list http://www.spout.com/ Recent community activity around Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room on Spout Copyright 2005-9 Spout, LLC Spout RSS http://www.spout.com/images/SpoutLogoRSS.jpg http://www.spout.com/ 136 30 http://www.spout.com/films/Enron_The_Smartest_Guys_in_the_Room/246453/default.aspx Title: Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room
Year: 2005
Director: Alex Gibney
Plot: Alex Gibney, who wrote and produced Eugene Jarecki's The Trials of Henry Kissinger, examines the rise and fall of an infamous corporate juggernaut in Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room, which he wrote and directed. The film, based on the book by Fortune Magazine reporters Bethany McLean and Peter Elkind, opens with a reenactment of the suicide of Enron executive Cliff Baxter, then travels back in time, describing Enron chairman Kenneth Lay's humble beginnings as the son of a preacher, his ascent in the corporate world as an "apostle of deregulation," his fortuitous friendship with the Bush family, and the development of his business strategies in natural gas futures. The film points out that the culture of financial malfeasance at Enron was evident as far back as 1987, when Lay apparently encouraged the outrageous risk taking and profit skimming of two oil traders in Enron's Valhalla office because they were bringing a lot of money into the company. But it wasn't until eventual CEO Jeff Skilling arrived at Enron that the company's "aggressive accounting" philosophy truly took hold. The Smartest Guys in the Room explores the lengths to which the company went in order to appear incredibly profitable. Their win-at-all-costs strategy included suborning financial analysts with huge contracts for their firms, hiding debts by essentially having the company loan money to itself, and using California's deregulation of the electricity market to manipulate the state's energy supply. Gibney's film reveals how Lay, Skilling, and other execs managed to keep their riches, while thousands of lower-level employees saw their loyalty repaid with the loss of their jobs and their retirement funds. The filmmaker posits the Enron scandal not as an anomaly, but as a natural outgrowth of free-market capitalism. ~ Josh Ralske, All Movie Guide
Times Tagged: 11
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]]>Sat, 21 Feb 2009 16:15:34 GMTEnron: The Smartest Guys in the Room2005Alex GibneyAlex Gibney, who wrote and produced Eugene Jarecki's <a href=/films/211293/default.aspx style='text-decoration:underline'>The Trials of Henry Kissinger</a>, examines the rise and fall of an infamous corporate juggernaut in Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room, which he wrote and directed. The film, based on the book by Fortune Magazine reporters Bethany McLean and Peter Elkind, opens with a reenactment of the suicide of Enron executive Cliff Baxter, then travels back in time, describing Enron chairman Kenneth Lay's humble beginnings as the son of a preacher, his ascent in the corporate world as an "apostle of deregulation," his fortuitous friendship with the Bush family, and the development of his business strategies in natural gas futures. The film points out that the culture of financial malfeasance at Enron was evident as far back as 1987, when Lay apparently encouraged the outrageous risk taking and profit skimming of two oil traders in Enron's Valhalla office because they were bringing a lot of money into the company. But it wasn't until eventual CEO Jeff Skilling arrived at Enron that the company's "aggressive accounting" philosophy truly took hold. The Smartest Guys in the Room explores the lengths to which the company went in order to appear incredibly profitable. Their win-at-all-costs strategy included suborning financial analysts with huge contracts for their firms, hiding debts by essentially having the company loan money to itself, and using California's deregulation of the electricity market to manipulate the state's energy supply. Gibney's film reveals how Lay, Skilling, and other execs managed to keep their riches, while thousands of lower-level employees saw their loyalty repaid with the loss of their jobs and their retirement funds. The filmmaker posits the Enron scandal not as an anomaly, but as a natural outgrowth of free-market capitalism. ~ Josh Ralske, All Movie Guide11Tag Target (>10)863http://www.spout.com/ProductImages/t88073j6ae8.jpghttp://www.spout.com/films/Enron_The_Smartest_Guys_in_the_Room/246453/default.aspxFilm http://www.spout.com/blogs/spoutblog/archive/2008/9/16/35197.aspx Post By: SpoutBlog
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Post Date: 9/16/2008 2:01:08 PM
Body: I’m probably the least financial-minded person there is, and I’ve never owned a stock, bond or whatever else people invest in. But I am an expert on being broke, being poor, being frugal and, most importantly, putting things into perspective. What I mean is, whenever I feel like things just can’t get any worse for me money-wise, I think of the people who are or were actually worse off than I am. And by people, I mostly mean characters from the movies. So, as you may be worrying about your finances after Black Monday, consider dropping by the video store on your way home from the office (or job interview) today. Invest a few bucks into your own sanity and happiness by renting one of the following movies. Don’t worry, I’ve tried to make the selections rather common and accessible. If you’re like any of the financial guys and girls I know, you’re not likely the sort to go for obscure or difficult cinema. And if you are of the sort, then you probably don’t need this list anyway. The Grapes of Wrath (1940) Let’s begin with one of the basics, a movie that will make you glad you at least aren’t living through the Great Depression. There are tons of films from and about the era, but this is perhaps the definitive example, adapted from John Steinbeck’s definitive story of the Okie migration. At times I’ve felt like I can identify with the financial hardships of the Joads, particularly when I’ve been after a job that tons of other people are after, too. But there’s really no comparison, and you’re likely to agree. After seeing the family’s struggle, you’ll be glad you don’t have it so bad. But you’ll also hopefully be lifted up by the conclusive speeches of both Tom and Ma Joad, who inspire us all to keep on keeping on, no matter what the setback. American Madness (1932) Going back a little earlier, here’s another film dealing with the Great Depression (though not as directly), and one that’s more relative to the current situation of bank failures. Its plot deals with a bank that is robbed and then rumored to be out of money, leading to a withdrawal panic. Released one year prior to the creation of the FDIC, it may be a comforting reminder of how much more secure your deposits are today. (Even if it is a potential problem that the FDIC doesn’t exactly have as much money as it insures against.) Nine Queens (2000) A lot of films dealing with cons can be watched to ease the suffering of financial woes. But then you have to realize that while you may be better off than the victim who has lost all his savings or seen his casino vault emptied, you’ll still want to hate the con artist who gets away with the fortune. With Nine Queens, there is indeed one of those guys you’ll be upset with in the end, but the film has an extra level to it than most movies about a long con, because it’s set amidst Argentina’s economic collapse at the turn of this century. Like the desperate bank run scenes from American Madness, a similar scene involving a crisis at a Buenos Aires bank should leave you a little more optimistic about the current situation in the U.S. Surely we could never experience as critical an economic failure as they did in Argentina, right? One more thing: don’t dare rent the inferior American remake, Criminal, which just doesn’t have the same relevance. I Served the King of England (2006) You won’t find this in the video store just yet, but hopefully it’s playing in a theater near you (currently it’s on 37 screens). I’ve so far contrasted your possibly upsetting financial situation with that of sufferers of the Great Depression and of the Argentine economic crisis. Now, here’s the worse-off situation of the Czechs under Nazi occupation and then communism. Filled with irony and wit, this film should, unlike some of the rest, put a smile on your face while also making you thankful that you didn’t have the misfortune of becoming a millionaire right on the brink of your nation’s change to communism. If there’s anything worse than losing your fortune, it’s losing your fortune and being sent to prison for having such a fortune. Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room (2005) On the other side of the coin, you may want to watch this documentary about the Enron scandal if you are more angry about your economic situation and would rather see a villain sent to prison for corruptly amassing a great fortune. Of course, while the protagonist of I Served the King of England is a lot more lovable, his riches aren’t exactly free from sin, either. And if you’re completely averse to watching either a doc or a foreign film, you could just watch Wall Street again and take out your frustration on Gordon Gekko. Bicycle Thieves (1948) Hopefully you’re not against foreign films, though, because anyone experiencing a financial crunch should take a look at this Italian neorealist classic. Any time I’ve felt helpless due to unemployment or lack of money, I remember that at least I have a certain level of education and skill to fall back on, unlike poor Antonio, who can’t get work after his bicycle is stolen. Films with similar stories inspired by DeSica’s masterpiece, including Cyclo and Man Push Cart (but probably not Pee-Wee’s Big Adventure), may also be worth a look. Grey Gardens (1975) Also, hopefully you aren’t completely against watching a documentary, especially one that’s a little more lighthearted than Enron. Of course, watching two nutty former socialites living in squalor and allowing a once-beautiful mansion to fall apart could possibly make you just as irate. Just be glad that your own riches to rags story doesn’t involve tons of feral cats and a seemingly oblivious daughter who will one day be a poster girl for drag queens. Trading Places (1983) Despite whatever happens with the current economic disaster, America will always be a place where one can get rich as quickly as one can lose it all, and no movie focuses on that truth as well as this comedy, about a bet to see how easily a bum can be made a millionaire, and a millionaire can be made a bum. Plus, it’s always nice to watch the greedy Duke brothers get their just deserts in the end. Just don’t watch Coming to America afterward, so as to pretend they never come back. The Pursuit of Happyness (2006) A lot of people are too cynical to enjoy this movie, but when you’re down in the dumps, especially financially, it’s a good pick-me-up, both for the uplifting story and the general American dream idea that one can truly rise from such poverty to such success as the real Chris Gardner did. Of course, given the current events, getting excited about a man struggling for a career in the financial world may not be so easy. I wonder if there are any good movies about working hard and making it big that don’t involve finance, sports or the entertainment industry. The Gold Rush (1925) In the Depression-set movie Sullivan’s Travels, it’s realized that audiences struggling with financial difficulties and other real-life woes would rather watch comedies than serious films focused on social problems. In that film, it’s a Disney cartoon called Playful Pluto that gives evidence of this, but it’s widely known that Preston Sturgis intended to use a Chaplin picture instead. So, as the final movie selection for the economically depressed, here’s one of the more fitting Chaplin features. While any film involving the Little Tramp could possibly serve to relatively lift you up, there’s just nothing better than watching Chaplin eat his boot and then being thankful for what you’ll be eating for dinner tonight. Now, I must address the possible outcry over the idea of making oneself feel better through the suffering of others. Yes, it’s terrible what people have had and still have to go through, both in America and around the world. Poverty is no joke, and it’s not exactly something that exists merely to balance out the brattiness of those not living in and with such poor conditions. So, I encourage you to, after watching whatever movie lifts your spirits up, find it in your heart to also be inspired to help someone less fortunate than yourself. Originally posted on:SpoutBlog
]]>Tue, 16 Sep 2008 18:01:08 GMTSpoutBlogSpoutBlog on spout.com9/16/2008 2:01:08 PM I’m probably the least financial-minded person there is, and I’ve never owned a stock, bond or whatever else people invest in. But I am an expert on being broke, being poor, being frugal and, most importantly, putting things into perspective. What I mean is, whenever I feel like things just can’t get any worse for me money-wise, I think of the people who are or were actually worse off than I am. And by people, I mostly mean characters from the movies. So, as you may be worrying about your finances after Black Monday, consider dropping by the video store on your way home from the office (or job interview) today. Invest a few bucks into your own sanity and happiness by renting one of the following movies. Don’t worry, I’ve tried to make the selections rather common and accessible. If you’re like any of the financial guys and girls I know, you’re not likely the sort to go for obscure or difficult cinema. And if you are of the sort, then you probably don’t need this list anyway. The Grapes of Wrath (1940) Let’s begin with one of the basics, a movie that will make you glad you at least aren’t living through the Great Depression. There are tons of films from and about the era, but this is perhaps the definitive example, adapted from John Steinbeck’s definitive story of the Okie migration. At times I’ve felt like I can identify with the financial hardships of the Joads, particularly when I’ve been after a job that tons of other people are after, too. But there’s really no comparison, and you’re likely to agree. After seeing the family’s struggle, you’ll be glad you don’t have it so bad. But you’ll also hopefully be lifted up by the conclusive speeches of both Tom and Ma Joad, who inspire us all to keep on keeping on, no matter what the setback. American Madness (1932) Going back a little earlier, here’s another film dealing with the Great Depression (though not as directly), and one that’s more relative to the current situation of bank failures. Its plot deals with a bank that is robbed and then rumored to be out of money, leading to a withdrawal panic. Released one year prior to the creation of the FDIC, it may be a comforting reminder of how much more secure your deposits are today. (Even if it is a potential problem that the FDIC doesn’t exactly have as much money as it insures against.) Nine Queens (2000) A lot of films dealing with cons can be watched to ease the suffering of financial woes. But then you have to realize that while you may be better off than the victim who has lost all his savings or seen his casino vault emptied, you’ll still want to hate the con artist who gets away with the fortune. With Nine Queens, there is indeed one of those guys you’ll be upset with in the end, but the film has an extra level to it than most movies about a long con, because it’s set amidst Argentina’s economic collapse at the turn of this century. Like the desperate bank run scenes from American Madness, a similar scene involving a crisis at a Buenos Aires bank should leave you a little more optimistic about the current situation in the U.S. Surely we could never experience as critical an economic failure as they did in Argentina, right? One more thing: don’t dare rent the inferior American remake, Criminal, which just doesn’t have the same relevance. I Served the King of England (2006) You won’t find this in the video store just yet, but hopefully it’s playing in a theater near you (currently it’s on 37 screens). I’ve so far contrasted your possibly upsetting financial situation with that of sufferers of the Great Depression and of the Argentine economic crisis. Now, here’s the worse-off situation of the Czechs under Nazi occupation and then communism. Filled with irony and wit, this film should, unlike some of the rest, put a smile on your face while also making you thankful that you didn’t have the misfortune of becoming a millionaire right on the brink of your nation’s change to communism. If there’s anything worse than losing your fortune, it’s losing your fortune and being sent to prison for having such a fortune. Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room (2005) On the other side of the coin, you may want to watch this documentary about the Enron scandal if you are more angry about your economic situation and would rather see a villain sent to prison for corruptly amassing a great fortune. Of course, while the protagonist of I Served the King of England is a lot more lovable, his riches aren’t exactly free from sin, either. And if you’re completely averse to watching either a doc or a foreign film, you could just watch Wall Street again and take out your frustration on Gordon Gekko. Bicycle Thieves (1948) Hopefully you’re not against foreign films, though, because anyone experiencing a financial crunch should take a look at this Italian neorealist classic. Any time I’ve felt helpless due to unemployment or lack of money, I remember that at least I have a certain level of education and skill to fall back on, unlike poor Antonio, who can’t get work after his bicycle is stolen. Films with similar stories inspired by DeSica’s masterpiece, including Cyclo and Man Push Cart (but probably not Pee-Wee’s Big Adventure), may also be worth a look. Grey Gardens (1975) Also, hopefully you aren’t completely against watching a documentary, especially one that’s a little more lighthearted than Enron. Of course, watching two nutty former socialites living in squalor and allowing a once-beautiful mansion to fall apart could possibly make you just as irate. Just be glad that your own riches to rags story doesn’t involve tons of feral cats and a seemingly oblivious daughter who will one day be a poster girl for drag queens. Trading Places (1983) Despite whatever happens with the current economic disaster, America will always be a place where one can get rich as quickly as one can lose it all, and no movie focuses on that truth as well as this comedy, about a bet to see how easily a bum can be made a millionaire, and a millionaire can be made a bum. Plus, it’s always nice to watch the greedy Duke brothers get their just deserts in the end. Just don’t watch Coming to America afterward, so as to pretend they never come back. The Pursuit of Happyness (2006) A lot of people are too cynical to enjoy this movie, but when you’re down in the dumps, especially financially, it’s a good pick-me-up, both for the uplifting story and the general American dream idea that one can truly rise from such poverty to such success as the real Chris Gardner did. Of course, given the current events, getting excited about a man struggling for a career in the financial world may not be so easy. I wonder if there are any good movies about working hard and making it big that don’t involve finance, sports or the entertainment industry. The Gold Rush (1925) In the Depression-set movie Sullivan’s Travels, it’s realized that audiences struggling with financial difficulties and other real-life woes would rather watch comedies than serious films focused on social problems. In that film, it’s a Disney cartoon called Playful Pluto that gives evidence of this, but it’s widely known that Preston Sturgis intended to use a Chaplin picture instead. So, as the final movie selection for the economically depressed, here’s one of the more fitting Chaplin features. While any film involving the Little Tramp could possibly serve to relatively lift you up, there’s just nothing better than watching Chaplin eat his boot and then being thankful for what you’ll be eating for dinner tonight. Now, I must address the possible outcry over the idea of making oneself feel better through the suffering of others. Yes, it’s terrible what people have had and still have to go through, both in America and around the world. Poverty is no joke, and it’s not exactly something that exists merely to balance out the brattiness of those not living in and with such poor conditions. So, I encourage you to, after watching whatever movie lifts your spirits up, find it in your heart to also be inspired to help someone less fortunate than yourself. Originally posted on:SpoutBlog http://www.spout.com/blogs/spoutblog/archive/2008/7/3/32056.aspx Post By: SpoutBlog
Post To: SpoutBlog on spout.com
Post Date: 7/3/2008 11:00:39 AM
Body: My version of The Godfather would open with a voice in the darkness saying, “I don’t believe in America. The American Dream is a once-beguiling fairy tale; show’s over, y’all.” But The Dream is still real to many people, and the violence that powerful private interests have done to it in the last century pains them like a kidney punch. Gonzo journalism pioneer Hunter S. Thompson was one of the wounded, and so is Alex Gibney (Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room, Taxi to the Darkside), the far more straight-laced director of the entertaining documentary Gonzo: The Life and Work of Hunter S. Thompson. They share a proprietary sense of outrage over abuses of power they’ve witnessed in their times. For them, America’s Nixons, Enrons and Bush-Cheneys have desecrated the church, the front lawn. For all their passionate trouble-making, there’s no denying that Gibney and the late Thompson, two white males who came up through America’s hallowed institutions (Thompson through the U.S. Air Force; Gibney through Yale), are insiders. When I went to interview Gibney about Gonzo, I remembered the film’s procession of leathery right-wingers and elites, former Thompson nemeses, who have warm, friendly things to say about “Dr. Gonzo” now that he’s dead, now that his caricature as a gun-toting drughead has endured beyond his politics. I wondered if, in the end, being inside got the hole dug any better than chucking rocks from outside. STEVEN BOONE: On the way over here I was reading the introduction to John Steinbeck’s The Pearl, and the person mentioned that, with the publishing of The Grapes of Wrath, Steinbeck had his greatest fame, his greatest success. With that, you’d think he would have found some comfort, but he was actually a bit in despair that he was being embraced by the very elite forces he was critiquing. Of course, you have Hunter Thompson with his downward spiral… For you, with this recent run of success, is there any kind of… ALEX GIBNEY: Despair? (laughs) SB: (laughs) Well, regret…? Second thoughts? “Where do I go from here?” AG: I have to be honest with you. I haven’t experienced that. I haven’t reached that kind of– I mean, first of all, okay, I won the Oscar. I feel great, believe me. Walking around with that statue, you feel like Gandalf in The Lord of the Rings. But I feel like there’s so many other interesting things to do. One of the salvations is to keep having a next project to do and you focus on that, even as you’re looking back. So you don’t spend all day looking your name up on Google. SB: Well, I do, but– AG: (laughs) But not all day, maybe 12 or 13 hours. SB: (laughs) Right. But I look at your body of work and I see a certain political conviction behind it. AG: Right. SB: It’s critical, but it is from the perspective of an insider, sort of like your colleague Charles Ferguson with No End in Sight. You came up through Yale, you came up through UCLA, you have your Oscars and your Emmys. You have your… sanction from certain institutions. Does it complicate matters for you going forward? AG: I understand what you’re getting at and I think it does, to some extent. The danger part always comes with celebrity, you know? You end up going out on the circuit, to some extent and then you get comfortable hanging around with other celebrities and then suddenly– it’s like being an insider journalist in Washington. Hunter talked about that in the campaign trail book [Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail '72]. He said, “I’m just gonna blow in here and blow out. I don’t have to worry about being here four, five, six years from now, trying to play a game, make sure that this person’s comfortable, that person’s comfortable.” It’s a little bit easier when you go in and out. But I do think, you know, I’ve had great opportunities. I’ve had a private school education, I went to a good university, I went to a good film school and I know a lot of powerful people. It turns out that that is a good advantage for me because I tend to do films about the perps rather than the victims. When you try to get inside and see what’s going on with the people who are committing these grand crimes, it helps to have access to those connections, sometimes because otherwise you don’t get in the door. But the question is, at some point, do you become one of those people? (laughs) SB: That’s the question. AG: That’s the question. Well, you’ll see. You’ll be my judge, and you’ll let me know. (laughs) SB: But do you ever feel that inner conflict, with maybe posing a certain question or, I don’t know, just bringing a bad vibe into the room…? Have you ever felt yourself back away because, “Hey, this is a nice guy, a decent person.” Sort of like when Hunter Thompson was in the car with Nixon, said he was a pleasant guy to talk football with. AG: Right. Well, you you always have to kind of separate. One of the big things I’ve learned is… My sister in law once said it: “Everybody’s nice.” And you sit with people in a room and sometimes they’re total assholes and you say, “Well, fuck them,” right? But sometimes they’re very nice and solicitous and charming and it is true: When you get close, your tendency is not to–almost kind of a Stockholm Syndrome takes over. But you realize that there are a lot of nice people out there who do horrible things. SB: How do you contrast yourself with other filmmakers at your level of success dealing with similar subjects– let’s say Michael Moore or Nick– AG: Everybody’s got their own style. Everybody always asks me about Michael. I always say that Michael does his own thing. There’s no illusion when you go see a Michael Moore film. You know it’s a Michael Moore film and you’re getting what you get. The only people that piss me off are the one that try to hide stuff, pretend to be doing one thing and doing something else. SB: Like who? AG: Well, um… Trying to think now… There was, a number of years ago, somebody doing a film about the civil rights movement and they actually faked some archival footage of the movement. They did a re-creation but they intercut it freely with actual footage from the events. SB: Whaa? Fox News? AG: No, no. It was on HBO. And there was a big hue and cry over it because it wasn’t like a re-creation where you know the filmmakers shot this with actors. That I have a real problem with. SB: Well, I was a little uncertain at some points in Gonzo. Actually, I’m pretty sure that when we were listening to audio tape of Thompson and his attorney on the road to Vegas that what I was seeing was a re-enactment. AG: Right. SB: But it was pretty slick. AB: It was. Two things I’ll say about that. First of all, we’re trying to do some fun stuff like Hunter did, like claiming Muskey’s high on this drug called Ebogaine. This kind of tall tale telling. But at the beginning of the film, you see this photograph of Hunter with a gun pointed at a typewriter. Zoom into his hand, where it hard-cuts to a real hand firing the gun. I think its a clue to the audience, you know, “Buyer beware, there’s gonna be some wild stuff.” We’re going to be playing around. Even with that [road trip] sequence, which I love… We shot it with actors who look a lot like Hunter and Oscar. We had the audio tape and we’d go out and shoot Super 8, kind of a home movie. But the deeper into that home movie you get, suddenly you start to see the action from three or four different angles, and you gota be thinking, “This is not a home movie.” SB: Sort of mirroring Hunter’s techniques, sliding in and out of reality. AG: That’s right. SB: Drawing out the people who are really reading closely. AG: Right. There’s a moment where it’s ambiguous. That’s okay, as long as you resolve that moment at the end. SB: It kind of reminds me of a documentary I saw a few years back, How to Draw a Bunny, about the artist Ray Johnson. AG: Oh, I heard about that one. Was that a good film? SB: It’s a good film, and in style it’s playful and kind of a series of stunts in the way that Johnson’s work was. [A moment of giddy Netflix chitchat ensues, and then:] SB: What would Hunter Thompson have to say about these times we’re living in now, or can you speak for him? AG: I don’t know if I can, but he got very depressed when Bush won in ‘04 and not long after that he committed suicide. I think it’s too much to say that that’s what drove him to suicide. There are lots of other factors that are not so pretty. But I think he would say that we’re seeing the triumph of fear and loathing over that other part of the American character, this sense of idealism. Bush represented to him that aspect of the United States that goes back to its inception. At the same time, he was a big Bobby Kennedy fan and big McGovern fan. I think he’d be an Obama guy now. He would say, “Here’s somebody who understands the need for a prime actor in the theater of American politics. A “together Hunter”–as his wife says– not the drug-addled drunk. The other Hunter would have something to say about it. SB: Would you be with him on that Obama support? AG: I am. I like Obama and I think he does speak to a better possibility. My only concern is, will he end up being… Will he make too many compromises once he’s in power? But you know he’s been through the rough and tumble of Illinois politics, so I’m sure he knows better than I how to navigate that stuff. He stirs peple’s idealism in a way that few people have done in the last 30 years. SB: That’s what ties you to Hunter in my eyes. I view it with a little bit of awe, this kind of idealism underneath it all. Far from cynicism, it’s an idealism that’s been abused– a real sense of connection to America as a concept, American values. AG: At least that possibility. Not always the reality, but at least the dream. He was always obsessed with the American Dream. I share with Hunter the love of that novel The Great Gatsby. The green light at the end of the dock. It’s destructive because there’s the illusion of mobility and possibility that can be very damaging. That’s why [Thompson] set the death of the American Dream in a casino, where it seems like you can roll the dice and win the big one and then you’re the rich man who gets the penthouse, when in fact you’re always playing against the house and the house always wins. At the same time, that green light at the end of the dock is also a sense of real possibility. There are moments when America makes good on that myth. You can get angry when people abuse that myth and only pretend that it’s so, but you can also celebrate that, from time to time, it’s for real. Originally posted on:SpoutBlog
