bilott had to judge a safe exposure level was DuPont’s own internal limit of one part per billion. But when DuPont learned that Bilott was preparing a new lawsuit, it announced that it would re-evaluate that figure. As in the Tennant case, DuPont formed a team composed of its own scientists and scientists from the West Virginia Department of Environmental Protection. It announced a new threshold: 150 parts per billion.Bilott found the figure ‘‘mind-blowing.’’ The toxicologists he hired had settled upon a safety limit of 0.2 parts per billion. But West Virginia endorsed the new standard. Within two years, three lawyers regularly used by DuPont were hired by the state D.E.P. in leadership positions. One of them was placed in charge of the entire agency. ‘‘The way that transpired was just amazing to me,’’ Bilott says. ‘‘I suppose it wasn’t so amazing to my fellow counsel in West Virginia who know the system there. But it was to me.’’ The same DuPont lawyers tasked with writing the safety limit, Bilott said, had become the government regulators responsible for enforcing that limit.Bilott devised a new legal strategy. A year earlier, West Virginia had become one of the first states to recognize what is called, in tort law, a medical-monitoring claim. A plaintiff needs to prove only that he or she has been exposed to a toxin. If the plaintiff wins, the defendant is required to fund regular medical tests. In these cases, should a plaintiff later become ill, he or she can sue retroactively for damages. For this reason, Bilott filed the class-action suit in August 2001 in state court, even though four of the six affected water districts lay across the Ohio border.Meanwhile the E.P.A., drawing from Bilott’s research, began its own investigation into the toxicity of PFOA. In 2002, the agency released its initial findings: PFOA might pose human health risks not only to those drinking tainted water, but also to the general public — anyone, for instance, who cooked with Teflon pans. The E.P.A. was particularly alarmed to learn that PFOA had been detected in American blood banks, something 3M and DuPont had known as early as 1976. By 2003 the average concentration of PFOA in the blood of an adult American was four to five parts per billion. In 2000, 3M ceased production of PFOA. DuPont, rather than use an alternative compound, built a new factory in Fayetteville, N.C., to manufacture the substance for its own use.Bilott’s strategy appeared to have worked. In September 2004, DuPont decided to settle the class-action suit. It agreed to install filtration plants in the six affected water districts if they wanted them and pay a cash award of $70 million. It would fund a scientific study to determine whether there was a ‘‘probable link’’ — a term that delicately avoided any declaration of causation — between PFOA and any diseases. If such links existed, DuPont would pay for medical monitoring of the affected group in perpetuity. Until the scientific study came back with its results, class members were forbidden from filing personal-injury suits against DuPont.

The chemical site near Parkersburg, W.Va., source of the waste at the center of the DuPont class-action lawsuit.A reasonable expectation, at this point, was that the lawyers would move on. ‘‘In any other class action you’ve ever read about,’’ Deitzler says, ‘‘you get your 10 bucks in the mail, the lawyers get paid and the lawsuit goes away. That’s what we were supposed to do.’’ For three years, Bilott had worked for nothing, costing his firm a fortune. But now Taft received a windfall: Bilott and his team of West Virginian plaintiff lawyers received $21.7 million in fees from the settlement. ‘‘I think they were thinking, This guy did O.K.,’’ Deitzler says. ‘‘I wouldn’t be surprised if he got a raise.’’Not only had Taft recouped its losses, but DuPont was providing clean water to the communities named in the suit. Bilott had every reason to walk away.He didn’t.‘‘There was a gap in the data,’’ Bilott says. The company’s internal health studies, as damning as they were, were limited to factory employees. DuPont could argue — and had argued — that even if PFOA caused medical problems, it was only because factory workers had been exposed at exponentially higher levels than neighbors who drank tainted water. The gap allowed DuPont to claim that it had done nothing wrong.Bilott represented 70,000 people who had been drinking PFOA-laced drinking water for decades. What if the settlement money could be used to test them? ‘‘Class members were concerned about three things,’’ Winter says. ‘‘One: Do I have C8 in my blood? Two: If I do, is it harmful? Three: If it’s harmful, what are the effects?’’ Bilott and his colleagues realized they could answer all three questions, if only they could test their clients. Now, they realized, there was a way to do so. After the settlement, the legal team pushed to make receipt of the cash award contingent on a full medical examination. The class voted in favor of this approach, and within months, nearly 70,000 West Virginians were trading their blood for a $400 check.The team of epidemiologists was flooded with medical data, and there was nothing DuPont could do to stop it. In fact, it was another term of the settlement that DuPont would fund the research without limitation. The scientists, freed from the restraints of academic budgets and grants, had hit the epidemiological jackpot: an entire population’s personal data and infinite resources available to study them. The scientists designed 12 studies, including one that, using sophisticated environmental modeling technology, determined exactly how much PFOA each individual class member had ingested.It was assured that the panel would return convincing results. But Bilott could not predict what those results would be. If no correlation was found between PFOA and illness, Bilott’s clients would be barred under the terms of the agreement from filing any personal-injury cases. Because of the sheer quantity of data provided by the community health study and the unlimited budget — it ultimately cost DuPont $33 million — the panel took longer than expected to perform its analysis. Two years passed without any findings. Bilott waited. A third year passed. Then a fourth, a fifth, a sixth. Still the panel was quiet. Bilott waited.It was not a peaceful wait. The pressure on Bilott at Taft had built since he initiated the class-action suit in 2001. The legal fees had granted him a reprieve, but as the years passed without resolution, and Bilott continued to spend the firm’s money and was unable to attract new clients, he found himself in an awkward position.‘‘This case,’’ Winter says, ‘‘regardless of how hugely successful it ends up, will never in the Taft firm’s mind replace what they’ve lost in the way of legal business over the years.’’The longer it took for the science panel to conduct its research, the more expensive the case became. Taft continued to pay consultants to interpret the new findings and relay them to the epidemiologists. Bilott counseled class members in West Virginia and Ohio and traveled frequently to Washington to attend meetings at the E.P.A., which was deciding whether to issue advisories about PFOA. ‘‘We were incurring a lot of expenses,’’ Bilott says. ‘‘If the scientific panel found no link with diseases, we’d have to eat it all.’’

