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Documentaries Zero In on Wall Street, and They Show No Mercy
By MICHAEL CIEPLY
the real thing...
TORONTO — Move over, Gordon Gekko. The real Wall Street is ready for its close-up. And it is not a pretty picture.
Several films now playing at the Toronto International Film Festival, and set to open in theaters around the United States in the next few months, offer a brutal assessment of the debt-swapping high jinks, regulatory failings and general spirit of self-aggrandizement that, by the movie world’s lights, led to the financial collapse of 2008.
Two documentaries, “Client 9: The Rise and Fall of Eliot Spitzer,” directed by Alex Gibney, and “Inside Job,” from Charles Ferguson, take direct aim at Wall Street powers who are described as contributing to the financial implosion. The films also land some shots on Mr. Spitzer, the watchdog who became governor of New York and who fell from grace in a prostitution scandal but has now been somewhat rehabilitated as a host on CNN.
“Client 9” is set for release on Nov. 1 by Magnolia Pictures. “Inside Job” will be shown at the New York Film Festival later this month, then will be released commercially by Sony Pictures Classics in October.
A third film, “Casino Jack,” directed by George Hickenlooper, casts Kevin Spacey as Jack Abramoff, the former businessman and lobbyist who was sentenced to federal prison after a conviction for defrauding Indian tribes and contributing to official corruption.
While Mr. Abramoff did not generally work the same turf as the denizens of Lehman Brothers and Goldman Sachs, he is depicted as crossing the corridors of political power in which the financial crisis was fostered.
All this, and Michael Douglas is back too. Now his “Wall Street” character, Mr. Gekko, is out of prison and is counseling Shia LaBeouf as a young trader in “Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps.” That film is directed by Oliver Stone and set for release by 20th Century Fox on Sept. 24.
an actor....
Given the allure of stories packed with conspiracies and villains — though these are somewhat short on heroes — it was probably inevitable that filmmakers should be delivering assessments of a crash exactly now. After all, it takes about two years for most feature films to catch up with real events.
Mr. Gibney, who spoke on Sunday morning, over a breakfast of pancakes and bacon at The Senator, an antique diner in Toronto, said that scandal in the world of high finance seems to come in perennial waves.
“They keep coming back, and it gets worse and worse every time,” he said of Wall Street’s wrongdoers.
Already an Oscar winner for “Taxi to the Dark Side,” a documentary critique of antiterrorism tactics, Mr. Gibney said he was drawn to Mr. Spitzer’s story by its “spectacular resonance.” His film, which explores the sex scandal that drove Mr. Spitzer from New York’s governorship in 2008, does not let its subject off easily: Mr. Spitzer’s staff members, we are reminded, shuddered on the days when his body seemed to be inhabited by an evil twin they named “Irwin.”
But Mr. Spitzer’s tale also becomes a platform for Mr. Gibney’s examination of Wall Street, and what he sets up as a gallery of rogues who would make the fictional Mr. Gekko blush. Principal characters in “Client 9” include the fallen securities analyst Henry Blodget, the former stock exchange chief Richard A. Grasso, and the ex-chairman of the American International Group, Maurice R. Greenberg.
Mr. Spitzer also plays a pivotal role in “Inside Job,” which is narrated by Matt Damon and includes interviews with a string of political figures, academics, watchdogs and Wall Street operators, some of whom get deeply unflattering treatment while being grilled about their contributions to the crisis.
Using the documentarian’s full bag of tricks, Mr. Ferguson points the camera at Paul A. Volcker while he sips an amber liquid on the rocks. Frederic Mishkin, a Columbia Business School professor and former Federal Reserve governor, hems and haws into a mercilessly unswerving lens.
Being fictionalized, if not exactly fiction, “Casino Jack” — set for release by ATO Pictures in December — has an actual plot, and follows a somewhat different trail than the documentaries. It picks up Mr. Abramoff as he gives himself a pep talk in a mirror, before unspooling a web of what Mr. Hickenlooper, quoted by Movieline.com at a Hollywood screening earlier this year, called “white-collar thuggery.”
The films do not really function as partisan political tools; if anything, they share a populist impulse that finds its devils mostly in the interlocking political, business and academic elites. The net effect is to create a picture of New York and its sister cities, Washington and Boston, as corrupt hellholes in which almost anything went, and perhaps still goes.
Although meticulously researched, the documentaries tend to let Main Street off the hook. Neither looks closely at those who borrowed money while knowing they could never pay it back, or at retirees who draw California-style pensions that could only be financed with the absurd profits from all those now-derided derivatives.
Still, Mr. Ferguson insisted in an e-mail over the weekend, the little guy was far more victim than perpetrator in the crash.
“The population was driven into this behavior rather than being the driver of it,” Mr. Ferguson wrote during the festival.
He added: “The core driver of this crisis was, on the contrary, irresponsible and even criminal financial sector behavior.”
And, besides, there is always room for a sequel.