]]>Thu, 03 Jul 2008 15:00:39 GMTSpoutBlogSpoutBlog on spout.com7/3/2008 11:00:39 AM My version of The Godfather would open with a voice in the darkness saying, “I don’t believe in America. The American Dream is a once-beguiling fairy tale; show’s over, y’all.” But The Dream is still real to many people, and the violence that powerful private interests have done to it in the last century pains them like a kidney punch. Gonzo journalism pioneer Hunter S. Thompson was one of the wounded, and so is Alex Gibney (Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room, Taxi to the Darkside), the far more straight-laced director of the entertaining documentary Gonzo: The Life and Work of Hunter S. Thompson. They share a proprietary sense of outrage over abuses of power they’ve witnessed in their times. For them, America’s Nixons, Enrons and Bush-Cheneys have desecrated the church, the front lawn. For all their passionate trouble-making, there’s no denying that Gibney and the late Thompson, two white males who came up through America’s hallowed institutions (Thompson through the U.S. Air Force; Gibney through Yale), are insiders. When I went to interview Gibney about Gonzo, I remembered the film’s procession of leathery right-wingers and elites, former Thompson nemeses, who have warm, friendly things to say about “Dr. Gonzo” now that he’s dead, now that his caricature as a gun-toting drughead has endured beyond his politics. I wondered if, in the end, being inside got the hole dug any better than chucking rocks from outside. STEVEN BOONE: On the way over here I was reading the introduction to John Steinbeck’s The Pearl, and the person mentioned that, with the publishing of The Grapes of Wrath, Steinbeck had his greatest fame, his greatest success. With that, you’d think he would have found some comfort, but he was actually a bit in despair that he was being embraced by the very elite forces he was critiquing. Of course, you have Hunter Thompson with his downward spiral… For you, with this recent run of success, is there any kind of… ALEX GIBNEY: Despair? (laughs) SB: (laughs) Well, regret…? Second thoughts? “Where do I go from here?” AG: I have to be honest with you. I haven’t experienced that. I haven’t reached that kind of– I mean, first of all, okay, I won the Oscar. I feel great, believe me. Walking around with that statue, you feel like Gandalf in The Lord of the Rings. But I feel like there’s so many other interesting things to do. One of the salvations is to keep having a next project to do and you focus on that, even as you’re looking back. So you don’t spend all day looking your name up on Google. SB: Well, I do, but– AG: (laughs) But not all day, maybe 12 or 13 hours. SB: (laughs) Right. But I look at your body of work and I see a certain political conviction behind it. AG: Right. SB: It’s critical, but it is from the perspective of an insider, sort of like your colleague Charles Ferguson with No End in Sight. You came up through Yale, you came up through UCLA, you have your Oscars and your Emmys. You have your… sanction from certain institutions. Does it complicate matters for you going forward? AG: I understand what you’re getting at and I think it does, to some extent. The danger part always comes with celebrity, you know? You end up going out on the circuit, to some extent and then you get comfortable hanging around with other celebrities and then suddenly– it’s like being an insider journalist in Washington. Hunter talked about that in the campaign trail book [Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail '72]. He said, “I’m just gonna blow in here and blow out. I don’t have to worry about being here four, five, six years from now, trying to play a game, make sure that this person’s comfortable, that person’s comfortable.” It’s a little bit easier when you go in and out. But I do think, you know, I’ve had great opportunities. I’ve had a private school education, I went to a good university, I went to a good film school and I know a lot of powerful people. It turns out that that is a good advantage for me because I tend to do films about the perps rather than the victims. When you try to get inside and see what’s going on with the people who are committing these grand crimes, it helps to have access to those connections, sometimes because otherwise you don’t get in the door. But the question is, at some point, do you become one of those people? (laughs) SB: That’s the question. AG: That’s the question. Well, you’ll see. You’ll be my judge, and you’ll let me know. (laughs) SB: But do you ever feel that inner conflict, with maybe posing a certain question or, I don’t know, just bringing a bad vibe into the room…? Have you ever felt yourself back away because, “Hey, this is a nice guy, a decent person.” Sort of like when Hunter Thompson was in the car with Nixon, said he was a pleasant guy to talk football with. AG: Right. Well, you you always have to kind of separate. One of the big things I’ve learned is… My sister in law once said it: “Everybody’s nice.” And you sit with people in a room and sometimes they’re total assholes and you say, “Well, fuck them,” right? But sometimes they’re very nice and solicitous and charming and it is true: When you get close, your tendency is not to–almost kind of a Stockholm Syndrome takes over. But you realize that there are a lot of nice people out there who do horrible things. SB: How do you contrast yourself with other filmmakers at your level of success dealing with similar subjects– let’s say Michael Moore or Nick– AG: Everybody’s got their own style. Everybody always asks me about Michael. I always say that Michael does his own thing. There’s no illusion when you go see a Michael Moore film. You know it’s a Michael Moore film and you’re getting what you get. The only people that piss me off are the one that try to hide stuff, pretend to be doing one thing and doing something else. SB: Like who? AG: Well, um… Trying to think now… There was, a number of years ago, somebody doing a film about the civil rights movement and they actually faked some archival footage of the movement. They did a re-creation but they intercut it freely with actual footage from the events. SB: Whaa? Fox News? AG: No, no. It was on HBO. And there was a big hue and cry over it because it wasn’t like a re-creation where you know the filmmakers shot this with actors. That I have a real problem with. SB: Well, I was a little uncertain at some points in Gonzo. Actually, I’m pretty sure that when we were listening to audio tape of Thompson and his attorney on the road to Vegas that what I was seeing was a re-enactment. AG: Right. SB: But it was pretty slick. AB: It was. Two things I’ll say about that. First of all, we’re trying to do some fun stuff like Hunter did, like claiming Muskey’s high on this drug called Ebogaine. This kind of tall tale telling. But at the beginning of the film, you see this photograph of Hunter with a gun pointed at a typewriter. Zoom into his hand, where it hard-cuts to a real hand firing the gun. I think its a clue to the audience, you know, “Buyer beware, there’s gonna be some wild stuff.” We’re going to be playing around. Even with that [road trip] sequence, which I love… We shot it with actors who look a lot like Hunter and Oscar. We had the audio tape and we’d go out and shoot Super 8, kind of a home movie. But the deeper into that home movie you get, suddenly you start to see the action from three or four different angles, and you gota be thinking, “This is not a home movie.” SB: Sort of mirroring Hunter’s techniques, sliding in and out of reality. AG: That’s right. SB: Drawing out the people who are really reading closely. AG: Right. There’s a moment where it’s ambiguous. That’s okay, as long as you resolve that moment at the end. SB: It kind of reminds me of a documentary I saw a few years back, How to Draw a Bunny, about the artist Ray Johnson. AG: Oh, I heard about that one. Was that a good film? SB: It’s a good film, and in style it’s playful and kind of a series of stunts in the way that Johnson’s work was. [A moment of giddy Netflix chitchat ensues, and then:] SB: What would Hunter Thompson have to say about these times we’re living in now, or can you speak for him? AG: I don’t know if I can, but he got very depressed when Bush won in ‘04 and not long after that he committed suicide. I think it’s too much to say that that’s what drove him to suicide. There are lots of other factors that are not so pretty. But I think he would say that we’re seeing the triumph of fear and loathing over that other part of the American character, this sense of idealism. Bush represented to him that aspect of the United States that goes back to its inception. At the same time, he was a big Bobby Kennedy fan and big McGovern fan. I think he’d be an Obama guy now. He would say, “Here’s somebody who understands the need for a prime actor in the theater of American politics. A “together Hunter”–as his wife says– not the drug-addled drunk. The other Hunter would have something to say about it. SB: Would you be with him on that Obama support? AG: I am. I like Obama and I think he does speak to a better possibility. My only concern is, will he end up being… Will he make too many compromises once he’s in power? But you know he’s been through the rough and tumble of Illinois politics, so I’m sure he knows better than I how to navigate that stuff. He stirs peple’s idealism in a way that few people have done in the last 30 years. SB: That’s what ties you to Hunter in my eyes. I view it with a little bit of awe, this kind of idealism underneath it all. Far from cynicism, it’s an idealism that’s been abused– a real sense of connection to America as a concept, American values. AG: At least that possibility. Not always the reality, but at least the dream. He was always obsessed with the American Dream. I share with Hunter the love of that novel The Great Gatsby. The green light at the end of the dock. It’s destructive because there’s the illusion of mobility and possibility that can be very damaging. That’s why [Thompson] set the death of the American Dream in a casino, where it seems like you can roll the dice and win the big one and then you’re the rich man who gets the penthouse, when in fact you’re always playing against the house and the house always wins. At the same time, that green light at the end of the dock is also a sense of real possibility. There are moments when America makes good on that myth. You can get angry when people abuse that myth and only pretend that it’s so, but you can also celebrate that, from time to time, it’s for real. Originally posted on:SpoutBlog http://www.spout.com/blogs/spoutblog/archive/2008/6/5/30563.aspx Post By: SpoutBlog
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Post Date: 6/5/2008 3:01:05 PM
Body: Now that we know, courtesy of Stu at Defamer, that Werner Herzog’s remake of Abel Ferrara’s Bad Lieutenant is not so much a remake as it is like a new entry into a franchise, a la the James Bond movies, we at SpoutBlog wonder what other ’90s indie favorites could be continued with similar yet “completely different” installments. I remember back in the day thinking that Clerks should be a franchise, each film focusing on a different crappy job experience, but now that Clerks II has come and gone, that idea will likely never be realized. Of course, the concept of sequels unrelated to the original aren’t new — just look at any sequel title substituting the number 2 (or II) with the word Too. But nevertheless, here’s a few suggestions for other crazy foreign auteurs to take into consideration: Kids - Looking back, Larry Clark’s then-shocking debut is pretty tame. Nowadays you see teens doing worse things on commercial television. So, how about someone makes another Kids movie every decade or so to expose us to the latest generation of teenagers and how appallingly different they are from the previous generation. It would be like Apted’s Up documentaries, except it wouldn’t follow the same people. Slacker - This is Karina’s suggestion, off the top of her head, so I’ll give her credit. She likes the idea of Linklater revisiting the concept behind his monumental indie, but having it set in other cities, a la The Real World. Unlike the premise of the next Real World, though, I’d be much more excited about a Slacker Brooklyn. Leaving Las Vegas - While we’re on the idea of transplanting locations, and because Herzog is setting his Bad Lieutenant in New Orleans rather than New York, let’s mention some films whose remakes sequels next installments could feature title changes depending on their location changes. Leaving Boston might not have the same ring to it, though. What about King of New York redone as King of St. Louis? Of course, Abel Ferrara is already turning King of New York into a franchise with Pericle il Nero, a prequel that isn’t quite a prequel (strange that he would have a problem with Herzog’s film, then). Swingers - This one is easy. Take some hot new subculture/dance craze/music scene and exploit it, so none of the original followers like it anymore and all of the new followers can be labeled posers (no, of course I’m not bitter). Swingers wasn’t the first movie to do it; Saturday Night Fever and probably a few ’50s rock ‘n’ roll movies were viewed the same way. I wonder what scene is cool with the alternative kids these days … The Big One - Following the success of Roger and Me, Michael Moore made this documentary in which he attempts to get interviews with other corporate heads. But now his films are mostly political and there’s less attention paid towards companies like General Motors and Nike. Sure, we’ve since seen some worthy substitutes, including The Corporation, Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room and Super Size Me, but I’d like Moore to return to his hunting of the villains of capitalism and give up on his pursuit of 9/11 answers. Breaking the Waves - Surely most movie execs were shocked at how unsexy Von Trier’s film was. After all, the story of a crippled man who sends his wife out to sleep with men for his vicarious benefit sounds like an erotic, softcore, Skinamax kind of thing. So, when do we get Breaking the Waves Too, about another crippled man with a much younger, hotter wife (just FYI, I personally have always had a crush on Emily Watson)? And since it will be have to be direct-to-video will it still need to avoid the nauseating shaky cam that made so many people sick in the theater? Sling Blade - Having recently seen Robert Duvall in the 1972 film Tomorrow, I now know that Billy Bob Thornton’s “Karl Childers” is not that unique a character. For the next installment, I’d like to see Karl (well, a character like Karl) and his southern gothic story set in New York City. It would make about as much sense as Bad Lieutenant being set in NOLA. Being John Malkovich - Who hasn’t wanted a franchise in which each installment goes inside the head of a different cult-figure actor? Even if it would ruin the original just a little big, I’d love Being Jeff Goldblum or Being Christopher Walken. The latter would be enormously popular. Kolya - This Oscar-winning foreign film showed us that heartwarming tales of old, curmudgeonly Sean Connery lookalikes who learn to love the young child they’re forced to take care of are universal. But I’d like to see the same plot in other countries besides Czechoslovakia, just to be sure. Waiting for Guffman - Oh wait, Christopher Guest has been continually remaking this movie, only without association. Never mind. Originally posted on:SpoutBlog
]]>Thu, 05 Jun 2008 19:01:05 GMTSpoutBlogSpoutBlog on spout.com6/5/2008 3:01:05 PMNow that we know, courtesy of Stu at Defamer, that Werner Herzog’s remake of Abel Ferrara’s Bad Lieutenant is not so much a remake as it is like a new entry into a franchise, a la the James Bond movies, we at SpoutBlog wonder what other ’90s indie favorites could be continued with similar yet “completely different” installments. I remember back in the day thinking that Clerks should be a franchise, each film focusing on a different crappy job experience, but now that Clerks II has come and gone, that idea will likely never be realized. Of course, the concept of sequels unrelated to the original aren’t new — just look at any sequel title substituting the number 2 (or II) with the word Too. But nevertheless, here’s a few suggestions for other crazy foreign auteurs to take into consideration: Kids - Looking back, Larry Clark’s then-shocking debut is pretty tame. Nowadays you see teens doing worse things on commercial television. So, how about someone makes another Kids movie every decade or so to expose us to the latest generation of teenagers and how appallingly different they are from the previous generation. It would be like Apted’s Up documentaries, except it wouldn’t follow the same people. Slacker - This is Karina’s suggestion, off the top of her head, so I’ll give her credit. She likes the idea of Linklater revisiting the concept behind his monumental indie, but having it set in other cities, a la The Real World. Unlike the premise of the next Real World, though, I’d be much more excited about a Slacker Brooklyn. Leaving Las Vegas - While we’re on the idea of transplanting locations, and because Herzog is setting his Bad Lieutenant in New Orleans rather than New York, let’s mention some films whose remakes sequels next installments could feature title changes depending on their location changes. Leaving Boston might not have the same ring to it, though. What about King of New York redone as King of St. Louis? Of course, Abel Ferrara is already turning King of New York into a franchise with Pericle il Nero, a prequel that isn’t quite a prequel (strange that he would have a problem with Herzog’s film, then). Swingers - This one is easy. Take some hot new subculture/dance craze/music scene and exploit it, so none of the original followers like it anymore and all of the new followers can be labeled posers (no, of course I’m not bitter). Swingers wasn’t the first movie to do it; Saturday Night Fever and probably a few ’50s rock ‘n’ roll movies were viewed the same way. I wonder what scene is cool with the alternative kids these days … The Big One - Following the success of Roger and Me, Michael Moore made this documentary in which he attempts to get interviews with other corporate heads. But now his films are mostly political and there’s less attention paid towards companies like General Motors and Nike. Sure, we’ve since seen some worthy substitutes, including The Corporation, Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room and Super Size Me, but I’d like Moore to return to his hunting of the villains of capitalism and give up on his pursuit of 9/11 answers. Breaking the Waves - Surely most movie execs were shocked at how unsexy Von Trier’s film was. After all, the story of a crippled man who sends his wife out to sleep with men for his vicarious benefit sounds like an erotic, softcore, Skinamax kind of thing. So, when do we get Breaking the Waves Too, about another crippled man with a much younger, hotter wife (just FYI, I personally have always had a crush on Emily Watson)? And since it will be have to be direct-to-video will it still need to avoid the nauseating shaky cam that made so many people sick in the theater? Sling Blade - Having recently seen Robert Duvall in the 1972 film Tomorrow, I now know that Billy Bob Thornton’s “Karl Childers” is not that unique a character. For the next installment, I’d like to see Karl (well, a character like Karl) and his southern gothic story set in New York City. It would make about as much sense as Bad Lieutenant being set in NOLA. Being John Malkovich - Who hasn’t wanted a franchise in which each installment goes inside the head of a different cult-figure actor? Even if it would ruin the original just a little big, I’d love Being Jeff Goldblum or Being Christopher Walken. The latter would be enormously popular. Kolya - This Oscar-winning foreign film showed us that heartwarming tales of old, curmudgeonly Sean Connery lookalikes who learn to love the young child they’re forced to take care of are universal. But I’d like to see the same plot in other countries besides Czechoslovakia, just to be sure. Waiting for Guffman - Oh wait, Christopher Guest has been continually remaking this movie, only without association. Never mind. Originally posted on:SpoutBlog http://www.spout.com/blogs/joem18b/archive/2008/5/5/28210.aspx Post By: joem18b