Land where Tennant cattle once grazed. Credit: Bryan Schutmaat for The New York TimesClients called Bilott to say that they had received diagnoses of cancer or that a family member had died. They wanted to know why it was taking so long. When would they get relief? Among those who called was Jim Tennant. Wilbur, who had cancer, had died of a heart attack. Two years later, Wilbur’s wife died of cancer. Bilott was tormented by ‘‘the thought that we still hadn’t been able to hold this company responsible for what they did in time for those people to see it.’’Taft did not waver in its support of the case, but the strain began to show. ‘‘It was stressful,’’ Sarah Barlage, Bilott’s wife, says. ‘‘He was exasperated that it was lasting a long time. But his heels were so dug in. He’s extremely stubborn. Every day that went by with no movement gave him more drive to see it through. But in the back of our minds, we knew that there are cases that go on forever.’’His colleagues on the case detected a change in Bilott. ‘‘I had the impression that it was extremely tough on him,’’ Winter says. ‘‘Rob had a young family, kids growing up, and he was under pressure from his firm. Rob is a private person. He didn’t complain. But he showed signs of being under enormous stress.’’In 2010, Bilott began suffering strange attacks: His vision would blur, he couldn’t put on his socks, his arms felt numb. His doctors didn’t know what was happening. The attacks recurred periodically, bringing blurry vision, slurred speech and difficulty moving one side of his body. They struck suddenly, without warning, and their effects lasted days. The doctors asked whether he was under heightened stress at work. ‘‘Nothing different than normal,’’ Bilott told them. ‘‘Nothing it hadn’t been for years.’’The doctors ultimately hit upon an effective medication. The episodes ceased and their symptoms, apart from an occasional tic, are under control, but he still doesn’t have a diagnosis.‘‘It was stressful,’’ Bilott says, ‘‘not to know what the heck was going on.’’In December 2011, after seven years, the scientists began to release their findings: there was a ‘‘probable link’’ between PFOA and kidney cancer, testicular cancer, thyroid disease, high cholesterol, pre-eclampsia and ulcerative colitis.‘‘There was relief,’’ Bilott says, understated nearly to the point of self-effacement. ‘‘We were able to deliver what we had promised to these folks seven years earlier. Especially since, for all those years, DuPont had been saying that we were lying, trying to scare and mislead people. Now we had a scientific answer.’’As of October, 3,535 plaintiffs have filed personal-injury lawsuits against DuPont. The first member of this group to go to trial was a kidney-cancer survivor named Carla Bartlett. In October, Bartlett was awarded $1.6 million. DuPont plans to appeal. This may have ramifications well beyond Bartlett’s case: Hers is one of five ‘‘bellwether’’ cases that will be tried over the course of this year. After that, DuPont may choose to settle with every afflicted class member, using the outcome of the bellwether cases to determine settlement awards. Or DuPont can fight each suit individually, a tactic that tobacco companies have used to fight personal-injury lawsuits. At the rate of four trials a year, DuPont would continue to fight PFOA cases until the year 2890.DuPont’s continuing refusal to accept responsibility is maddening to Bilott. ‘‘To think that you’ve negotiated in good faith a deal that everybody has abided by and worked on for seven years, you reach a point where certain things were to be resolved but then remain contested,’’ he says. ‘‘I think about the clients who have been waiting for this, many of whom are sick or have died while waiting. It’s infuriating.’’In total, 70,000 people were drinking poisoned water. Some had been doing so for decades.As part of its agreement with the E.P.A., DuPont ceased production and use of PFOA in 2013. The five other companies in the world that produce PFOA are also phasing out production. DuPont, which is currently negotiating a merger with Dow Chemical, last year severed its chemical businesses: They have been spun off into a new corporation called Chemours. The new company has replaced PFOA with similar fluorine-based compounds designed to biodegrade more quickly — the alternative considered and then discarded by DuPont more than 20 years ago. Like PFOA, these new substances have not come under any regulation from the E.P.A. When asked about the safety of the new chemicals, Chemours replied in a statement: ‘‘A significant body of data demonstrates that these alternative chemistries can be used safely.’’Last May, 200 scientists from a variety of disciplines signed the Madrid Statement, which expresses concern about the production of all fluorochemicals, or PFASs, including those that have replaced PFOA. PFOA and its replacements are suspected to belong to a large class of artificial compounds called endocrine-disrupting chemicals; these compounds, which include chemicals used in the production of pesticides, plastics and gasoline, interfere with human reproduction and metabolism and cause cancer, thyroid problems and nervous-system disorders. In the last five years, however, a new wave of endocrinology research has found that even extremely low doses of such chemicals can create significant health problems. Among the Madrid scientists’ recommendations: ‘‘Enact legislation to require only essential uses of PFASs’’ and ‘‘Whenever possible, avoid products containing, or manufactured using, PFASs. These include many products that are stain-resistant, waterproof or nonstick.’’When asked about the Madrid Statement, Dan Turner, DuPont’s head of global media relations, wrote in an email: ‘‘DuPont does not believe the Madrid Statement reflects a true consideration of the available data on alternatives to long-chain perfluorochemicals, such as PFOA. DuPont worked for more than a decade, with oversight from regulators, to introduce its alternatives. Extensive data has been developed, demonstrating that these alternatives are much more rapidly eliminated from the body than PFOA, and have improved health safety profiles. We are confident that these alternative chemistries can be used safely — they are well characterized, and the data has been used to register them with environmental agencies around the world.’’Every year Rob Bilott writes a letter to the E.P.A. and the West Virginia D.E.P., urging the regulation of PFOA in drinking water. In 2009, the E.P.A. set a ‘‘provisional’’ limit of 0.4 parts per billion for short-term exposure, but has never finalized that figure. This means that local water districts are under no obligation to tell customers whether PFOA is in their water. In response to Bilott’s most recent letter, the E.P.A. claimed that it would announce a ‘‘lifetime health advisory level for PFOA’’ by ‘‘early 2016.’’This advisory level, if indeed announced, might be a source of comfort to future generations. But if you are a sentient being reading this article in 2016, you already have PFOA in your blood. It is in your parents’ blood, your children’s blood, your lover’s blood. How did it get there? Through the air, through your diet, through your use of nonstick cookware, through your umbilical cord. Or you might have drunk tainted water. The Environmental Working Group has found manufactured fluorochemicals present in 94 water districts across 27 states (see sidebar beginning on Page 38). Residents of Issaquah, Wash.; Wilmington, Del.; Colorado Springs; and Nassau County on Long Island are among those whose water has a higher concentration of fluorochemicals than that in some of the districts included in Rob Bilott’s class-action suit. The drinking water in Parkersburg itself, whose water district was not included in the original class-action suit and has failed to compel DuPont to pay for a filtration system, is currently tainted with high levels of PFOA. Most residents appear not to know this.Where scientists have tested for the presence of PFOA in the world, they have found it. PFOA is in the blood or vital organs of Atlantic salmon, swordfish, striped mullet, gray seals, common cormorants, Alaskan polar bears, brown pelicans, sea turtles, sea eagles, Midwestern bald eagles, California sea lions and Laysan albatrosses on Sand Island, a wildlife refuge on Midway Atoll, in the middle of the North Pacific Ocean, about halfway between North America and Asia.‘‘We see a situation,’’ Joe Kiger says, ‘‘that has gone from Washington Works, to statewide, to the United States, and now it’s everywhere, it’s global. We’ve taken the cap off something here. But it’s just not DuPont. Good God. There are 60,000 unregulated chemicals out there right now. We have no idea what we’re taking.’’Bilott doesn’t regret fighting DuPont for the last 16 years, nor for letting PFOA consume his career. But he is still angry. ‘‘The thought that DuPont could get away with this for this long,’’ Bilott says, his tone landing halfway between wonder and rage, ‘‘that they could keep making a profit off it, then get the agreement of the governmental agencies to slowly phase it out, only to replace it with an alternative with unknown human effects — we told the agencies about this in 2001, and they’ve essentially done nothing. That’s 14 years of this stuff continuing to be used, continuing to be in the drinking water all over the country. DuPont just quietly switches over to the next substance. And in the meantime, they fight everyone who has been injured by it.’’Bilott is currently prosecuting Wolf v. DuPont, the second of the personal-injury cases filed by the members of his class. The plaintiff, John M. Wolf of Parkersburg, claims that PFOA in his drinking water caused him to develop ulcerative colitis. That trial begins in March. When it concludes, there will be 3,533 cases left to try.A correction was made on Jan. 24, 2016:An article on Jan 10. about legal action against DuPont for chemical pollution referred incorrectly to DuPont’s response in the 1970s when the company discovered high concentrations of PFOA in the blood of workers at Washington Works, a DuPont factory. DuPont withheld the information from the E.P.A., not from its workers. The article also misstated the year DuPont agreed to a $16.5 million settlement with the E.P.A. It was 2005, not 2006. In addition, the article misidentified the water district where a resident received a letter from the district noting that PFOA had been detected in the drinking water. It was Lubeck, W.Va. — not Little Hocking, Ohio. The article also misidentified the district where water tested positive for PFOA at seven times the limit. It was Little Hocking, not Lubeck. And the article misidentified the city in Washington State that has fluorochemicals in its drink-ing water. It is Issaquah, not Seattle._________Nathaniel Rich is a contributing writer for the magazine and the author of ‘‘Odds Against Tomorrow.’’ He lives in New Orleans and is a frequent contributor to The New York Review of Books and The Atlantic.

作为一个一直致力于研究全氟化合物毒性的课题组的研究生，对此电影所述深表感谢。

全氟化合物，作为持久性有机污染物的典型代表，至今依然是学术界（环境科学）深入研究的课题，其致癌性，致畸性几乎是学术界的共识。

其生物累积性和难降解性，使其在生物圈广泛存在，并对包括人类在内的生物体造成持久性的损害。

在科学界确凿的事实，在广罗大众中却如此遥远和无力反驳

作者衣公子，微信公众号：公子的酒01Wilbur Tennant很小就被父亲抛弃，留给他的只有：4个弟弟妹妹、1个破农庄、7头奶牛。

经过几十年的艰辛耕耘，Tennant才过上好日子，农庄发展成了600英亩（约3600多亩），奶牛也增加到了200头。

这是那个年代典型的美国梦。

不幸，是悄然降临的。

弟弟Jim加入化工企业杜邦（Dupunt），随后，染上了一种神秘的病，糟糕的健康状况急需钱。

Jim就把自己名下的66英亩土地卖给了老东家。

杜邦将这块土地用作化工废料的掩埋，并且向Tennant一家人保证，一切都是安全的。

尽管，66英亩只占Tennant全部农庄的1/10。

但是恐怖的事情接连发生。

新生的小牛牛蹄内翻，成年的奶牛接连发疯。

原本温顺如宠物的奶牛，发疯似地冲顶主人，再痛苦死去，血从牛的鼻子和嘴巴流出来。

Wilbur Tennant解剖尸体，发现可怕的病变：肿瘤肿大得令人作呕，牛的器官有些是黑色，有些是绿色。

Wilbur Tennant严重怀疑这一切都是因为杜邦。

经过几轮申诉、举报和上访，环保局E.P.A（Environmental Protection Agency）终于来了调查组。

不过，调查的结论，差点气死Tennant。

调查报告把奶牛的死亡归咎于管理糟糕、营养缺乏、兽医投入不足和缺乏苍蝇控制。

what？！

Wilbur Tennant几乎气疯了。

”我养了一辈子牛了，还要你教我怎么养牛吗？

”巨大的肿瘤，畸形的小牛，绿色的器官，从鼻子眼睛流出来的血，怎么可能仅仅是因为饲料和苍蝇？

这调查报告完全就是睁着眼睛说瞎话。

02Rob Bilott看上去并不是适合帮助Wilbur Tennant的律师。

他供职的Taft Stettinius & Hollister律所历史久远，成立于1885年，创始人之一是美国第27届总统William Howard Taft的亲戚。