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/13/bu...reet&st=Search
By MICHAEL CIEPLY
the real thing...
TORONTO — Move over, Gordon Gekko. The real Wall Street is ready for its close-up. And it is not a pretty picture.
Several films now playing at the Toronto International Film Festival, and set to open in theaters around the United States in the next few months, offer a brutal assessment of the debt-swapping high jinks, regulatory failings and general spirit of self-aggrandizement that, by the movie world’s lights, led to the financial collapse of 2008.
Two documentaries, “Client 9: The Rise and Fall of Eliot Spitzer,” directed by Alex Gibney, and “Inside Job,” from Charles Ferguson, take direct aim at Wall Street powers who are described as contributing to the financial implosion. The films also land some shots on Mr. Spitzer, the watchdog who became governor of New York and who fell from grace in a prostitution scandal but has now been somewhat rehabilitated as a host on CNN.
“Client 9” is set for release on Nov. 1 by Magnolia Pictures. “Inside Job” will be shown at the New York Film Festival later this month, then will be released commercially by Sony Pictures Classics in October.
A third film, “Casino Jack,” directed by George Hickenlooper, casts Kevin Spacey as Jack Abramoff, the former businessman and lobbyist who was sentenced to federal prison after a conviction for defrauding Indian tribes and contributing to official corruption.
While Mr. Abramoff did not generally work the same turf as the denizens of Lehman Brothers and Goldman Sachs, he is depicted as crossing the corridors of political power in which the financial crisis was fostered.
All this, and Michael Douglas is back too. Now his “Wall Street” character, Mr. Gekko, is out of prison and is counseling Shia LaBeouf as a young trader in “Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps.” That film is directed by Oliver Stone and set for release by 20th Century Fox on Sept. 24.
an actor....
Given the allure of stories packed with conspiracies and villains — though these are somewhat short on heroes — it was probably inevitable that filmmakers should be delivering assessments of a crash exactly now. After all, it takes about two years for most feature films to catch up with real events.
Mr. Gibney, who spoke on Sunday morning, over a breakfast of pancakes and bacon at The Senator, an antique diner in Toronto, said that scandal in the world of high finance seems to come in perennial waves.
“They keep coming back, and it gets worse and worse every time,” he said of Wall Street’s wrongdoers.
Already an Oscar winner for “Taxi to the Dark Side,” a documentary critique of antiterrorism tactics, Mr. Gibney said he was drawn to Mr. Spitzer’s story by its “spectacular resonance.” His film, which explores the sex scandal that drove Mr. Spitzer from New York’s governorship in 2008, does not let its subject off easily: Mr. Spitzer’s staff members, we are reminded, shuddered on the days when his body seemed to be inhabited by an evil twin they named “Irwin.”
But Mr. Spitzer’s tale also becomes a platform for Mr. Gibney’s examination of Wall Street, and what he sets up as a gallery of rogues who would make the fictional Mr. Gekko blush. Principal characters in “Client 9” include the fallen securities analyst Henry Blodget, the former stock exchange chief Richard A. Grasso, and the ex-chairman of the American International Group, Maurice R. Greenberg.
Mr. Spitzer also plays a pivotal role in “Inside Job,” which is narrated by Matt Damon and includes interviews with a string of political figures, academics, watchdogs and Wall Street operators, some of whom get deeply unflattering treatment while being grilled about their contributions to the crisis.
Using the documentarian’s full bag of tricks, Mr. Ferguson points the camera at Paul A. Volcker while he sips an amber liquid on the rocks. Frederic Mishkin, a Columbia Business School professor and former Federal Reserve governor, hems and haws into a mercilessly unswerving lens.
Being fictionalized, if not exactly fiction, “Casino Jack” — set for release by ATO Pictures in December — has an actual plot, and follows a somewhat different trail than the documentaries. It picks up Mr. Abramoff as he gives himself a pep talk in a mirror, before unspooling a web of what Mr. Hickenlooper, quoted by Movieline.com at a Hollywood screening earlier this year, called “white-collar thuggery.”
The films do not really function as partisan political tools; if anything, they share a populist impulse that finds its devils mostly in the interlocking political, business and academic elites. The net effect is to create a picture of New York and its sister cities, Washington and Boston, as corrupt hellholes in which almost anything went, and perhaps still goes.
Although meticulously researched, the documentaries tend to let Main Street off the hook. Neither looks closely at those who borrowed money while knowing they could never pay it back, or at retirees who draw California-style pensions that could only be financed with the absurd profits from all those now-derided derivatives.
Still, Mr. Ferguson insisted in an e-mail over the weekend, the little guy was far more victim than perpetrator in the crash.
“The population was driven into this behavior rather than being the driver of it,” Mr. Ferguson wrote during the festival.
He added: “The core driver of this crisis was, on the contrary, irresponsible and even criminal financial sector behavior.”
And, besides, there is always room for a sequel.
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/13/bu...reet&st=Search
a pressure relief valve....