Post To: joem18b Blog
Post Date: 5/5/2008 5:53:57 PM
Body: Before dealing with the end of the world as we know it, which this movie does not explicitly mention but which is lurking there in the unspoken background - before dealing with that, it being a pet peeve of mine, let me mention first an equally annoying pet peeve: many podcasters, the Spout podcasters occasionally among them, use the expression "begs the question" when they actually mean "raises the question." This error of diction has become so common in the U.S. today that it's probably useless to even mention it here, but since I heard it again on FilmCouch recently, let me remind those who might be unaware of it that "begging the question" is a form of logical fallacy in which an argument is assumed to be true without evidence other than the argument itself. Thank you. Meanwhile, back in the day, if you hated documentaries but had to write a paper on one, you could head down to Ninth and Trawler and catch The Nudist Story at the Jewel Box. The Nudist Story is the film where everybody plays volleyball with their backs turned to the camera. Otherwise, you were stuck with "Hemo the Magnificent" or "Our Mister Sun" or a training film explaining how to avoid the clap and why you ought to do so instead of chasing around after the girls at school who were reputed to be the biggest pushovers. These days, in addition to naked flesh, you can find lots of other quite acceptable entertainment in nonfiction films - crime and corruption in its multivarious forms, incest, child abuse, pedophilia, perversions both common and obscure, the apocalypse, and George Bush. Manda Bala, for example, will get you through the night quite agreeably, with a laugh or two, when you can't count on slipping a review of Hostel II past your Remedial English 2B class instructor. Manda Bala executive summary: That's all you got? But stand by while I rethink that. Manda Bala Cliff Notes: Frog farm launders money for massively corrupt president of the Brazilian congress; kidnappers are mean; a guy worries about getting mugged in Sao Paulo; bulletproof cars (if it's good enough for the Pope, it's good enough for me); plastic-surgery surgery, with blood and music that has a cutting edge; using a helicopter to avoid carjacking; no helicopter-jacking, sadly; and the clincher: politicians can be corrupt. "Manda Bala" ("Send a Bullet") is an expression common in Brazil but hard for me to explain in English, at least as I understand it (feel free to correct me). Imagine a situation like Iraq, for example - sixth year of the war, unrelenting violence, little water or electricity in Baghdad, a sense of inevitable disaster - you might look at that and just say "Manda Bala," meaning "What the hell, go ahead and pull the trigger." I checked out a few reviews of Manda Bala while awaiting my screener, just to pick up on the buzz. The temperature ran hot (except for Stephen Holden): "rich vibrancy of threat," "inexcusable violations of political faith and public safety," "hauntingly mounted voyage," "shocking and scary," "mesmerizing, tense, exciting," "a country and a society entirely out of control," "black humor and stomach-churning detail," "the ravages of political graft and unchecked crime." Documentary Grand Jury prize winner at Sundance. Cleaned up at the Cinema Eye Awards. "A film that cannot be shown in Brazil." Wow. Well, Manda Bala can't be shown in Brazil because one of the guys appearing in the movie told the young men who made it that he'd sue their asses three ways from Sunday if the film ever opened in a theater in that country. Always some sorehead out there with his hand in your pocket. So is it true that if the filmmakers have particular interests, a design, and a message in mind, but I don't share those interests, don't apprehend the design, and misunderstand the message, then how blame is apportioned between maker and viewer for the disconnect will determine whether the movie is good or bad? Because my executive summary above is not in exact accord with the thoughts and intentions of the filmmakers. I believe that in the last analysis, the principal interest of Jason Kohn (the director and principal producer - that is, the guy who made the movie) was to make a feature-length theatrical documentary with the film values of a mainstream motion picture - the values of a Hollywood action flick, for example. Like Earl Morris, and maybe because of Morris' influence, Kohn's aesthetic here represents the flip side of cinema verite, handheld video cameras, minimalism, and made-for-TV documentaries. For example, Morris prepares sets before shooting, recreates scenes, and uses the "Interrotron" - his invention - when interviewing (a device that, when used correctly, lets viewers make eye contact with subjects in the documentary). A Morris quote has it that style doesn't dictate truth, so that the handheld camera should not be a prerequisite these days for making documentaries. Kohn hates (his word) the common belief that content will always win out over form; that form is a slave to content. Cinematic effects can be used to make a point with style (vide The Thin Blue Line). There is a provocative element in this idea. Kohn invokes Robocop and Lethal Weapon as film models and Verhoeven, Ridley Scott, and Terry Gilliam as major influences. He wanted to use film rather than videotape in Manda Bala and was able to obtain 35mm lenses adapted for a 16mm camera. Manda Bala is shot in anamorphic Super 16; at 2.69:1, it's wider than Cinemascope. Kohn says that he made the choice in part as an anti-TV statement. At the time, HBO, the most profitable channel for documentaries, had announced that they wouldn't letterbox. Kohn also is bugged by TV documentaries that add footage to find a theatrical release. He wanted to make a film that delivers visually in the theater. He wanted to light sets, use dollies, and try out filming techniques used in action flicks. He said that film makes everyone look great, like an actor. He didn't want to go down to South America, a rich kid by Latin standards, and stick a handheld camera in the faces of the poor. (In the event, the poor onscreen are few and far between. In an odd turn, most of those interviewed about a country gone terribly wrong appear themselves to be saints.) As Kohn expresses it, he wanted to make a documentary Robocop. To him, documentaries aren't a separate form; they're just another genre. For example, Morris borrowed from noir when making The Thin Blue Line. Heloísa Passos won the Cinematography Award at Sundance for shooting the movie. I, on the other hand, received Manda Bala on DVD in the mail and watched it letterboxed on TV. I might as easily have watched it on a laptop or even on an Ipod. So while I can sing the praises of Lawrence of Arabia or a Terrence Malick flick as seen in the theater, I was never going to be watching this one there. So the sad fact is, I'm not in a position to comment on this aspect of the movie, perhaps the most important to its director. Besides, isn't this supposed to be a golden age for documentaries? Seems like most of the Rotten Tomatoes 90+ movies are documentaries, and there is quite a list of them. And if the theatrical version of a documentary is made with TV values and 30 minutes of extra footage, it might bug Kohn but it doesn't matter to me because I won't be paying $10 to see it in the theater anyway. And with the current lively DIY movement and mumblecore and me having just reviewed LOL for example, I'm not especially focused on the photographic values of a film, documentary or fiction, anyway. Although Ten Canoes did knock me out. So watching the film on my couch without knowing anything about what I've said so far, Manda Bala looked ok. It looked good. In addition to these theatrical and cinematical considerations, Kohn wanted to investigate several interesting subjects. In particular, he wanted to go to Brazil and shoot some footage of a frog farm that he knew about and of matters pertaining to a plastic surgeon that he had heard about. And in the process, he wanted to avoid polemics. In Kohn's opinion, feature documentaries are a poor way to push political agendas. With Bush getting elected in spite of Fahrenheit 9/11, maybe I agree with him. And Kohn wasn't interested in documentary filmmaking as journalism. Viewers expecting an expose or other newsworthy story will not find it here. Kohn wanted to go expressionistic, not journalistic. He wanted to experiment and discover what could be done with a documentary, not set out with digitized video in mind. Maybe do something like Fast, Cheap, and Out of Control. I, contrariwise, am not intrigued by frog farms or plastic surgery and I don't have a problem with, and in fact might lean toward, polemical documentaries that observe high journalistic standards and push agendas. So that's another strike against me vs Manda Bala, going in. And the Sundance prizes perturbed my attitude as well. I mean, this is a film made by three very young and inexperienced filmmakers and needs to be, must be, approached and appreciated that way, which in my case, because of the buzz, sadly wasn't. Finally, Kohl learned that he needed a story. He needed to tell a story and make it look good. His second of three editors, Doug Abel, taught him what that meant. Kohn credits Abel with cutting the film into a coherent story. I could be interested in a story. A story, that I could go for. But to back up a little: Jason Kohn graduated from Brandeis in 2001 and got a job as a researcher for Earl Morris. He visited his dad in Brazil at Christmas, 2001, to look into the filming of the frog farm and the plastic surgeon. His dad knew a lot of folks down there and had some influence in the community; Brazil has a lot of poor people, and a collection of the super rich, but the middle class isn't so big. Then, in the summer of 2002 at the age of 23, Kohn flew down to actually shoot some film. He called a friend, Joey Frank, and asked him to come down for a couple of months too, to help in Sao Paulo. Kohn knew Frank from Brandeis, but Frank had transferred to Brown, where he was scheduled to graduate in 2003. When Kohn called him he was 21. Kohn's father is Argentinian, his mother Brazilian. His father had been robbed in his car four or five times in the past seven years and talked about it a lot, and also complained continually about the rampant corruption in Brazil. Jason knew that the frog farm was used for money laundering and that the plastic surgeon specialized in rebuilding the ears cut off kidnapping victims, and he thought that he might make a short film dealing with corruption and the country's concomitant street violence and how they might interrelate, with the farm and surgeon serving as framing examples for the central idea of the film. Frank joined Kohn in Sao Paulo and they asked a third friend, Jared Goldman, who was working at Miramax, to provide backup from the States. Kohn, Frank, and Goldman are credited as Manda Bala's producers. Kohn is also the director, Frank the assistant director. Kohn and Frank spent two and a half months doing preproduction work in Sao Paulo. They used Kohn's dad's house as one office and his mom's house in the States as the other for the duration of the project. Kohn had sold his car and saxaphone to raise money and had otherwise managed to raise 10K or so. Frank brought 10K too. The film began with a summer budget of 25K. Kohn talked Heloísa Passos into shooting the movie. Then they filmed the frog farmer and surgeon, and a detective on kidnapping detail, a paranoid businessman, a microchip salesman, an assistant attorney general, and a kidnapping victim. They came home with 25 hours of film, cut together a trailer, got grants from Sundance and Brandeis, and found an investor. As they worked on their thesis that corruption at the top breeds violence at the bottom, they came to realize that they needed more than the frog farm and some ear surgery to make a decent Robomentary. They went back to Brazil the next summer and shot 25 more hours of film. With that they had a feature film without an ending, as they put it. In fact, "ending" here might be code for "story," "arc," "compelling narrative." They decided that they needed a kidnapper in the film and waited around with 10K in bribes to interview one that they had found in prison. However, a bookkeeping error dealing with the exchange rate meant that they were 20K behind, not 10K ahead. And, the kidnapper was transferred to a different prison. The interview never happened. After finding, finally, funding for a third phase, Kohn went back to Brazil, hung out for six months until a taxi driver taking him to the dentist told him that he could hook him up with a kidnapper. Kohn met the kidnapper at a McDonald's, handed over some money, was taken to the kidnapper's home, interview him multiple times, and also got a brief interview with the corrupt politician at the center of the film. A final version of Manda Bala was cut together and finally, after five years of effort, the filmmakers had their film. Six months later it won the Grand Jury prize at Sundance. So, young men make a movie and it is what it is. No, it isn't what it is; it's something else. It isn't what Kohn says it is, exactly, and probably not what I thought I saw it was, but it's in the neighborhood of what it is. It really struck me how young these fellows were when my daughter, in her last year at Brown, mentioned that one of the boys from her high school, who is also at Brown, was friends with Joey Frank. Frank's Facebook page is not exactly that of a graybeard, either. After Manda Bala was released, Kohn and Frank in commentary and interviews seem to be finding their way a little toward an explanation of the movie that they had made. They represent Manda Bala as an impressionistic collage of scenes that, taken together, recontextualize the relationship of political corruption to street violence. I, however, took the movie to be telling me, as if I might not know it already, that kidnapping is currently a growth industry for the poor in Brazil. This was not Kohn's intention. He well knows that street violence in general and the kidnapping industry in particular in Sao Paulo are not expose-worth in 2008. City of God was released in 2002. In Kohn's view, while City of God (one of the great Brazilian films in his estimation) is a pretend documentary, Manda Bala is a pretend fiction. They make a nice pair. In fact, Manda Bala crew members claimed to belong to the City of God crew a time or two. Opened some doors. So kidnapping for profit isn't popular in the U.S. because there is too much risk for too little gain, penalties too stringent, and a strong law-enforcement focus on the crime. For example, my parent's house was robbed twice before the two addicts across the street decided to go for a bigger payday and were immediately arrested for kidnapping a kid down the block and botching the ransom pickup. But on the other hand, kidnapping for ransom is now common in many parts of the world. In 2007, Baghdad was dubbed kidnapping capitol of the world by whomever it is that does that dubbing. Previous title holders include Mexico and Colombia. You're also a high snatch risk in Haiti, Moscow, and parts of Africa. And in Sao Paulo. Manda Bala does get a little breathless over this fact. In the U.S., selling drugs provides the standard entry-level employment opportunities for some of the poor who can't get a job at Wal-Mart. We're just not into kidnapping-as-a-business yet. I was visiting in Bogota last year and my friend's daughter was crossing from her parked car to the front door of the apartment building one night and got grabbed on the sidewalk. A flash kidnapping. Her abductors drove her to a bank machine where she withdrew the max allowed. This was at 11:55 PM. They drove around for six minutes and then had her do it again. Then they drove her out to a dump on the outskirts of the city. She told them that she was a doctor working with the poor (which was true). Whether or not that was the reason, they let her get out of the car and drove away without shooting her. When the police brought her home, she went into her room and closed the door and didn't come out for three days. Meanwhile, the