小伙子刚晋升合伙人，风光得意马蹄疾，一日看尽长安花。

Bilott的确是环境律师（environmental lawyer），但是客户都是大公司，更确切地说，是化工巨头，其中就包括杜邦。

律所办公室里来来往往都是西装革履，皮鞋瓦亮的成功人士，Rob Bilott是典型的资本家代言人。

当穿着牛仔裤、格子法兰绒衬衫、棒球帽的Wilbur Tennant出现在律所，显得那么格格不入。

奈何尘世繁杂，人间万象，你看到什么，什么就是你的命。

Bilott在看完资料后决定接下这个案子。

因为他觉得这是对的事。

没有料到，随着Bilott调查的深入。

他发现，这并不是Tennant一家人的不幸，而是一场长达40年，面向全人类，充斥谎言和掩盖的灾难。

03杜邦是谁？

化工业巨头，世界500强。

历史悠久，和中国清政府做过生意；成绩彪炳，参加过美国原子弹的“曼哈顿计划”。

杜邦有多强大？

这么说吧，美国环保局E.P.A为杜邦开出了创历史的巨额罚单，但是所谓的创历史罚单还不到杜邦单类产品年利润的2%。

作为复合材料领域绝对的领导者，杜邦积累的工艺数据，是中国已经掌握的25倍以上。

毫无疑问，Bilott是在以卵击石。

杜邦的优势至少有以下3个方面。

第一，垄断标准。

当你问，XX化学物质有没有毒？

政府部门的标准应该够权威吧。

可是美国环保局E.P.A从1976年才开始监管化学物质，在百年历史的杜邦面前像个学生，遇到问题常常要请杜邦拿主意。

第二，国家荣耀。

化工业领先是美国国力的重要标志。

一直到今天，美国化工都是中国最难追赶的领域之一。

杜邦不但为二战胜利做出贡献，在现实中也是大量工作岗位的提供者，可谓即得庙堂点赞，又迎江湖民心。

显然，揭露杜邦，就是反对美国，迎接你的是“不爱国”、“愤青”等标签。

第三，现实利益。

作为当地最大且最好的雇主，杜邦的员工仅凭工作证就可以贷款买房。

杜邦提供的慷慨的薪资是人们还房贷、供子女上大学、过中产阶级的生活的保障。

一个与我们无关的农民正在反杜邦？！

这会影响每个小镇人的职业和收入！

nononono！

当地人开始主动排斥Wilbur Tennant。

当大象面对蚂蚁的挑战，有一万种方式弄死你。

大象拉坨屎蚂蚁都扛不住。

Bilott不是向法庭申请杜邦公开资料吗？

行啊，都拉给你。

杜邦送来了整整一屋子的纸箱。

横跨半个世纪的文件，打开纸箱先吃灰；11万页资料全是专业术语+行业黑话，从小化学不好的Bilott惨遭精准打击，身心摧残。

迎接Tennant的是整个小镇的歧视，光顾多年的餐厅不再接待他，多年的好友在街上相遇也当作不认识。

做礼拜的教堂，他换了4次。

随后，藏在家中作为证据的奶牛病变器官样本，不翼而飞。

直升飞机在他家上空盘桓。

Tennant握着猎枪，惶惶不可终日。

这是一场鸡蛋和岩石的较量，是以卵击石。

但是别忘了，岩石再坚硬也是死的。

鸡蛋再脆弱也是活的生命。

岩石最终会风化成细沙，而鸡蛋会孵化出生命越过岩石。

04经过大海捞针、抽丝剥茧，Bilott找到了罪恶的源头：PFOA。

PFOA，全氟辛酸，全称为Perfluorooctanoic Acid。

因为有8个碳原子成链，在杜邦内部又称其为C8。

PFOA最早由另一家化工巨头3M发明，最著名的用途，是杜邦生产的特氟龙（Teflon）。

因为特氟龙防水防油的特性，早期用于坦克涂料。

随后军用转民用，逐渐走进全世界居民的生活，其最典型的产品是平底锅。

1962年，特氟龙上市，杜邦名声大振。

广告中，美丽的姑娘正在烹饪，因为不粘锅，所以格外轻松欢愉。

但是广告背后，是另一个色调完全相反的故事。

特氟龙生产线的工人大量出现发烧、恶心、腹泻、呕吐等症状，员工们私下把这称作“特氟龙感冒（Teflon Flu）”。

杜邦为了印证自己的猜想，把少量特氟龙卷进香烟里给工人抽。

果然，抽烟的工人都病了。

3M很明确地告知杜邦，PFOA非常难降解，一旦进入人体，会通过血液循环到达每个器官。

杜邦相关生产线工人血液中的PFOA明显升高。

杜邦知道这些吗？

杜邦知道。

整个40年里，杜邦都知道。

杜邦以猴子做实验。

猴子器官逐渐肿大，最后死于癌症。

用老鼠做实验，老鼠生下一窝眼睛畸形的小老鼠。

杜邦也追踪了7名怀孕的女工，结果发现，其中2名女工诞下的小孩眼部畸形。

那么杜邦做什么了吗？

杜邦什么都没有做。

除了掩盖。

特氟龙生产线上所有年轻女员工被要求回家，但是没有被告知原因。

有一个负责清洗设备的女工，生下一个眼睛畸形，只有一个鼻孔的男婴。

她问杜邦，为什么把我调离这个工作，是因为特氟龙导致我孩子畸形的吗？

杜邦说，No别多想。

随后她的资料被抹去。

长大后的Bucky Bailey，在电影《黑水》（Black Waters）中出演自己燃烧的粉尘直接从烟囱排出，工业用水没有特殊的处理，工业废料只进行常规的掩埋。

于是，我们回到故事的开头。

Jim Tennant先成为杜邦的劳工，其工作是掩埋特氟龙的废料。

随后，Jim得了怪病，需要钱。

杜邦趁机买了Jim的地，继续掩埋特氟龙的废料。

污染进入水循环，导致Tennant一家的奶牛发疯。

最后才是Wilbur Tennant不依不饶，找到Bilott。

真相大白的一刹那，悲凉入骨。

05Tennant选择和杜邦和解。

他需要钱。

需要钱，搬离那个死亡农场。

需要钱，因为他和妻子已经检查出了癌症，事实上仅仅7年之后他和妻子就陆续入土。

还是需要钱，尽管自己这一生已经完了，但是他需要钱给两个孩子一个未来。

抉择到了Bilott一个人身上。

这已经不是Tennant一家人的悲剧。

PFOA和特氟龙，已经走向全世界，从平底锅，到布料、雨伞、靴子，再到自行车润滑剂、网球拍、通信电缆、防污沙发和橱柜，以及电影院装爆米花的纸袋、餐厅里装披萨的纸盒。

杜邦公司在特氟龙一项产品上的收益有多少？

一年10亿美元的利润。

Bilott整理了资料，寄给了所有相关的部门，包括环保部和美国司法部长，告知公共安全正遭受即刻且实质的危险（imminent and substantial threat）。

他还亲自去华盛顿作证。

Bilott的揭发导致E.P.A给杜邦开了其历史上最大的罚单，1650万美元。

这个数字不到特氟龙这一项产品年利润的2%，相当于6天的利润，1.5天的收入。

与此同时，由于杜邦废料进入地下水，整个城市的居民正在一个接一个地死去。

于是，最巅峰的一战，来了。

在那个战场上，公平、正义、真相，这些你我习以为常的单词，被检视出真正的重量。

062004年，Bilott代理受到水污染影响的7万居民，以集体诉讼（class action lawsuit）的方式起诉杜邦。

这本应是一场简单的诉讼。

PFOA在饮用水中安全浓度应该是多少？

E.P.A没有规定，但是作为行业权威的杜邦，内部有规定：十亿分之1个单位（1 part per billion）。

而这些居民饮用水中PFOA的含量，超标6倍以上。

法官大人请看，杜邦连自己的规定都没有执行，赶紧败诉赔钱吧。

出征之前，律所的管理合伙人做了激情澎湃的讲演，士气爆棚。

他们不是去打官司，他们是去拯救美国的商业文明！

演员Tim Robbins（还记得《肖申克救赎》吗？

他越狱26年了）可是，杜邦花天价聘请的王牌律师团也不是吃素的。

在法庭为Bilott准备了出乎意料的一记闷棍。

杜邦请州政府的环保部门高级官员出庭作证。

官员说，之前没有指定标准，疏忽了，秉着对人民负责的态度，现在临时指定了标准：十亿分之150个单位（150 part per billion）。

西弗吉尼亚E.P.A高级官员在诉讼的前夜，州政府突然把行业标准提高了150倍，以至于原本违规的杜邦，一夜之间完全合规。

看来无论在哪里，有权势，就可以只手遮天。

Bilott的举证责任瞬间指数级增长。

原来他只需要证明杜邦“不符合规定”，现在要证明“这个规定就是不合理的”，换一个方式说，要证明“去TMD规定，现有饮用水中PFOA就是会致病”。

前者是个法律问题，后者是个科学问题。

晕，这怎么证明，科学家都在为你杜邦工作啊！

在一番斗智斗勇后，原告和被告达成一个协议：杜邦为居民安装净水系统，再赔付7000万美元（特氟龙生产线3天的收入）。

以上都是小问题。

最焦点的事项在于：成立一个独立的科学家评估小组（independent science panel），由独立的科学家来评估目前PFOA的计量是否增加了居民患病的几率。