ear-cutter-offer in the movie tells us that his ill-gotten gains are spent helping the poor in the slums where he lives. A Hezbollah/Hamas/Sadr militia model of social welfare. I'm guessing that the vogue in kidnapping in the past decade has something to do with technology: the spread of cell phones, the Internet, and the availability and affordability of an arsenal of new, powerful weapons. In Sao Paulo, kidnappings are running at a rate of one per day. In Manda Bala we see, first, evil faceless kidnappers. Then, the tough cops who hunt them down like dogs (81 cops in a city of 20 million, poorly paid and prone to accept bribes). As mentioned above, the filmmakers try to find a kidnapper to interview. They learn about one in prison but the bribes necessary to get to him would have busted the movie budget, so eventually, by luck, they hooked up, through that traditional source of connections, the cab driver, with a kidnapper in a ski mask. (Hard to find a ski mask in Brazil? Couple of the classic ski resorts in the Andes have closed because their glaciers have melted.) This man in the mask had killed and would kill again (but as he tells us in his defense, he's mostly just killed policemen). He has robbed. He has kidnapped. He's done ears. He's probably instantly identifiable in that mask to anyone who already knows him, cop, neighbor, or victim, from his eyes, mouth, and voice. This is a man who has lived his life in the slums. Gives freely of his ill-gotten gains to his needy co-slum dwellers. Nine kids. Wife pregnant with number 10. For me, him talking about his family is the most affecting moment in the film. As he is interviewed, police snoop around nearby and the filmmakers are wishing that they had worn Kevlar vests for the occasion. Later, after the movie was completed, the police caught up with the man. He killed two of them and they shot him in the stomach and shoulder. On the way to the hospital, he acquired a third bullet hole, this one in the head. Juxtaposed with the kidnapping material are scenes documenting a serious case of political corruption. That juxtaposition is the point of the movie, not the fact of the corruption itself, which has been endemic in Brazil from the jump in 1500. Europe's relationship with the country was exploitive for centuries, as wood, gold, sugar, and coffee were carried off across the Atlantic. (And if memory serves, the pre-Columbian Native Americans were a shifty-eyed lot around those parts as well.) Regrettably, as I did with the kidnapping segments, I took Manda Bala to be informing me of something that I already knew, not recontextualizing the facts being presented. As I watched, I had the thought that finding corruption in Brazil is like finding penguins in Antarctica. You can make an interesting documentary about your discovery, but the basic fact of it is not surprising. Just to say again, Kohn wasn't finding penguins in Brazil, because he knows a hundred times more about corruption in that country than I ever will, for sure; just that it seemed that way to me as a first-time viewer of the movie. The politician highlighted here, Jadar Barbalho, President of the Senate (or something), took millions - make that two billion, so greedy - from the government via public works programs, and sent it out of the country while in the process created over 400 businesses to wash the money, employing the poor of his state. Who knows how much he kept for himself, but enough trickled out into the community to get him re-elected. Naturally he never paid for his crimes. Compare and contrast this with a president of our own who takes a trillion or so for a bogus war, most of which finds its way into the pockets of the corporations of his buddies. Would he have been reelected in Brazil as he was in the U.S.? But no more snark. I'm just sayin. An oil man becomes president and the oil companies make more money than any business in history. As someone asked the other day, if Colonel Sanders were elected and the price of fried chicken went up 500%, would anybody ask why? But no more snark. Those of us who are Americans (as we blithely call ourselves in the U.S.) live in an environment that fomented the savings and loan debacle of the 80s, the tech collapse of the 90s, energy deregulation and Enron, and the current mortgage crisis. What do I care about a corrupt official in Brazil when the government here has turned me and my 401K over to a global business culture as immoral and rapacious as any fallen angel let loose in the Sacred Heart girls dormitory on the Night of the Dead? Nah, I'm just kidding. But there is a reason to care about corruption in Brazil, in addition to simply exercising our basic humanity, a reason which I'll get around to in a second. Brazil wants and needs foreign investment, but the country's reputation for corruption is a problem for it. Lula da Silva ran on a platform to clean up the government, but whether he really meant that or not, he has encountered a bureaucracy designed, built, and endlessly refined over centuries to encourage and nurture bribery and all the other time-tested methods of fiscal chicanery specific to the human species. Voters hoped that Lulu's election would bring change, but money laundering and manipulation of large government contracts in thousands of cases like the frog farm have continued to be reported. Public trust in the political system is poisoned. Although Lula da Silva himself seems to have remained clean, some of his closest political allies have been or are being investigated. He governs by coalition, and coalition means political bribery. A mensalão (‘monthly pay-off’) bought votes in Congress; scandal resulted in 2005. Polls indicate that a majority of Brazilians still believe that Lula is honest, but only 16% trust the political parties to be honest. The government may be one of the most corrupt in history and that corruption interferes with the government's attempts to control the imbalance in economic status and the unrest and crime that it causes. If it were just a matter of humans preying on humans, the situations in this movie could be applied to many different countries. But unfortunately, Brazil happens to be home to most of the Amazon rainforest. I've already pointed out once, when reviewing Out of Balance, that the world is going straight to hell. But since that is sort of a trippy concept and there are infinite engaging examples that adumbrate the approaching darkness and chaos, a few more words on the subject might not come amiss. That is, forget about the kidnappers and their predilection for de-earing their captives. Brazil is busy tearing out the lungs of the world and has been for years. While Brazilian engineers tout the use of satellite technology to save the Amazon rainforest, loggers, miners, and farmers keep on cutting. 20% of Earth's oxygen is produced by the rainforest (soon to be remembered only as that place down there that gave Amazon.com its name). Marina Silva, Brazil's environment minister and an Amazon native, has developed a plan to stop deforestation, which is currently progressing at 1.3 million hectares a year. She breaks the problem down geographically into specific areas. However, in spite of Brazil's struggle to implement her plan, the country remains the fifth-largest global contributor to greenhouse gases. It's up there with the big boys: the U.S., China, and India. Deforestation is the second most significant source of atmospheric carbon dioxide in the world, contributing 25% of carbon emissions to the atmosphere. In a major operation in 2005, nearly 90 public officials, businessmen, and loggers were arrested. Environmental protection agency (IBAMA) employees charged with protecting the forests from illegal loggers had been accepting bribes from logging companies in return for falsifying permits to transport timber to markets within Brazil and abroad. The illegal logging takes place primarily in Mato Grosso, where environmental organizations estimate that two-thirds of all logging was being carried out illegally. IBAMA has been reorganized in an attempt to eliminate corruption, but it's too early to see if that's doing any good. (Care to hazard a guess?) I'm sure that you've read or heard factoids like "One square mile of rainforest can contain more than 50,000 insect species" or "One hectare (2.47 acres) of land can contain more than 480 species of trees" or "Amazon rivers contain over 2,000 species of fish." 1.5 acres of rainforest is lost every second in the world - 78 million acres a year. At this rate, 85% of Earth's remaining rainforest will disappear by the year 2020. 137 species of plants and animals go extinct every day. Every so often, a ray of light gleams out, such as a recent conference of 11 Latin American countries in Brazil, with Indonesia and Congo as observers, held for and attended by leaders of indigenous groups in those countries. They explored carbon-trading policies that would compensate thier governments for conserving rainforest. In Brazil, indigenous tribes currently retain permanent rights to 12% of the country and 21% of the Amazon, plus 49 million acres of "extractive reserves" for rubber tappers, brazil-nut gatherers, and river communities. They pressure the government, which promises to get tough on logging. Deforestation rates in the country have been declining for several years (with a spike a couple of years ago). But the good news doesn't stretch much farther than that. So while Manda Bala doesn't say much on the subject, here's a toast to that ticking end-of-the-world clock. Brazil is another of America's crazy brothers. When the awards are handed out for biggest environmental f**k-up, Brazil, like the U.S., could be jumping out of its seat to accept a gold statue in the shape of a dead planet. The sanctimonious super-rich in both countries are on their easy ride straight down to the hottest chambers of hell. Brazil, entrusted with the largest, most diverse, most important stretch of biosphere on the planet, contains the struggling yet increasing armies of the poor who are systematically reducing the country to barren baked red mud, so that "Amazonia" will in due course become a synonym for "Martian landscape." Governmental corruption, taken to a degree that proves without doubt that humans, who learned to walk long before learning to think, are true experts at f**king up the world and each other with no hope for the obverse in sight. A Brazilian friend told me the other day that at one point she was worried that the U.S. would send down troops and attack her country because of the way it is destroying the rainforest. I explained to her that we're happy to attack a desert country with oil under it, but that the current E.P.A. wouldn't know a rainforest if it found itself staggering around in one, or care. Another angle to this is Brazil's use of sugar-cane waste to produce ethanol, and the concomitant questions raised about the effect of this production on the environment - encroachment on the rain forest, the practice of burning the fields at harvest time, insecticide and fertilizer runoff, etc. We'll save this for another time. Anyway, do you believe that the Amazon will be saved? We can now see the scars on it from space. But I digress. In addition to the kidnapping and corrupt-politician threads, there are threads for the frogs and Mr. M. I know that the frogs are part of the corruption story but as I watched I just took them to be frogs. I know that they are an in-your-face unsubtle metaphor for the Brazilian people or the Brazilian poor or the Brazilian rich, or whatever, at least until they get eaten, but I remained oblivious to this idea while watching the movie. The frogs remained frogs. At what point in the making of the movie did Jonah, Joey, Jared, and Doug appreciate the metaphorical character of the frogs? Surely not before Jonah and Joey went down to shoot them for the first time? Mr. M, I know now, was meant to show how the current social situation in Brazil can engender a kind of paranoia in its citizenry but unfortunately, while watching the movie, I took Mr. M (originally from Tel Aviv) to be a sort of spokesman for the film's theses. Given my mindset, his exposition of the dire situation in the country went over the top to the detriment of the movie. So is this user error? Missing the expressionist vibe? Merging instead of contrasting the frogs and Mr. M with the kidnappers and the corrupt politician? Because Sao Paulo is huge. Skyscraper gardens. More money than the rest of Latin America. 20 million people is a whole lot of people, poor, rich, and otherwise. Within city limits, only Mumbai, Karachi, Istanbul, and Delhi are larger. (NYC is 9th.) For whatever reason, the sheer size and diversity of the city makes me want to take everything I'm seeing literally. The complexity seems too large for metaphor, too complicated to submit to Mr. M's simple paranoia. The first time in Sao Paulo, I was alone. I walked down to the edge of Paraisópolis, the city's largest favela, and sat down and watched the activity in the street. There was a street game of some kind going one, played by a gang of young boys. One of them, small but intense, was obviously their leader. When in due course they made their way over to me, I hired that boy as my guide for a week, paying him a lot even by U.S. standards. He turned his gang over to his second in command and took control of my stay in the city. By the time I left at the end of the month I was almost dead from exhaustion. By the way, Sao Paulo's U.S. sister city is Miami. Before finishing here, we must deal with the charges of sensationalism lodged against Manda Bala by various reviewers. The filmmakers dismiss the charges by pointing out that: (a) They're exhibiting reality. Calling it sensationalism is snobbish and elitist. It's the movie's responsibility to portray reality. The viewer needs to know that what they are seeing and hearing about is real. (b) The filmmakers are themselves curious. They want to see how things are, what things look like. (c) Kidnappees suffer. It's necessary for you to see that suffering, not just listen to descriptions of it. Regarding the surgery scenes, which were storyboarded, lit, shot using a dolly, but fortunately not rehearsed, I refer you to Nip/Tuck. Regarding the ear-cutting-off footage, I refer you to Fox News any night of the week and to my Abu Ghraib album. Regarding the guns, I refer you to The Wire. Rebuilt earlobes are hard because they're made out of rib. "I watched The Birds the same day they cut my first ear off. That night I dreamed the birds pecked my ear off." Jars of ears cut off with knives, scissors, teeth. "I said to him, How could you sleep? You cut my ears off last night." The filmmakers left out the footage of a frog eating an ear. They did not leave out the footage of a frog eating a frog. And that frog abattoir... the slaughtering and skinning and dressing out and carving up and flouring and deep-fat frying and eating of the frogs. Is this Fast Food Nation, or what? Didn't make me want to buy a bag of Frog McNuggets. Car paintball. Weener dog on pool slide. Wait a minute. Which way am I arguing here? Point is, the scenes in question don't rise to the level of sensationalism, not in today's suicide-bomber-a-day world, nevermind true docuporn. I remember sitting in Symphony Cinema II in Boston watching Mondo Cane in 1962. The guy getting hair plugs - that stayed with me. Would it be so wrong to put in at least one scene at a topless beach? What's wrong with the Sundance awards? We'll deal with that question another time. Is the film fair and balanced? Is it too dark? Is Kohn afraid to show anything positive because it might diminish the points that the movie is attempting to make. Does the lack of good news weaken the film's arguments? Just saw a headline in Drudge: "Global Temps Have Not Risen Since '98." See? From the NYT: "Good News From Brazil. The global economy may not be the happiest of stories these days, but it would be a far more tragic one had Brazil suffered a financial implosion in the past year, as many had feared. If Brazil, Latin America's largest nation, had defaulted on its $250 billion public debt, as neighboring Argentina had done, the consequences would have been catastrophic. The resulting panic would have affected not only Latin America, but all emerging markets." More good news. The rich are not getting poorer. And that recent epidemic of dengue fever, causing many deaths? The good news is that it wasn't the hemorrhagic variety in most cases, which causes a much higher death rate. Manda Bala II: The Good Politician, The Kidnapper Who Found God, and Frogs As Pets. The music track is excellent. So Jonah, Joey, and Jared worked hard and did good and I congratulate them. As Jonah says, "Making the first one is about making the second one." He's currently working on a screenplay. Winning a big award the first time out can be both blessing and curse. Let's hope that it's more of the former and less of the latter for these three. And if you haven't seen Pixote or Cidade de Deus, please do so.