如果结论是肯定的，杜邦将提供医疗监测（medical monitoring），也就是说，从此往后，这些居民只要患了相关疾病，都可以得到赔偿和救治，由杜邦承担责任。

这项措施会让杜邦掏出2.35亿美元的真金白银。

当然，如果结论是否定的。

那么，就没有赔偿，各自回家。

附加一项条件，在结果出来之前，任何人不得单独起诉杜邦。

07电影《黑水》中，Mark Ruffalo饰演了主角Rob Bilott。

他更为人熟知的角色是漫威电影中的绿巨人（Hulk）。

这张还真像绿巨人曾经漫画中的英雄，今天现实中的英雄。

两者最大的区别，大概是，后者要承受真实的等待的煎熬。

大多数人以为战争是由拼搏组成的，其实不是，战争是由等待和煎熬组成的。

科学评估小组的结论迟迟不出来，一年。

二年。

三年。

四年。

五年。

六年。

Bilott对于真相的控诉，不是得罪了杜邦，是得罪了整个化工行业。

这位曾经顶级律所的明星环境律师，在起诉杜邦后，再也没有接到过企业客户。

一度，整整3年时间内，Bilott没有为公司创收一分钱。

由于和杜邦的诉讼还在不断支出费用，他自己的薪资一减再减。

为了给科学评估小组提供数据，需要采集这些区域内居民的血液。

杜邦说，每位来抽血的居民，给400美元，我买单！

很快，中年夫妇带在三个孩子，一家五口来抽血。

2000美元的补贴，能让他们过个不错的圣诞节。

他们对Bilott说，杜邦是好人，你得不到你想要的东西，走着瞧吧。

舆论也倒戈，陆续出现声音质疑Bilott。

律师总是搞事情，整天盯着那些为美国做出贡献的大公司，谁不知道你们的律师费和赔偿金挂钩，有巨额赔偿，你们才能年入百万。

这是吃人血馒头！

你看啊，别有用心，这帮学法律的，他们一点都不爱国，总是盯着社会的阴暗面。

由于这场诉讼，杜邦缩减了在这个区域的投资。

作为最大最有影响力的雇主，小镇的失业率急速上升。

民意需要罪人，需要有人承受他们的怒火。

Bilott这一方的原告、证人，每每上街，常被骚扰得不堪其辱。

另外，发病的居民相继死去，肾癌、睾丸癌……当Bilott正陪着家人在餐厅就餐，突然有人走过来指着他问，你说的赔偿呢？

你答应帮我们争取的钱呢？

我哥哥已经死了，他的小孩比你的孩子都年幼。

你答应我们的事情呢？

于是，Bilott重重倒下了。

他得了短暂性脑部缺血（TIA，transient ischemic attack）,每次发作类似中风，一种因压力超载产生的神经疾病。

08其实，在我看来，Bilott很不像个英雄。

首先，他不够帅。

既不威武高大，也没有眉目轩豁，说话也做不到纵横捭阖。

其次，他没奇遇。

Banner博士因为接触伽马辐射变成绿巨人，Tony从小就在智商和财富上爆表所以成为钢铁侠。

相比之下，Bilott一生很平淡，读着差不多的大学（不是常春藤），做着差不多的事（多年没有客户，赚不到钱，也不能全怪这场诉讼，自身肯定也有问题吧）。

这样的人设，是很难涨粉丝的。

再次，他常常懦弱胆小。

去杜邦给CEO录像做口供，害怕被灭口，启动车子的时候手都在发抖。

家庭生计的重担压到妻子的肩上，他既不会分担责任，也不会哄女人。

（扮演他妻子的可是女神安妮·海瑟薇啊！

）最终，他被压力压垮，摔在地上癫痫。

（哎，那些因为杜邦染上癌症的人还没倒下呢。

）这些都让我觉得Bilott不是英雄，他更是个群众。

一如你我。

于是，让我想起了另一个人，那位戴着口罩，生命定格在35岁的眼科医生。

身前，他喜欢看球，喜欢明星，喜欢追剧，经常在微博转发抽奖的链接。

除去那些特别的时刻，除去那些勇气的决定，他们都是群众，平凡得一如你我。

但是，正如莫泊桑所说，人的脆弱和坚强都超乎自己的想象。

有时，你可能脆弱得一句话就泪流满面；有时，又发现自己咬着牙走了很长的路。

所以啊，最后让你能够撬动这个世界的，不是你的技能，而是你的使命。

电影《黑水》中，当Bilott在法庭上遭遇杜邦的闷头一棍，大家都知道，这是一场持久战了。

面对记者的采访，Bilott的队友说，他们制定的标准是谎言，我们一定会赢得这场诉讼的，对！

我们会的！

如果西弗吉尼亚州政府不能制止杜邦毒害这里的居民，那么，我们，我们居民，会亲自阻止他们。

这段话说得太好了，但是也有一点我想补充。

州政府确实失职，主要原因有两个。

首先，根据1976年的相关法案，只有当明确证据证明某项物质有害时，E.P.A才能开展监测。

（Under the 1976 Toxic Substances Control Act, the E.P.A. can test chemicals only when it has been provided evidence of harm. ）其次，无论是美国还是中国，由于创新总是先发生在企业，政府的专业性本来就会略微滞后。

《黑水》中，州环保局E.P.A的滞后表现在PFOA，现实生活里，监管部门的滞后可能表现在大数据、网络贷款、智能手机上的隐私信息、或者某类新出现的病毒。

天地良心，衣公子并不是要为美国州政府洗地。

而是想说，电影《黑水》背后所展现的系统，值得我们思考和借鉴。

什么系统？

就是当监管滞后时，一个允许群众关心群众、允许群众保护群众的系统。

更实在地说，虽然E.P.A的监管缺位，但是律师能够自由地开展调查，法庭能够独立地受理审判。

虽然，杜邦控制和圈养了大多数学者，但是全美国还是能找到独立且专业的学者。

虽然新出现的物质风险没有被完整地评估，但是医生一旦根据自己的专业判断得出了结论，也可以放心地说出来，医护和市民现在开始就要重视，开始防护。

美国第35届总统肯尼迪（John F. Kennedy）在就职演说中说过一句话，被反复引用。

“不要问你的国家能为你做什么，而要问你能为你的国家做什么。

“其实美国人一直不太同意这句话。

有关国家和个人的关系，弗里德曼有过补充：既不要问国家能为你做什么，也不要问你能为国家做什么，而要多想一想，个人通过国家能做什么。

09电影的结尾。

正义终究还是来了。

科学评估小组成立7年之后，得出结论，饮用水中PFOA会增加患病的几率。

PFOA至少诱发六种病变，包括肾癌、睾丸癌、甲状腺疾病、先兆子痫、高胆固醇、溃疡性结肠炎。

（there was a probable link between PFOA and kidney cancer, testicular cancer, thyroid disease, high cholesterol, pre-eclampsia and ulcerative colitis.）Bilott集体诉讼里已经有3635人患了以上的病，将来还有人陆续发病。

消息传来，显然是宣布Bilott胜利的哨响。

这下总该欢庆了吧？

可惜还是没有。

杜邦不认账，撕毁之前的承诺，抵制评估小组的结论，拒绝集体诉讼的赔偿。

他们想告诉世界，there is no use fighting，反抗没用的，这个系统就是我操控的。

由于集体诉讼中止，要向杜邦讨个公道，受害者只能以个人名义提起诉讼。

电影结尾，Bilott苦逼地开始为一个一个家庭提起个人诉讼。

等待他去完成的案子，还有3535起。

此时，距离Tennant走进他的办公室，已经过去整整20年。

电影之外，2013年，六家公司停止生产PFOA，其中也包括杜邦。

不过，由于50多年间，PFOA不受限地广泛应用，目前已经进入全世界人类的身体。

美国血库中就有PFOA。

疾控中心CDC，2007年的调查显示，99.7%的美国人体内都存在PFOA。

这个人工合成的物质距离发明仅仅50年，接下来它会通过母乳，通过脐带血在全世界人类身体里传承下去。

除了PFOA，仅美国目前还有6万种化学物质，没有被监管。

电影结束了。

男主角Mark Ruffalo参加崔娃（Trevor Noah）的脱口秀节目the Daily Show。

崔娃问他，你怎么给一个这样的结局？

而不是happy ending，超级英雄打败坏人，王子和公主从此幸福地生活在一起的那种。

Mark Ruffalo说，因为这就是生活。

生活里，其实很多问题都没有解决。

那么，问题怎么解决呢？

我们。

Mark Ruffalo说道。

作者衣公子，微信公众号：公子的酒

杜邦公司在被起诉的近二十年的时间里，支付了1650万美元的赔偿费，支付给诉讼群体7000万美元（仅仅是特氟龙生产线上3天的利润），后续支付了2.35亿美元作为受害群体的健康监护，多年后当初的血液检测统计结果出来，经历了层层阻挠，杜邦公司又支付了6.707亿美元了结了全部3535起案件。