]]>Mon, 05 May 2008 21:53:57 GMTjoem18bjoem18b Blog5/5/2008 5:53:57 PMBefore dealing with the end of the world as we know it, which this movie does not explicitly mention but which is lurking there in the unspoken background - before dealing with that, it being a pet peeve of mine, let me mention first an equally annoying pet peeve: many podcasters, the Spout podcasters occasionally among them, use the expression "begs the question" when they actually mean "raises the question." This error of diction has become so common in the U.S. today that it's probably useless to even mention it here, but since I heard it again on FilmCouch recently, let me remind those who might be unaware of it that "begging the question" is a form of logical fallacy in which an argument is assumed to be true without evidence other than the argument itself. Thank you. Meanwhile, back in the day, if you hated documentaries but had to write a paper on one, you could head down to Ninth and Trawler and catch The Nudist Story at the Jewel Box. The Nudist Story is the film where everybody plays volleyball with their backs turned to the camera. Otherwise, you were stuck with "Hemo the Magnificent" or "Our Mister Sun" or a training film explaining how to avoid the clap and why you ought to do so instead of chasing around after the girls at school who were reputed to be the biggest pushovers. These days, in addition to naked flesh, you can find lots of other quite acceptable entertainment in nonfiction films - crime and corruption in its multivarious forms, incest, child abuse, pedophilia, perversions both common and obscure, the apocalypse, and George Bush. Manda Bala, for example, will get you through the night quite agreeably, with a laugh or two, when you can't count on slipping a review of Hostel II past your Remedial English 2B class instructor. Manda Bala executive summary: That's all you got? But stand by while I rethink that. Manda Bala Cliff Notes: Frog farm launders money for massively corrupt president of the Brazilian congress; kidnappers are mean; a guy worries about getting mugged in Sao Paulo; bulletproof cars (if it's good enough for the Pope, it's good enough for me); plastic-surgery surgery, with blood and music that has a cutting edge; using a helicopter to avoid carjacking; no helicopter-jacking, sadly; and the clincher: politicians can be corrupt. "Manda Bala" ("Send a Bullet") is an expression common in Brazil but hard for me to explain in English, at least as I understand it (feel free to correct me). Imagine a situation like Iraq, for example - sixth year of the war, unrelenting violence, little water or electricity in Baghdad, a sense of inevitable disaster - you might look at that and just say "Manda Bala," meaning "What the hell, go ahead and pull the trigger." I checked out a few reviews of Manda Bala while awaiting my screener, just to pick up on the buzz. The temperature ran hot (except for Stephen Holden): "rich vibrancy of threat," "inexcusable violations of political faith and public safety," "hauntingly mounted voyage," "shocking and scary," "mesmerizing, tense, exciting," "a country and a society entirely out of control," "black humor and stomach-churning detail," "the ravages of political graft and unchecked crime." Documentary Grand Jury prize winner at Sundance. Cleaned up at the Cinema Eye Awards. "A film that cannot be shown in Brazil." Wow. Well, Manda Bala can't be shown in Brazil because one of the guys appearing in the movie told the young men who made it that he'd sue their asses three ways from Sunday if the film ever opened in a theater in that country. Always some sorehead out there with his hand in your pocket. So is it true that if the filmmakers have particular interests, a design, and a message in mind, but I don't share those interests, don't apprehend the design, and misunderstand the message, then how blame is apportioned between maker and viewer for the disconnect will determine whether the movie is good or bad? Because my executive summary above is not in exact accord with the thoughts and intentions of the filmmakers. I believe that in the last analysis, the principal interest of Jason Kohn (the director and principal producer - that is, the guy who made the movie) was to make a feature-length theatrical documentary with the film values of a mainstream motion picture - the values of a Hollywood action flick, for example. Like Earl Morris, and maybe because of Morris' influence, Kohn's aesthetic here represents the flip side of cinema verite, handheld video cameras, minimalism, and made-for-TV documentaries. For example, Morris prepares sets before shooting, recreates scenes, and uses the "Interrotron" - his invention - when interviewing (a device that, when used correctly, lets viewers make eye contact with subjects in the documentary). A Morris quote has it that style doesn't dictate truth, so that the handheld camera should not be a prerequisite these days for making documentaries. Kohn hates (his word) the common belief that content will always win out over form; that form is a slave to content. Cinematic effects can be used to make a point with style (vide The Thin Blue Line). There is a provocative element in this idea. Kohn invokes Robocop and Lethal Weapon as film models and Verhoeven, Ridley Scott, and Terry Gilliam as major influences. He wanted to use film rather than videotape in Manda Bala and was able to obtain 35mm lenses adapted for a 16mm camera. Manda Bala is shot in anamorphic Super 16; at 2.69:1, it's wider than Cinemascope. Kohn says that he made the choice in part as an anti-TV statement. At the time, HBO, the most profitable channel for documentaries, had announced that they wouldn't letterbox. Kohn also is bugged by TV documentaries that add footage to find a theatrical release. He wanted to make a film that delivers visually in the theater. He wanted to light sets, use dollies, and try out filming techniques used in action flicks. He said that film makes everyone look great, like an actor. He didn't want to go down to South America, a rich kid by Latin standards, and stick a handheld camera in the faces of the poor. (In the event, the poor onscreen are few and far between. In an odd turn, most of those interviewed about a country gone terribly wrong appear themselves to be saints.) As Kohn expresses it, he wanted to make a documentary Robocop. To him, documentaries aren't a separate form; they're just another genre. For example, Morris borrowed from noir when making The Thin Blue Line. Helo&iacute;sa Passos won the Cinematography Award at Sundance for shooting the movie. I, on the other hand, received Manda Bala on DVD in the mail and watched it letterboxed on TV. I might as easily have watched it on a laptop or even on an Ipod. So while I can sing the praises of Lawrence of Arabia or a Terrence Malick flick as seen in the theater, I was never going to be watching this one there. So the sad fact is, I'm not in a position to comment on this aspect of the movie, perhaps the most important to its director. Besides, isn't this supposed to be a golden age for documentaries? Seems like most of the Rotten Tomatoes 90+ movies are documentaries, and there is quite a list of them. And if the theatrical version of a documentary is made with TV values and 30 minutes of extra footage, it might bug Kohn but it doesn't matter to me because I won't be paying $10 to see it in the theater anyway. And with the current lively DIY movement and mumblecore and me having just reviewed LOL for example, I'm not especially focused on the photographic values of a film, documentary or fiction, anyway. Although Ten Canoes did knock me out. So watching the film on my couch without knowing anything about what I've said so far, Manda Bala looked ok. It looked good. In addition to these theatrical and cinematical considerations, Kohn wanted to investigate several interesting subjects. In particular, he wanted to go to Brazil and shoot some footage of a frog farm that he knew about and of matters pertaining to a plastic surgeon that he had heard about. And in the process, he wanted to avoid polemics. In Kohn's opinion, feature documentaries are a poor way to push political agendas. With Bush getting elected in spite of Fahrenheit 9/11, maybe I agree with him. And Kohn wasn't interested in documentary filmmaking as journalism. Viewers expecting an expose or other newsworthy story will not find it here. Kohn wanted to go expressionistic, not journalistic. He wanted to experiment and discover what could be done with a documentary, not set out with digitized video in mind. Maybe do something like Fast, Cheap, and Out of Control. I, contrariwise, am not intrigued by frog farms or plastic surgery and I don't have a problem with, and in fact might lean toward, polemical documentaries that observe high journalistic standards and push agendas. So that's another strike against me vs Manda Bala, going in. And the Sundance prizes perturbed my attitude as well. I mean, this is a film made by three very young and inexperienced filmmakers and needs to be, must be, approached and appreciated that way, which in my case, because of the buzz, sadly wasn't. Finally, Kohl learned that he needed a story. He needed to tell a story and make it look good. His second of three editors, Doug Abel, taught him what that meant. Kohn credits Abel with cutting the film into a coherent story. I could be interested in a story. A story, that I could go for. But to back up a little: Jason Kohn graduated from Brandeis in 2001 and got a job as a researcher for Earl Morris. He visited his dad in Brazil at Christmas, 2001, to look into the filming of the frog farm and the plastic surgeon. His dad knew a lot of folks down there and had some influence in the community; Brazil has a lot of poor people, and a collection of the super rich, but the middle class isn't so big. Then, in the summer of 2002 at the age of 23, Kohn flew down to actually shoot some film. He called a friend, Joey Frank, and asked him to come down for a couple of months too, to help in Sao Paulo. Kohn knew Frank from Brandeis, but Frank had transferred to Brown, where he was scheduled to graduate in 2003. When Kohn called him he was 21. Kohn's father is Argentinian, his mother Brazilian. His father had been robbed in his car four or five times in the past seven years and talked about it a lot, and also complained continually about the rampant corruption in Brazil. Jason knew that the frog farm was used for money laundering and that the plastic surgeon specialized in rebuilding the ears cut off kidnapping victims, and he thought that he might make a short film dealing with corruption and the country's concomitant street violence and how they might interrelate, with the farm and surgeon serving as framing examples for the central idea of the film. Frank joined Kohn in Sao Paulo and they asked a third friend, Jared Goldman, who was working at Miramax, to provide backup from the States. Kohn, Frank, and Goldman are credited as Manda Bala's producers. Kohn is also the director, Frank the assistant director. Kohn and Frank spent two and a half months doing preproduction work in Sao Paulo. They used Kohn's dad's house as one office and his mom's house in the States as the other for the duration of the project. Kohn had sold his car and saxaphone to raise money and had otherwise managed to raise 10K or so. Frank brought 10K too. The film began with a summer budget of 25K. Kohn talked Helo&iacute;sa Passos into shooting the movie. Then they filmed the frog farmer and surgeon, and a detective on kidnapping detail, a paranoid businessman, a microchip salesman, an assistant attorney general, and a kidnapping victim. They came home with 25 hours of film, cut together a trailer, got grants from Sundance and Brandeis, and found an investor. As they worked on their thesis that corruption at the top breeds violence at the bottom, they came to realize that they needed more than the frog farm and some ear surgery to make a decent Robomentary. They went back to Brazil the next summer and shot 25 more hours of film. With that they had a feature film without an ending, as they put it. In fact, "ending" here might be code for "story," "arc," "compelling narrative." They decided that they needed a kidnapper in the film and waited around with 10K in bribes to interview one that they had found in prison. However, a bookkeeping error dealing with the exchange rate meant that they were 20K behind, not 10K ahead. And, the kidnapper was transferred to a different prison. The interview never happened. After finding, finally, funding for a third phase, Kohn went back to Brazil, hung out for six months until a taxi driver taking him to the dentist told him that he could hook him up with a kidnapper. Kohn met the kidnapper at a McDonald's, handed over some money, was taken to the kidnapper's home, interview him multiple times, and also got a brief interview with the corrupt politician at the center of the film. A final version of Manda Bala was cut together and finally, after five years of effort, the filmmakers had their film. Six months later it won the Grand Jury prize at Sundance. So, young men make a movie and it is what it is. No, it isn't what it is; it's something else. It isn't what Kohn says it is, exactly, and probably not what I thought I saw it was, but it's in the neighborhood of what it is. It really struck me how young these fellows were when my daughter, in her last year at Brown, mentioned that one of the boys from her high school, who is also at Brown, was friends with Joey Frank. Frank's Facebook page is not exactly that of a graybeard, either. After Manda Bala was released, Kohn and Frank in commentary and interviews seem to be finding their way a little toward an explanation of the movie that they had made. They represent Manda Bala as an impressionistic collage of scenes that, taken together, recontextualize the relationship of political corruption to street violence. I, however, took the movie to be telling me, as if I might not know it already, that kidnapping is currently a growth industry for the poor in Brazil. This was not Kohn's intention. He well knows that street violence in general and the kidnapping industry in particular in Sao Paulo are not expose-worth in 2008. City of God was released in 2002. In Kohn's view, while City of God (one of the great Brazilian films in his estimation) is a pretend documentary, Manda Bala is a pretend fiction. They make a nice pair. In fact, Manda Bala crew members claimed to belong to the City of God crew a time or two. Opened some doors. So kidnapping for profit isn't popular in the U.S. because there is too much risk for too little gain, penalties too stringent, and a strong law-enforcement focus on the crime. For example, my parent's house was robbed twice before the two addicts across the street decided to go for a bigger payday and were immediately arrested for kidnapping a kid down the block and botching the ransom pickup. But on the other hand, kidnapping for ransom is now common in many parts of the world. In 2007, Baghdad was dubbed kidnapping capitol of the world by whomever it is that does that dubbing. Previous title holders include Mexico and Colombia. You're also a high snatch risk in Haiti, Moscow, and parts of Africa. And in Sao Paulo. Manda Bala does get a little breathless over this fact. In the U.S., selling drugs provides