前后一共不到十亿美元的开销，可是早在1999年，杜邦公司一年关于PFOA生产的利润就高达10亿美元。

看完电影之后，我又去查了一下杜邦公司。

直到如今，杜邦公司依旧活跃在国际市场，似乎什么都没有发生，关于电影所描述的化工污染事件的信息更是少之又少。

此前对于环境污染问题一直是站在一个旁观者的角度，看着新闻里列出的各项数据和庞大的数字，顶多感叹几句唏嘘几句便离开。

当看到Wilbur Tennant拿出自己曾经饲养的牛发黑的牙齿、内翻的蹄子、小母牛身上割下的肿瘤，看到死去的牛凹陷的眼睛和农场旁如乱葬岗一样的牲畜的坟墓，Tennant看到牛望向自己时便习惯性的掏出了枪了结其性命，随后又跪在地上哭泣，熟练地让人心痛。

Tennant只是一个小学学历的农场主，没有钱没有身份没有地位，自己的牛死了只能埋起来或者堆起来烧掉，他连看环保署对于自己农场环境调查报告的权力都没有，多次去杜邦公司反应人家甚至都不知道他的名字，自己去找律师，回来后自己的家还被闯入销毁证据，抱着枪睡在屋外只为杜邦公司的直升机再来时能够反抗……就是一个这样的不起眼的小人物，他连最终的结果都没有等到。

从一开始他就对Robert Bilott（以下简称Rob）说，国家、政府乃至这个体制，都不可信，能够保护我们的只有我们自己。

如电影里所说，一个农民掀起不了多大的风浪他要么身无分文的死去，要么让杜邦公司继续掠夺他的家园。

自从二十多年前Tennant走进律师事务所的大门，Rob花费了近二十年，只为让杜邦公司付出应有的代价。

他在档案库里埋头寻找，为自己的病落下了病根；他在审讯室里盘问杜邦公司董事长七个钟头，却在临走时为自己的车打火时担惊受怕，他怕自己被伤害；他埋头于此二十年，疏离了自己的家庭，他不知道妻子的弟弟进了戒毒所，不知道自己的儿子在学校模仿母亲的签字；他收集了69000份血液样本，却因为进程缓慢受了七年的辱骂；工作上没人愿意找他以至于薪酬一降再降至原来的三分之一，他依旧坚持到底。

整部电影大多数时间都是偏冷的蓝色调，Rob的家中仅有的两次阳光和温馨的感觉也异常短暂。

第一次是刚刚开始查找档案，第一次发现了PFOA,事情出现了转机，但是随后在化学晚宴上北公然辱骂和嘲讽。

第二次是等来了迟到了七年的电话，可是这又在之后得知杜邦反悔政府倒戈变得凄清阴冷。

为了这次起诉，Rob花费了二十年的光阴，搭进去了自己的健康，缺席了自己的家庭，疏离了妻子、孩子、母亲，曾经的人们责骂他起诉杜邦公司，后来人们开始责怪他自己没有等到任何结果，即使当初为了血液样本每个人都获得了400美元。

整个体制都被操控了，任何人不可信，国家不可信，政府不可信，体制不可信。

科学小组对于污染物安全标准信口雌黄，自己为了研究人民血液样本只能通过金钱“交易”；政府不断索取各种费用想让自己知难而退，杜邦公司明目张胆撕毁协议却无人指责。

其实最后的赢家依旧是杜邦公司，它从头到尾的赔偿甚至都不及自己一年的利润，如今它依旧活跃在国际市场，曾经的化工污染也逐渐被多数人淡忘；

但是对于那些普通人呢？

Tennant与妻子双双患癌，临终前数年身上就已经长满烂疮，至死也没有得到任何实质性赔偿；Bucky Bailey作为环境污染的受害者，从出生就带有的缺陷已经跟随了他一生；Rob穷尽半生也只争取到了当初少数受害者的利益，现在可能依旧为此奔波，但是能够起到的作用已经微乎其微……可是这对于杜邦公司来说无关痛痒，甚至可以权当没有发生过，我们最应该怪罪的，其实是这个唯金钱与权力是从的体制。

你也许没有听说过Participant Media——参与者传媒，但你一定听说过去年大火的奥斯卡最佳影片《绿皮书》。

当然，如果你关注奥斯卡的时间再长久一些，你肯定还会了解2016年的奥斯卡最佳影片《聚焦》、18年的提名作品《华盛顿邮报》、以及刚在年底新鲜出炉的冲奥力作《黑水》。

而它们的背后都有一个共同的名字，那就是出品方——Participant Media(参与者传媒，以下简称“Participant”)。

关注每年年底的欧美颁奖季已经是我雷打不动的观影习惯之一。

每年这个时候，总有很多优秀电影通过在电影节上映，提名颁奖季等方式走进我们的视线。

颁奖季在商业片占据了影视行业的聚光灯几近一年后，人们终于将视线重新转回艺术片，得以让那些在视听上不那么绚丽夺目，却在人文表达上格外动人的艺术片在大浪淘沙的影视市场中脱颖而出，有机会在千万人眼中绽放它们的光芒。

而在这几年的颁奖季上，Participant绝对是其中的大赢家和佼佼者，提名无数，获奖众多，各种“小金人”拿到手软。

别的不说，手握的两座奥斯卡最佳影片奖就足以让它骄傲上一阵子了。

2016年，participant出品电影获奖现场但今天我们要讨论的，不是Participant的功绩或者工业化水准，而是它出品的一类重要作品——聚焦民主权益的长篇电影，以及它背后传递出的深刻的价值观。

在2016年的颁奖季中，我第一次关注到Participant的相关作品——也就是当年的奥斯卡最佳影片——《聚焦》。

那时候我还不了解Participant，甚至对这个名字闻所未闻，观看《聚焦》也纯粹是因为它有奥斯卡最佳影片这顶桂冠。

然而，当时我才16岁，浅薄的思想和学历并不能理解影片中表现出的精神内核。

尽管如此，但我看完这部电影，仍会意识到这是一部伟大而深刻的作品。

但它伟大的地方在哪儿？

它深刻的地方在哪儿？

我不知道。

但我知道，时间会给我答案。

时间也的确给了我一个答案。

当2017年底，在偶然的情况下，我重看了《聚焦》这部电影。

这一次，我完全地陷入了这个真实事件改编的故事里。

也是在那次观影后，出于对电影的兴趣，我开始了解影片的幕后故事。

也是在那是，我第一次认识了Participant，了解到这个有深刻价值观的出品公司。

《聚焦》讲述了一个并不复杂的故事:由“绿巨人”马克·鲁弗洛和瑞秋·麦克亚当斯为代表的“聚焦”栏目独立调查小组，毅然决然对抗美国宗教界，克服重重困难，最后将宗教人士性侵孩童的惊人真相公之于众。

但这样一个简单的故事，却传递出十分动人的精神内核，那就是记者群体对于真相的追求、系统的拷问和新闻自由的不懈追求。

美国是一个以基督教为国教的国家，宗教界具有极强的势力，因此才能数十年包庇性侵孩童的宗教人士，使“聚焦”小组的调查之旅步履维艰。

他们在法律界碰壁，在宗教界碰壁，在新闻业上级碰壁，甚至要承载受害者们“为时已晚”的指责。

但对于正义和真相的坚守，让他们赢得了最终的胜利。

可喜的是，影片没有把所有的成果都归功于“聚焦”这个调查小组，将其打造成一个英雄主义式的故事，而是从一个更宏观的角度，去抽丝剥茧地审视在这个现代版“螳臂当车”的社会故事里的每一个角色，每一道光影，试图阐述更高层次的概念。