the standard entry-level employment opportunities for some of the poor who can't get a job at Wal-Mart. We're just not into kidnapping-as-a-business yet. I was visiting in Bogota last year and my friend's daughter was crossing from her parked car to the front door of the apartment building one night and got grabbed on the sidewalk. A flash kidnapping. Her abductors drove her to a bank machine where she withdrew the max allowed. This was at 11:55 PM. They drove around for six minutes and then had her do it again. Then they drove her out to a dump on the outskirts of the city. She told them that she was a doctor working with the poor (which was true). Whether or not that was the reason, they let her get out of the car and drove away without shooting her. When the police brought her home, she went into her room and closed the door and didn't come out for three days. Meanwhile, the ear-cutter-offer in the movie tells us that his ill-gotten gains are spent helping the poor in the slums where he lives. A Hezbollah/Hamas/Sadr militia model of social welfare. I'm guessing that the vogue in kidnapping in the past decade has something to do with technology: the spread of cell phones, the Internet, and the availability and affordability of an arsenal of new, powerful weapons. In Sao Paulo, kidnappings are running at a rate of one per day. In Manda Bala we see, first, evil faceless kidnappers. Then, the tough cops who hunt them down like dogs (81 cops in a city of 20 million, poorly paid and prone to accept bribes). As mentioned above, the filmmakers try to find a kidnapper to interview. They learn about one in prison but the bribes necessary to get to him would have busted the movie budget, so eventually, by luck, they hooked up, through that traditional source of connections, the cab driver, with a kidnapper in a ski mask. (Hard to find a ski mask in Brazil? Couple of the classic ski resorts in the Andes have closed because their glaciers have melted.) This man in the mask had killed and would kill again (but as he tells us in his defense, he's mostly just killed policemen). He has robbed. He has kidnapped. He's done ears. He's probably instantly identifiable in that mask to anyone who already knows him, cop, neighbor, or victim, from his eyes, mouth, and voice. This is a man who has lived his life in the slums. Gives freely of his ill-gotten gains to his needy co-slum dwellers. Nine kids. Wife pregnant with number 10. For me, him talking about his family is the most affecting moment in the film. As he is interviewed, police snoop around nearby and the filmmakers are wishing that they had worn Kevlar vests for the occasion. Later, after the movie was completed, the police caught up with the man. He killed two of them and they shot him in the stomach and shoulder. On the way to the hospital, he acquired a third bullet hole, this one in the head. Juxtaposed with the kidnapping material are scenes documenting a serious case of political corruption. That juxtaposition is the point of the movie, not the fact of the corruption itself, which has been endemic in Brazil from the jump in 1500. Europe's relationship with the country was exploitive for centuries, as wood, gold, sugar, and coffee were carried off across the Atlantic. (And if memory serves, the pre-Columbian Native Americans were a shifty-eyed lot around those parts as well.) Regrettably, as I did with the kidnapping segments, I took Manda Bala to be informing me of something that I already knew, not recontextualizing the facts being presented. As I watched, I had the thought that finding corruption in Brazil is like finding penguins in Antarctica. You can make an interesting documentary about your discovery, but the basic fact of it is not surprising. Just to say again, Kohn wasn't finding penguins in Brazil, because he knows a hundred times more about corruption in that country than I ever will, for sure; just that it seemed that way to me as a first-time viewer of the movie. The politician highlighted here, Jadar Barbalho, President of the Senate (or something), took millions - make that two billion, so greedy - from the government via public works programs, and sent it out of the country while in the process created over 400 businesses to wash the money, employing the poor of his state. Who knows how much he kept for himself, but enough trickled out into the community to get him re-elected. Naturally he never paid for his crimes. Compare and contrast this with a president of our own who takes a trillion or so for a bogus war, most of which finds its way into the pockets of the corporations of his buddies. Would he have been reelected in Brazil as he was in the U.S.? But no more snark. I'm just sayin. An oil man becomes president and the oil companies make more money than any business in history. As someone asked the other day, if Colonel Sanders were elected and the price of fried chicken went up 500%, would anybody ask why? But no more snark. Those of us who are Americans (as we blithely call ourselves in the U.S.) live in an environment that fomented the savings and loan debacle of the 80s, the tech collapse of the 90s, energy deregulation and Enron, and the current mortgage crisis. What do I care about a corrupt official in Brazil when the government here has turned me and my 401K over to a global business culture as immoral and rapacious as any fallen angel let loose in the Sacred Heart girls dormitory on the Night of the Dead? Nah, I'm just kidding. But there is a reason to care about corruption in Brazil, in addition to simply exercising our basic humanity, a reason which I'll get around to in a second. Brazil wants and needs foreign investment, but the country's reputation for corruption is a problem for it. Lula da Silva ran on a platform to clean up the government, but whether he really meant that or not, he has encountered a bureaucracy designed, built, and endlessly refined over centuries to encourage and nurture bribery and all the other time-tested methods of fiscal chicanery specific to the human species. Voters hoped that Lulu's election would bring change, but money laundering and manipulation of large government contracts in thousands of cases like the frog farm have continued to be reported. Public trust in the political system is poisoned. Although Lula da Silva himself seems to have remained clean, some of his closest political allies have been or are being investigated. He governs by coalition, and coalition means political bribery. A mensal&atilde;o (&lsquo;monthly pay-off&rsquo;) bought votes in Congress; scandal resulted in 2005. Polls indicate that a majority of Brazilians still believe that Lula is honest, but only 16% trust the political parties to be honest. The government may be one of the most corrupt in history and that corruption interferes with the government's attempts to control the imbalance in economic status and the unrest and crime that it causes. If it were just a matter of humans preying on humans, the situations in this movie could be applied to many different countries. But unfortunately, Brazil happens to be home to most of the Amazon rainforest. I've already pointed out once, when reviewing Out of Balance, that the world is going straight to hell. But since that is sort of a trippy concept and there are infinite engaging examples that adumbrate the approaching darkness and chaos, a few more words on the subject might not come amiss. That is, forget about the kidnappers and their predilection for de-earing their captives. Brazil is busy tearing out the lungs of the world and has been for years. While Brazilian engineers tout the use of satellite technology to save the Amazon rainforest, loggers, miners, and farmers keep on cutting. 20% of Earth's oxygen is produced by the rainforest (soon to be remembered only as that place down there that gave Amazon.com its name). Marina Silva, Brazil's environment minister and an Amazon native, has developed a plan to stop deforestation, which is currently progressing at 1.3 million hectares a year. She breaks the problem down geographically into specific areas. However, in spite of Brazil's struggle to implement her plan, the country remains the fifth-largest global contributor to greenhouse gases. It's up there with the big boys: the U.S., China, and India. Deforestation is the second most significant source of atmospheric carbon dioxide in the world, contributing 25% of carbon emissions to the atmosphere. In a major operation in 2005, nearly 90 public officials, businessmen, and loggers were arrested. Environmental protection agency (IBAMA) employees charged with protecting the forests from illegal loggers had been accepting bribes from logging companies in return for falsifying permits to transport timber to markets within Brazil and abroad. The illegal logging takes place primarily in Mato Grosso, where environmental organizations estimate that two-thirds of all logging was being carried out illegally. IBAMA has been reorganized in an attempt to eliminate corruption, but it's too early to see if that's doing any good. (Care to hazard a guess?) I'm sure that you've read or heard factoids like "One square mile of rainforest can contain more than 50,000 insect species" or "One hectare (2.47 acres) of land can contain more than 480 species of trees" or "Amazon rivers contain over 2,000 species of fish." 1.5 acres of rainforest is lost every second in the world - 78 million acres a year. At this rate, 85% of Earth's remaining rainforest will disappear by the year 2020. 137 species of plants and animals go extinct every day. Every so often, a ray of light gleams out, such as a recent conference of 11 Latin American countries in Brazil, with Indonesia and Congo as observers, held for and attended by leaders of indigenous groups in those countries. They explored carbon-trading policies that would compensate thier governments for conserving rainforest. In Brazil, indigenous tribes currently retain permanent rights to 12% of the country and 21% of the Amazon, plus 49 million acres of "extractive reserves" for rubber tappers, brazil-nut gatherers, and river communities. They pressure the government, which promises to get tough on logging. Deforestation rates in the country have been declining for several years (with a spike a couple of years ago). But the good news doesn't stretch much farther than that. So while Manda Bala doesn't say much on the subject, here's a toast to that ticking end-of-the-world clock. Brazil is another of America's crazy brothers. When the awards are handed out for biggest environmental f**k-up, Brazil, like the U.S., could be jumping out of its seat to accept a gold statue in the shape of a dead planet. The sanctimonious super-rich in both countries are on their easy ride straight down to the hottest chambers of hell. Brazil, entrusted with the largest, most diverse, most important stretch of biosphere on the planet, contains the struggling yet increasing armies of the poor who are systematically reducing the country to barren baked red mud, so that "Amazonia" will in due course become a synonym for "Martian landscape." Governmental corruption, taken to a degree that proves without doubt that humans, who learned to walk long before learning to think, are true experts at f**king up the world and each other with no hope for the obverse in sight. A Brazilian friend told me the other day that at one point she was worried that the U.S. would send down troops and attack her country because of the way it is destroying the rainforest. I explained to her that we're happy to attack a desert country with oil under it, but that the current E.P.A. wouldn't know a rainforest if it found itself staggering around in one, or care. Another angle to this is Brazil's use of sugar-cane waste to produce ethanol, and the concomitant questions raised about the effect of this production on the environment - encroachment on the rain forest, the practice of burning the fields at harvest time, insecticide and fertilizer runoff, etc. We'll save this for another time. Anyway, do you believe that the Amazon will be saved? We can now see the scars on it from space. But I digress. In addition to the kidnapping and corrupt-politician threads, there are threads for the frogs and Mr. M. I know that the frogs are part of the corruption story but as I watched I just took them to be frogs. I know that they are an in-your-face unsubtle metaphor for the Brazilian people or the Brazilian poor or the Brazilian rich, or whatever, at least until they get eaten, but I remained oblivious to this idea while watching the movie. The frogs remained frogs. At what point in the making of the movie did Jonah, Joey, Jared, and Doug appreciate the metaphorical character of the frogs? Surely not before Jonah and Joey went down to shoot them for the first time? Mr. M, I know now, was meant to show how the current social situation in Brazil can engender a kind of paranoia in its citizenry but unfortunately, while watching the movie, I took Mr. M (originally from Tel Aviv) to be a sort of spokesman for the film's theses. Given my mindset, his exposition of the dire situation in the country went over the top to the detriment of the movie. So is this user error? Missing the expressionist vibe? Merging instead of contrasting the frogs and Mr. M with the kidnappers and the corrupt politician? Because Sao Paulo is huge. Skyscraper gardens. More money than the rest of Latin America. 