这样的处理方式，在Participant之后出品的另外两部电影——17年的《华盛顿邮报》和19年的《黑水》——中，完美地承袭了下来。

从宏观的角度看，Participant的这三部作品有其异曲同工之妙。

这三部电影都是由真实事件改编，讲述小人物与大制度、大系统、大财阀对抗，寻求正义、公平和真相的故事。

《聚焦》讲述的是调查记者与宗教势力的对抗。

《华盛顿邮报》讲述的是媒体行业与政府的对抗;《黑水》讲述的是律师群体与垄断集团的对抗。

而这三部影片，也大多围绕新闻行业和法律行业来展开，目的昭然若揭:新闻和法律，是民众捍卫自身权益的重要武器。

只有活着的新闻行业，才能逼迫当权者吐露真相;只有活着的法律行业，才能逼迫当权者认错赔偿。

而在Participant出品的这三部电影中，我们看到的新闻业和法律行业，是活着的:调查记者们愿意相信受害者的“片面之词”，毅然开始对宗教系统的调查;报社主编愿意冒毕生事业毁于一旦的风险，不畏强权，将政府的丑闻公之于众;良心律师愿意为一群“不知好歹”的无辜百姓，对抗垄断大公司20年，只为讨回公道。

在他们眼中:

在影片中，主角们在捍卫弱势群体的权益，但在我们看来，他们更是在捍卫自己，捍卫这个国家的民主权益，他们在捍卫言论自由，捍卫新闻和出版自由，捍卫法律意识。

相信着言论自由和法律良知的信念推动着他们去对抗世界，而这个世界也用最后的成果回报他们，在我看来，这是一个美好如童话的良性循环。

但正如影片所表达的那样，建立一个公平公正公开的社会环境，不仅需要这些满怀赤子之心的工作者们，更需要一个对各方权力有所制衡和牵制的制度。

假如国家机器或者大财阀可以轻而易举地扼杀言论，甚至伤害这些追求正义与真相的有志之士，使“天下之人，不敢言而敢怒”，社会噤若寒蝉，那影片中美好结局也就无从谈起了。

而从影片内容回归现实世界:当你打开这三部电影的豆瓣主页，你会发现观众对这三部影片的评价都非常相似:“非常工整，四平八稳”“题材不新颖，情节没有水花”“太过主旋律，追求政治正确”。

也许在部分人看来，Participant出品的这几部影片像是一张张完成度极高，却不带感情色彩的“好莱坞答卷”，但我的看法却有所不同。

在我看来，这样的表现形式正是Participant有意而为。

在漂亮地完成剧本和表演之余，Participant展现出一种难能可贵的克制。

无论是《聚焦》也好，《华盛顿邮报》、《黑水》也好，影片都没有利用激昂的配乐和情节的冲突去刺激观众的情绪，而是让观众在一种冷静而克制的状态下，设身处地，一步步了解事情的真相，直至最后触碰到它内核时，情绪依然是平和的。

但当你回过头去品味，影片中展现的那种对民主、对自由、对平等的追求和向往，却在平静中显得更加深刻，动人，深入人心。

Participant的官方网页上，有一段“关于Participant”的介绍:Participant Media——参与者影业，是一家前沿的传媒公司，致力于激发和推动社会变革的娱乐活动。

也许Participant的电影，体现的也正是它自身的核心价值观:使电影不仅仅是娱乐，更是激发和推动社会变革的工具。

以铁肩扛道义，以妙笔著文章。

进入Participant的网站的每个人，都会首先看到这样的一行字:You are not a viewer. These are your stories. You are a Participant.Just act.你不是观众。

这些是你的故事。

你是参与者。

行动吧。

Participant，翻译过来便是“参与者”，也许这个小小的传媒公司，从名字就在向我们传达着一个讯息:我们每个人都是故事的参与者、戏中人，没有人能永远冷眼旁观，隔岸观火。

德国著名神学家兼信义宗牧师马丁·尼莫拉写过一首举世闻名的小诗，诗名叫《我没有说话》。

诗中是这样写的:起初纳粹杀共产党时，我没有出声——因为我不是共产党员；接着他们迫害犹太人，我没有出声——因为我不是犹太人；然后他们杀工会成员，我没有出声——因为我不是工会成员；后来他们迫害天主教徒，我没有出声——因为我是新教徒；最后当他们开始对付我的时候，已经没有人能站出来为我发声了。

迫害就像海上蔓延的雾，你永远不能期待它会在你面前停下来。

所以，也许保护自己最后的方式，不是独善其身，而且从一开始，就把自己当做一个参与者，把自己当成最初的那个共产党人，那个犹太人，那个工会成员，那个天主教徒，最后，当你把自己当成自己时，也会有千千万万的人站出来，把自己，当成你。

No.38 追求真相和正义的孤胆英雄目前这个光景，门是不敢出了，但电影该看还是要看。

本周由观影团推选的周限定电影《黑水》也是一个直刺社会现实的诚意佳作，影片讲述了马克叔扮演的律师Rob Bilott单枪匹马对阵美国最大的化学集团——杜邦集团的故事。

电影改编自一篇《纽约时报》的报道(原文：The Lawyer Who Became DuPont’s Worst Nightmare 作者： Nathaniel Rich)，上映后收获了不少好评，目前豆瓣8.3，烂番茄89%新鲜度。

现在话不多说，看看观影团小伙伴们对这个新片如何评价吧。

本周周限定共有25人参加，平均分为6.6分。

震撼人心的事实真相这个电影改编的真实事件就有足够的震慑力。

一名律师为何只身对抗一个化学工业巨头？

因为总得有人去抗争， 每个民众都应该有得知真相的权利。

之所以死磕杜邦，是因为PFOA，这是一种曾经广泛应用在包括不粘锅在内的许多日用品里的合成化学品。

杜邦公司早在六七十年代就知道了PFOA对人体健康和环境会造成危害，但为了巨大的商业利益一直对此进行隐瞒，刻意误导公众和美国的监管机构，甚至还随意丢弃含有PFOA的工业垃圾，对美国不少城市的地下水系统造成了污染。

直到1999年，这名律师因为偶然的机会接触到其中的材料，随后在16年的时间里和杜邦打官司，才让这一切大白于天下，让公众知道了PFOA的危害，也让世人看清了杜邦的贪婪与丑恶。

目前各国都已经限制了PFOA的使用。

电影曾经充当着人类社会最伟大的目击者、记录者和见证者，看到《黑水》《聚焦》《华盛顿邮报》后，我想现在还是有人在重视电影见证和记录的意义的。

（部分文字来自@渡辺dudu @野凡 的短评）@野凡 ：8/10 总得有人去抗争，与巨大的利益集团抗争，与雄厚的权势抗争，与不为人知的神秘幕后抗争。

@扶不起先生：8/10 一潭黑水投入大石必定泛起涟漪，可混浊不堪的水面却将结果推向未知。

20年的接力赛跑其中的辛酸可想而知，体制中无形的高墙却将终点掩盖而去。

影片以独有稳当的视角进行阐述，其中夹带几许阴谋论的调调值得玩味，实则是个体代表集体发声，冲破并完善体制本身的壮举。

@NanSLi: 8/10 文本从本质上与《聚焦》有些许异曲同工之妙，但其深处又未像前者那般细致入微又抽丝剥茧，与其说是揭露真相史，不如说是自我捍卫的心灵史。

沉着又的清透微光色调，湛蓝中夹杂着细微冷意。

亦如人物细致入微的内心刻画，浅淡窥见一斑却尽显清晰、分明。

清亮的配乐下阴郁与邃然逐丝逐缕渗透、牵引。

看尽时间流逝，看尽世间真相，受尽冷眼质疑。

依旧用着那副早已千疮百孔的身躯，那个疲乏的姿态，向世间掷出足以振聋发聩的声音...@蝠蝠：8/10 自由是什么？

只能墙沿欢笑罢了。

@笑语在午夜场： 8/10 社会良心题材，对标《聚焦》。

绝对不是所谓「工整」的平庸之作，影片的力道可以化骨。

主角几十年的精力损耗才换来一点点成功和补偿，这需要的不仅仅是正义，还有能站出来能担大事的勇气和决心，真正的天将降大任于斯人也。

电影的价值和意义有一部分就体现在反映现实境况、彰显社会责任上，《黑水》是一部佳作@贝克街的大盗：8/10 他们想让我们认为 体制会保护我们 但那就是个谎言 是我们保护我们自己 没有别人 作为一名河流水环境相关专业的学生 看的真的挺揪心的 尤其再加上最近这个疫情的社会背景 好不容易在质疑中七年等来了报告 杜邦的一句反悔付之东流 挺绝望的 好在最后一口气3000多桩慢慢算 还算好了一点 唉。

想想现在的一幕幕魔幻现实主义@@渡辺dudu： 8/10 现实意义大于电影本身。

电影曾经充当着人类社会最伟大的目击者、记录者和见证者，看到《黑水》《聚焦》《华盛顿邮报》后，我想现在还是有人在重视电影见证和记录的意义的。

@叶底藏花： 8/10 这TM才是现实主义，在国内看到这种以一己之力对抗庞然大物的电影大概是永远不可能。

整体拍得很工整，从事情的揭露到调查再到诉讼，故事有条不紊地展开。

整体的色调是偏暗的，中间低沉的配乐也让电影显得压抑。

反高潮的处理也值得称道 ，并不是那种所谓皆大欢喜而是有着工作的枯燥和个人的痛苦。

最触目惊心的应该是最后，C8已经存在于地球上99％的人体内......与我而已，我永远钦佩那些秉持着公平正义与良心的人，然而在中..国，这样的人大概是404吧。

@鹳鸟踟蹰: 8/10 我们无数次的探头寻找so called正义，在漫长的等待中，谁是赢家？

黑色的水，化学污染，强权和金钱，层层无法剥离的阴霾。

沉稳冷静地叙述着体制无法拯救的苦难。

人物塑造上却是如此无力了。

@无火：7/10 说起个人对抗体制这类题材，韩国和美国涉及的最多，强弱对立的悲壮感的极力渲染，很容易打动观众。

然而本片貌似并没有刻意渲染这种情绪，而是去展现个人在对抗体制过程给身边亲近的人带来的诸多困境与冷落，这一点很不错。

当一个人选择为理想、正义、天下而奋不顾身时，他内心斗志或者是执念至少可以抚慰他，但他的亲人却要被动性的承受太多苦痛。

英雄可敬，但英雄背后的人更伟大。

@臻圣：7/10 当下时机看这部片子感受颇深。

“既然干了，我就干到底”罗伯特这股锲而不舍的劲儿令人钦佩，“为众人抱薪者”——顶住压力公然向大公司挑战，值得一部电影铭记。

全片近八成的画面充斥着冷峻阴郁的蓝色调。

导演采用大量的主观镜头停留于报纸、书页、照片、屏幕，去体现罗伯特调查取证收集线索的复杂和艰难。

时间跨度很大，气氛沉闷又有压迫感，社会这滩黑水才是真的深不见底。

片尾的一串串数字触目惊心。

片尾触目惊心的数字同时本片也有强大的班底保驾护航。

首先，出品公司Participant Media，制作了不少颁奖季的冲奥片，主打社会性强的现实题材影片，如颁奖季大热的《美国工厂》《绿皮书》《华盛顿邮报》等，而主演马克鲁法洛与安妮海瑟薇还有男配提姆罗宾斯，都是一等一的演技实力派。

特别是马克叔这次的发挥，非常扎实稳重。

@☄①号试管： 9/10 印象最深刻的是Rob在车里颤颤巍巍插钥匙发动汽车，重压下处在奔溃边缘的氛围令人窒息。

全片都笼罩着一股阴郁的气息，即使结局正义得到伸张时总算喘了口气，字幕又冰冷的弹出了“据研究，99%的生物体内都含有特氟龙，包括人类”。

再作妖下去人类还有几年命数哦…… ” @cinedreamer_：8/10 以一己之力对抗一家巨头产业乃至整个政府，需要多少勇气和毅力？

又需要多久的等待多大的牺牲？

题材其实并不陌生，整体拍得也很平很严肃，但得益于Todd Haynes的出色功力，整部片的节奏都非常稳、故事线也清晰，虽时长两小时有余却并不显冗长，而那种压抑与震惊感又是随着故事不断发展逐渐渗透着的，很敢拍也的确拍的很好。

马克叔还是呆呆的，安妮大概算是正常发挥（波浪长发还是美到我昏厥啊呜呜呜），以及一度对影片中事件的真实性存疑，没想到居然真的是以真事为基础？

太细思极恐了。

@铁甲依然在：7/10 黑水，四颗星。

“他甘愿为了一个需要他帮助的陌生人冒着所有的风险”改编自真实事件，被主角坚持不懈的努力感动。

面对这些巨头，几乎不可能取胜，政府已经被操控了，一直是我们自己在保护自己，看看现在的社会吧，太真实了。

欣慰的是依然有人在伸张正义，默默前行。

@董小__： 7/10 还是一个常规对抗体制的故事。

对人物的刻画好，主角从不愿意做到想见好就收再到持续致力，人物变化清晰，在无畏背后有脆弱，愤怒背后还有不甘。

故事四平八稳，社会意义大于剧情吸引力。

@空曲成歌：7/10 有点闷 故事节奏过慢 像一部纪录片 马克叔饰演的人物以微薄之力对付一家庞大的公司实在钦佩 意味着要面临着许多许多的牺牲 p.s.安妮女神的戏份也太少了！

长发还是很美!真实归真实，但真的拍的一般而观影团内另一种声音则认为事件真实归真实，震撼归震撼，但是从电影层面而言，问题还是非常多的，首先是克制冷静的风格下叙事没有亮点，节奏也偏慢偏闷，拍的太像纪录片。

人物塑造上过度的突出主人公一人，把马克叔自己的角色塑造的非常出色，但其他配角没有起到很好的作用，引用@Supremacyacron 的一句短评就是“导演也没像他的成名作《卡罗尔》那般去多方面挖掘人物的内心戏，以至于安妮海瑟薇等人的角色与路人无二。

”@玻璃球游戏🎱： 5.5/10 全片节奏就像弗吉尼亚的那滩黑水死气沉沉，所有的戏剧性被看似沉稳实则空洞的叙事屠戮了。

Robert作为主角则从头到尾都像木偶一样机械般无知觉地左支右绌，真正称得上危机的事件只有结尾处所谓托拉斯对于个人权益的抹杀，然而这难道不理所应当作为全片贯彻始终的主题，而非刻意编排成反转似的强权的反扑吗？

所有共情在如此流水账的演绎下变得毫无可能，力求纪录片式的展现却缺失了观众得知真相的震感，早早地将杜邦公司的罪行和盘托出，余下一场场的庭审和质问戏乏味且毫无悬念，传递出的胶着感源于剧作上做作的原地踏步，弗吉尼亚阴郁的气质也仅仅停留在前半段不再流动。

@Cor cordium： 6.5/10 作为托德海因斯的电影，未免太一般了，细腻的感情也丢了，最后只剩空洞的故事和事实，此类电影和韩国那一套未免太过相似。

海因斯向来可以处理各种复杂问题，像《天鹅绒金矿》把大的时代音乐映射在小的人物身上，暗流涌动，狂野无比。

《卡罗尔》和《远离天堂》对感情的细腻拿捏都是恰到好处，后者更是能融汇多个问题，并相得益彰，实在是强。

但是这部电影，我们除了看到纪实，就没有别的了，有个别几处镜头相当有趣，以及马克叔抖手的诸多小细节，除此之外，言无他物，这也许是这类电影的通性吧。

@wild life： 7/10 冲这个真实事件给三星，没想到是个聚焦2.0，聚焦我就没太大兴趣，这个也是同理，这题材也就国外能做了，国内？

呵呵。

@mdr skywalker: 7/10 这部电影可能在拍的时候导演根本就没想太多，没有花哨的手法，他只想告诉我们一个事实，让我们跟随Rob这个律师一步步探索真相，坚守真相，以一人对抗杜邦这个利益集团，乃至背后的体制。

马克叔的表演一如既往地扎实稳重，安妮依然漂亮。

但是简单的单一时间线和过分突出的单一主角也确实难入颁奖季的法眼，节奏也偏闷偏慢，有些遗憾。

@Supremacyacron: 6/10 叙事风格稳健，对时间线的重视超过了故事本身，所以在中后期的叙事上力度显得不太够，稍微有点拖沓。

追击真相这个事件本身就很具有说服力，能够十几年如一日的坚守到真相大白于世也确实不容易。

马克鲁法洛的表现也是中规中矩，但是话说回来，表演没有十几年前演《救赎之路》那般相对出彩，导演也没像他的成名作《卡罗尔》那般去多方面挖掘人物的内心戏，以至于安妮海瑟薇等人的角色与路人无二。

@素素素素素丶: 6/10 Participant的这种片子看多了多少会有点麻木啊，经典老套的大情节设计，一切都为了核心服务。

相对于其他几部角色塑造又少，整体太过于规整，完全就是冲着颁奖季而拍的电影，感觉拍成纪录片会更好一点，多一星给社会意义。

@莫莫：4/10 电影的社会现实性比电影本身更具意义。

仅打分：@Polaris.J：7/10 @Anyslus: 8/10

本期的周限定观影大致就到这里了，祝各位友邻身体健康，多看好片。

附：【春天的放牛班】往期回顾【春天的放牛班】 观影团 周限定观影片单

第一、什么是特氟龙首先我们来了解一下本片的大佬——特氟龙，是个啥东西。

特氟龙是一个商标，英文叫Teflon®，是美国杜邦公司注册的。

它的化学名叫聚四氟乙烯（Polytetrafluoroethylene），英文缩写为PTFE，俗称“塑料王，哈拉”，用它做成的材料，300℃才能分解，400℃才能水解，抗酸抗碱抗各种溶剂，连王水都溶解不了，再加上耐高温、摩擦系数低，广泛应用于原子能、国防、航天、电子、电气、化工、机械、仪器、仪表、建筑等领域。

民用领域也和我们的生活朝夕相伴，最常见的如不粘锅、雨衣雨具和衣服等。

第二、特氟龙和杜邦公司杜邦是一家1802年诞生于美国的化学制品和销售公司，经营内容涉及食品、保健、家具、交通、服装等领域。

2018年总收入279.4亿美元，员工52000人，在世界五百强中排名171。

我在网上查证了资料，有和影片对得上的也有对不上的，对不上的部分我以影片为准。

接下来我以杜邦公司为主角，撸一下它与特氟龙的前世今生。

1938年，化学家罗伊·普朗克特（Roy J. Plunkett）博士在杜邦公司的一个实验室中意外发现四氟乙烯。

1941年，杜邦公司取得四氟乙烯的专利。

1942年，四氟乙烯被用于美国曼哈顿计划（制造坦克外部材料），杜邦公司是主要参与者。

1944年，杜邦公司以"Teflon"的名称注册商标。

1954年，法国工程师马克·格雷瓜尔(Marc Gregoire)的妻子柯莱特(Colette)觉得特氟龙既然能防止钓鱼线打结，用在煎锅上效果一定不错。

同年，杜邦公司开始生产特氟龙，并迅速成为该公司最赚钱的流水线（3天7000万美金）。

1954年，供应商3M公司向杜邦公司递交关于聚四氟乙烯的毒性报告，报告显示其在白鼠实验中表现出导致胚胎畸形（主要是眼部）的危害性。

1954—1975年，杜邦自己做人体实验，将材料注入烟丝，派发香烟给工人抽。

特氟龙生产线出现多名工人生病早逝现象，死亡岁数30岁到50岁不等。

并有多名女性产下畸形婴儿，其中一名叫巴基贝利，在片中真人出现，只有一只眼睛一个鼻孔，且没长在正确位置，慎看。

1975年，位于西弗吉尼亚州（没错，就是《乡村小路带我回家》里深情歌唱的那个地方）杜邦公司堆料场旁边的一个养殖场出现200多头牛奇怪死亡的现象，没死的也表现出强烈的攻击性。

养殖场主厄尔田纳特（Erl Tenant）解剖了死牛，保存被感染的器官作为证据，并将解剖过程录成录像。

1980年代，杜邦公司检测特氟龙的毒性，作为对比，需要寻找血液中没有C-8（组成四氟乙烯的碳分子链）的血液样本，包括动物，结果找遍了全世界都没找到，最后在一名参加过朝鲜战争的美军士兵的血液样本中找到。

也就是说，50年代以后，几乎所有生物体中都有四氟乙烯的成分。

1998年，田纳特通过同乡关系找到律师罗伯特比洛特（Robert Bilott），也就是本片的主角，他是一位辩护律师，在影片开始，他刚刚成为所从事的律师事务所的合伙人，杜邦公司是这家律师事务所的最大客户。

比洛特接下案件，同年，他和杜邦公司总裁菲尔首次谈及此事，对方表示愿意配合。

1999年，比洛特和菲尔再次见面谈及此事，菲尔当众发怒。

出于法律程序，杜邦公司将1941年以后的所有材料都寄给比洛特，堆满了整个档案室。

比洛特推掉所有案件，以一己之力，花费一年时间将材料全部看完并逐一编号，并发现一种叫PFOA的化学物质，询问杜邦公司未果，转而咨询专家学者，并搞清楚了是其中一种叫C-8的碳分子链破坏了人体健康。

2000年，田纳特一家被同乡排挤，不久后夫妇俩检查出癌症。

杜邦公司派直升机全天候监视养殖场，田纳特手持猎枪，睡在皮卡上守护。

同年在比洛特的坚持下，杜邦公司同意民事调解，给予田纳特补偿（具体数字没有说）。

田纳特一开始不接受，在比洛特的劝说下同意。

一家人离开世代经营的养殖场，迁居镇上。

2001年，比洛特受到同事排挤，老板力排众议，继续支持他。

2002年，地方法院首次开庭审理杜邦案件，关于C-8含量的标准问题产生分歧，即究竟多少含量可被判定有害。

美国环保署1976年才开始检测化学物质，当时未建立标准，全靠企业自查。

同年，标准制定小组诞生。

2003年，为比洛特提供证据的其他受害人家庭受到攻击和排挤，其中包括在杜邦公司工作的当地居民。

2004年，比洛特质询当年对接3M公司毒性报告的杜邦公司化学工程师，证实了杜邦公司一开始就知道C-8的危害性但毫无作为。

杜邦公司同意支付1650万美元的罚款给环保署，支付7000万美元的费用给诉讼群体，其中包含了比洛特的律师事务所。

比洛特推动更多当地居民索取赔偿，但须执行医药监护，也就是将杜邦生产特氟龙所排放的废水废气和居民健康问题建立医学概念上的对等关系，该关系一旦确立，杜邦公司将支付2.35亿美元的赔偿。

由无利益关联的科学家组成的监护小组成立，其运作经费由律师事务所支付。

比洛特承担巨大压力。

2005年，截止到圣诞节前夕，有6.9万居民接受血液采样，每人获得400美元的报酬，由杜邦公司支付。

居民拖家带口来抽血，言词间流露出对杜邦公司的感激。

2006年，环保署起诉杜邦公司。

杜邦公司以之前没有标准为由，表示须等检测结果出来后再支付。

没有拿到赔偿的居民迁怒于比洛特和举证者。

比洛特被三次降薪，出现右手抖动症状。

2010年，比洛特因将过多精力投入到案件上忽略了家庭，夫妻矛盾爆发。

2011年，比洛特被第四次降薪，降到原来的三分之一，晕倒住院，查出为间歇性脑供血不足，近似于中风，压力太大导致。

2012年，检测小组调查结果公布，对等关系成立。

杜邦公司反悔，不愿支付赔偿。

比洛特懊恼之下转向群体诉讼策略。

2015年，群体诉讼案件开庭，共有3535起案件起诉杜邦公司，杜邦公司为此支付了6.707亿美元的赔偿。

同年，美国环保署禁止在民用商品中使用特氟龙。

2017年，聚四氟乙烯中的主要成分，PFOA和PFOS被列为2B类致癌物。

比洛特律师至今仍在为受到侵害的美国家庭办理诉讼。

第三、我对影片的看法 首先，影片的话题意义超过艺术价值，这是毋庸置疑的。

电影对社会和法制的推动，韩国的《熔炉》是杰出代表，它直接推动政府出台了未成年人保护法，美国电影人也喜欢把一起起事件搬上银幕，让观众了解事件的始末，这无疑会加强民众对政府和公司的警惕性和监控，而且美国是个案例法的国家，作用就更大了。

值得一提的是，《黑水》通个班底拍摄制作的另一部同类题材影片《聚焦》，获得了2016年奥斯卡最佳电影，推荐一看。

反过来看我们这里，现实题材的影片就少了点，我十分期待有人把华为251事件搬上银幕。

《我不是药神》开了个好头，但到目前为止还没有后续的作品接上。

值得一提的是，《我不是药神》》是现实题材改编，而且改得非常多。

真正好的现实题材电影是需要制作者从骨子里坚持现实主义的，我们这里可能有现实题材，但目前来看还缺乏现实主义。

其次，如上所述，影片的表现手法比较普通，一般观众容易觉得无聊，即使对于喜欢这类题材的观众，最后半小时也很差强人意，因为没有做到情绪上的连贯性。

如果说前面一个半小时通过一系列细节让人的情绪保持在一条水平线上（和《聚焦》相比确实很平），那最后半小时就往下滑了，直到最后也没有拉一个高潮起来。

导演和编剧也知道这一点，所以安排了比洛特夫妻吵架、晕倒送医的戏份，但故事进展到这样的环节，观众已经无法被主线之外的情节吸引。

第三，部分情节缺乏说服力，如一开始比洛特律师接下养殖场的案子，影片交代的动机是乡情，并且使用《乡村小路带我回家》来渲染情绪，固然感人，但理智上缺乏说服力。

又比如最后半部分，角色们全部处于等待状态，而等待的结果是杜邦公司反悔，作为一名资深律师，难道一开始没想到这一点？

影片中比洛特把责任都推给了政府和杜邦公司，这都是情绪上的宣泄，如果影片在前面作出一些技术性的交代如杜邦公司的律师找出了法律漏洞留作后路，那杜邦公司的突然反悔就有说服力很多。

当然，影片还是非常值得一看的，尤其是对于关注社会新闻的朋友更是不可错过。

对于我来说，看完这部片子之后，多认识了一种叫特氟龙的人工合成材料，而且它就在我们身边（欧美国家已经禁止使用，我国国家质检总局2019年才开始开始论证特氟龙是否危害人体健康，目前仅靠厂商自觉）。

以后买锅碗瓢盆塑料制品这些东西查看组成材料的时候，就会特别注意聚四氟乙烯、PFOA、PFOS、C-8这些字眼了。