20 million people is a whole lot of people, poor, rich, and otherwise. Within city limits, only Mumbai, Karachi, Istanbul, and Delhi are larger. (NYC is 9th.) For whatever reason, the sheer size and diversity of the city makes me want to take everything I'm seeing literally. The complexity seems too large for metaphor, too complicated to submit to Mr. M's simple paranoia. The first time in Sao Paulo, I was alone. I walked down to the edge of Parais&oacute;polis, the city's largest favela, and sat down and watched the activity in the street. There was a street game of some kind going one, played by a gang of young boys. One of them, small but intense, was obviously their leader. When in due course they made their way over to me, I hired that boy as my guide for a week, paying him a lot even by U.S. standards. He turned his gang over to his second in command and took control of my stay in the city. By the time I left at the end of the month I was almost dead from exhaustion. By the way, Sao Paulo's U.S. sister city is Miami. Before finishing here, we must deal with the charges of sensationalism lodged against Manda Bala by various reviewers. The filmmakers dismiss the charges by pointing out that: (a) They're exhibiting reality. Calling it sensationalism is snobbish and elitist. It's the movie's responsibility to portray reality. The viewer needs to know that what they are seeing and hearing about is real. (b) The filmmakers are themselves curious. They want to see how things are, what things look like. (c) Kidnappees suffer. It's necessary for you to see that suffering, not just listen to descriptions of it. Regarding the surgery scenes, which were storyboarded, lit, shot using a dolly, but fortunately not rehearsed, I refer you to Nip/Tuck. Regarding the ear-cutting-off footage, I refer you to Fox News any night of the week and to my Abu Ghraib album. Regarding the guns, I refer you to The Wire. Rebuilt earlobes are hard because they're made out of rib. "I watched The Birds the same day they cut my first ear off. That night I dreamed the birds pecked my ear off." Jars of ears cut off with knives, scissors, teeth. "I said to him, How could you sleep? You cut my ears off last night." The filmmakers left out the footage of a frog eating an ear. They did not leave out the footage of a frog eating a frog. And that frog abattoir... the slaughtering and skinning and dressing out and carving up and flouring and deep-fat frying and eating of the frogs. Is this Fast Food Nation, or what? Didn't make me want to buy a bag of Frog McNuggets. Car paintball. Weener dog on pool slide. Wait a minute. Which way am I arguing here? Point is, the scenes in question don't rise to the level of sensationalism, not in today's suicide-bomber-a-day world, nevermind true docuporn. I remember sitting in Symphony Cinema II in Boston watching Mondo Cane in 1962. The guy getting hair plugs - that stayed with me. Would it be so wrong to put in at least one scene at a topless beach? What's wrong with the Sundance awards? We'll deal with that question another time. Is the film fair and balanced? Is it too dark? Is Kohn afraid to show anything positive because it might diminish the points that the movie is attempting to make. Does the lack of good news weaken the film's arguments? Just saw a headline in Drudge: "Global Temps Have Not Risen Since '98." See? From the NYT: "Good News From Brazil. The global economy may not be the happiest of stories these days, but it would be a far more tragic one had Brazil suffered a financial implosion in the past year, as many had feared. If Brazil, Latin America's largest nation, had defaulted on its $250 billion public debt, as neighboring Argentina had done, the consequences would have been catastrophic. The resulting panic would have affected not only Latin America, but all emerging markets." More good news. The rich are not getting poorer. And that recent epidemic of dengue fever, causing many deaths? The good news is that it wasn't the hemorrhagic variety in most cases, which causes a much higher death rate. Manda Bala II: The Good Politician, The Kidnapper Who Found God, and Frogs As Pets. The music track is excellent. So Jonah, Joey, and Jared worked hard and did good and I congratulate them. As Jonah says, "Making the first one is about making the second one." He's currently working on a screenplay. Winning a big award the first time out can be both blessing and curse. Let's hope that it's more of the former and less of the latter for these three. And if you haven't seen Pixote or Cidade de Deus, please do so. http://www.spout.com/blogs/moviebabe/archive/2007/7/13/13975.aspx Post By: MovieBabe
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Post Date: 7/13/2007 6:18:00 PM
Body: By Tricia Olszewski David Duchovny has weird ideas of what audiences might find moving. In his directorial debut, House of D, the former nerd-nation sex symbol treats us to several shots of a son peeing over his mother’s toilet-discarded cigarette butts. And later, of the kid wistfully plucking one out of the bowl for posterity. (Mom, apparently, is so melancholy she forgets to flush.) But Duchovny’s biggest misjudgment? Casting Robin Williams as a “retard.” Touched yet? From the opening scene in which Duchovny, rockin’ a Fu Manchu and speaking en français, begins telling the story of “a Frenchman who was not French” to an estranged wife who’s poetically hanging out a window, House of D threatens to be a sentimental disaster. The X Files vet (who also wrote the pun-laden script) plays Tom Warshaw, a New York native who, for some unimaginable reason, has kept the story of his emigration to Europe a secret from his French wife, Coralie (Magali Amadei), and son, Odell (Harold Cartier). Is it because his background is filled with scandal or disgrace? You wish. Actually, Tom’s is a typical coming-of-age tale, tinged with sadness, confusion, and many, many jokes about balls and boners. As the adult Tom sugarcoats—er, narrates—House of D jumps back to ’70s Greenwich Village, where the “almost 13”-year-old Tommy (Anton Yelchin) attends parochial school; delivers meat with his 41-year-old best friend, developmentally disabled school janitor Pappass (Williams); and tries to entertain his mom (Téa Leoni), a nurse who’s been fighting depression ever since Tommy’s father died. Because Mom’s a basket case and Pappass, well, makes conversation by saying things like “I have a huge penis” and “I shaved my ass once,” Tommy gets his best advice from Lady Bernadette (Erykah Badu), an inmate at the Women’s House of Detention who likes to yell out to people on the sidewalk. Each of these relationships is meant to be complex and troubling. But they’re about as resonant and believable as that whole thing with Mulder and his sister and the clones and those bees. Tommy’s mother goes to the bathroom while he showers (behind a clear curtain) and offers to wash his hair; he attempts to make her laugh by imitating Nixon with a giant erection. Lady Bernadette, House of D’s version of the magical Negro, responds to Tommy’s lament that some girls think he has small balls by shouting, “Even if you do have small balls, good for you!” And Williams wears false teeth and says things like “How many sleeps will you be away?”—which may make you long for his deathly dull but full-brained dramatic turns. Or, better, for him to go away for a whole bunch of sleeps. The cherub-faced and shaggy-haired Yelchin grates rather than elicits sympathy with his babyish delivery (“It’s shokay. I’ll protectsh you”), and Duchovny apparently couldn’t decide whether the kid should be a confident class clown or the kind of guy who’s afraid of speaking up to prevent a simple misunderstanding. And besides the Freudian implications of choosing Leoni, Duchovny’s wife, to play his alter ego’s mother, her character is a mess of contradictions as well—one minute laughing hysterically at her son’s fake boner, the next freaking out when she finds a mildly racy flip book in his pants pocket. Perhaps the only part of House of D that rings true is that this bizarre adolescence—combined with a predictable, tear-jerking tragedy—makes Tommy run, run, run! to France and never look back until adulthood. Of course, by the time grown-up Tom decides he must revisit his old ’hood and old friends, he’s profoundly changed. Too bad the film hasn’t: The journey results in his crying in the rain, blubbering, “I don’t have to run anymore!” Emotionalism certainly isn’t a factor in Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room—at least not on the part of the players involved. For the audience, however, Alex Gibney’s documentary will likely stir up disgust, outrage, and, perhaps for the very naive, downright shock at the blatant extortion and fraud regularly practiced by the once-exalted energy corporation before its epic downfall. With interview subjects groping for metaphors (“Enron was a house of cards—built over a pool of gasoline!”) and sometimes-flowery narration by Peter Coyote (“Was Enron the dark shadow of an American dream?”), The Smartest Guys in the Room initially comes across as a special all-corporate episode of Behind the Music. What seems to be hyperbole starts to feel apt, however, once the 110-minute documentary starts unleashing its flood of information. Several of the former employees, lawyers, analysts, and journalists commenting here compare Enron to the Titanic, and indeed, The Smartest Guys in the Room soon takes on the feel of a disaster flick, with a feeling of dread building during even early celebrations. The information presented is based on a book by Fortune reporters Bethany McLean and Peter Elkind. It was McLean’s mildly critical 2001 article “Is Enron Overpriced?” that first called attention to the company’s not-quite-right financial reports; until then, no one had questioned Enron’s heavy reliance on mark-to-market accounting, which allows projected income to be counted as current earnings and kept the company’s profits high and stocks higher. Essentially, that meant everyone involved was getting rich, with no clue of the collapse that lay ahead. The Smartest Guys in the Room focuses on the brainy duo of the movie’s title, former Enron Chair Ken Lay and onetime Enron CEO Jeff Skilling. The story of their ingenious money-magicking is divided into chapters with facetious titles such as “Kenny Boy” (President Bush’s nickname for Lay), “The Sorcerer’s Apprentice” (referring to Skilling’s assistant, Andrew Fastow), and “Ask Why, Asshole” (a rather funny combination of the firm’s motto—“Ask Why”—and Skilling’s caught-on-tape cursing of a questioning analyst). The film presents footage of Lay and Skilling at meetings, strutting and boasting while their company was still the darling of Wall Street, as well as maintaining their ignorance and innocence of illegal practices at congressional trials when their paper palace began to tumble. The most stomach-churning of the company’s activities is its alleged involvement in the California energy crisis. The documentary includes phone conversations of Enron traders celebrating the state’s rampant fires (“Burn, baby, burn! That’s a beautiful thing”) and joking about the rolling blackouts that, far from being unavoidable, were ordered to drive the price of power up (“Let ’em use fucking candles,” one trader gloats). While Lay and Skilling keep up their cheery, back-patting attitude throughout, Gibney relates the mutable health of the company with a ticker that occasionally scrolls Enron’s stock price across the bottom of the screen. The filmmaker also tries to keep things light with the use of pop songs and even a Simpsons clip that shows the family considering the Enron Ride of Broken Dreams at an amusement park. Both are successful strategies. Unlike last year’s sprawling anti-big-biz screed The Corporation, the tightly focused The Smartest Guy in the Room is edifying to the eye as well as the conscience. Of course, when the numbers of Enron’s bankruptcy are listed at the end of the movie—20,000 jobs lost, along with an equal number of pensions; average severance: $4,500—the “corporate crime of the century” elicits anything but amusement. The scandal even took the life of Enron Vice Chairman J. Clifford Baxter, whose suicide note says that he wished he’d taken the company’s slogan more seriously: “I didn’t ask why enough.”
]]>Fri, 13 Jul 2007 22:18:00 GMTMovieBabeMovieBabe Blog7/13/2007 6:18:00 PM By Tricia Olszewski David Duchovny has weird ideas of what audiences might find moving. In his directorial debut, House of D, the former nerd-nation sex symbol treats us to several shots of a son peeing over his mother&rsquo;s toilet-discarded cigarette butts. And later, of the kid wistfully plucking one out of the bowl for posterity. (Mom, apparently, is so melancholy she forgets to flush.) But Duchovny&rsquo;s biggest misjudgment? Casting Robin Williams as a &ldquo;retard.&rdquo; Touched yet? From the opening scene in which Duchovny, rockin&rsquo; a Fu Manchu and speaking en fran&ccedil;ais, begins telling the story of &ldquo;a Frenchman who was not French&rdquo; to an estranged wife who&rsquo;s poetically hanging out a window, House of D threatens to be a sentimental disaster. The X Files vet (who also wrote the pun-laden script) plays Tom Warshaw, a New York native who, for some unimaginable reason, has kept the story of his emigration to Europe a secret from his French wife, Coralie (Magali Amadei), and son, Odell (Harold Cartier). Is it because his background is filled with scandal or disgrace? You wish. Actually, Tom&rsquo;s is a typical coming-of-age tale, tinged with sadness, confusion, and many, many jokes about balls and boners. As the adult Tom sugarcoats&mdash;er, narrates&mdash;House of D jumps back to &rsquo;70s Greenwich Village, where the &ldquo;almost 13&rdquo;-year-old Tommy (Anton Yelchin) attends parochial school; delivers meat with his 41-year-old best friend, developmentally disabled school janitor Pappass (Williams); and tries to entertain his mom (T&eacute;a Leoni), a nurse who&rsquo;s been fighting depression ever since Tommy&rsquo;s father died. Because Mom&rsquo;s a basket case and Pappass, well, makes conversation by saying things like &ldquo;I have a huge penis&rdquo; and &ldquo;I shaved my ass once,&rdquo; Tommy gets his best advice from Lady Bernadette (Erykah Badu), an inmate at the Women&rsquo;s House of Detention who likes to yell out to people on the sidewalk. Each of these relationships is meant to be complex and troubling. But they&rsquo;re about as resonant and believable as that whole thing with Mulder and his sister and the clones and those bees. Tommy&rsquo;s mother goes to the bathroom while he showers (behind a clear curtain) and offers to wash his hair; he attempts to make her laugh by imitating Nixon with a giant erection. Lady Bernadette, House of D&rsquo;s version of the magical Negro, responds to Tommy&rsquo;s lament that some girls think he has small balls by shouting, &ldquo;Even if you do have small balls, good for you!&rdquo; And Williams wears false teeth and says things like &ldquo;How many sleeps will you be away?&rdquo;&mdash;which may make you long for his deathly dull but full-brained dramatic turns. Or, better, for him to go away for a whole bunch of sleeps. The cherub-faced and shaggy-haired Yelchin grates rather than elicits sympathy with his babyish delivery (&ldquo;It&rsquo;s shokay. I&rsquo;ll protectsh you&rdquo;), and Duchovny apparently couldn&rsquo;t decide whether the kid should be a confident class clown or the kind of guy who&rsquo;s afraid of speaking up to prevent a simple misunderstanding. And besides the Freudian implications of choosing Leoni, Duchovny&rsquo;s wife, to play his alter ego&rsquo;s mother, her character is a mess of contradictions as well&mdash;one minute laughing hysterically at her son&rsquo;s fake boner, the next freaking out when she finds a mildly racy flip book in his pants pocket. Perhaps the only part of House of D that rings true is that this bizarre adolescence&mdash;combined with a predictable, tear-jerking tragedy&mdash;makes Tommy run, run, run! to France and never look back until adulthood. Of course, by the time grown-up Tom decides he must revisit his old &rsquo;hood and old friends, he&rsquo;s profoundly changed. Too bad the film hasn&rsquo;t: The journey results in his crying in the rain, blubbering, &ldquo;I don&rsquo;t have to run anymore!&rdquo; Emotionalism certainly isn&rsquo;t a factor in Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room&mdash;at least not on the part of the players involved. For the audience, however, Alex Gibney&rsquo;s documentary will likely stir up disgust, outrage, and, perhaps for the very naive, downright shock at the blatant extortion and fraud regularly practiced by the once-exalted energy corporation before its epic downfall. With interview subjects groping for metaphors (&ldquo;Enron was a house of cards&mdash;built over a pool of gasoline!&rdquo;) and sometimes-flowery narration by Peter Coyote (&ldquo;Was Enron the dark shadow of an American dream?&rdquo;), The Smartest Guys in the Room initially comes across as a special all-corporate episode of Behind the Music. What seems to be hyperbole starts to feel apt, however, once the 110-minute documentary starts unleashing its flood of information. Several of the former employees, lawyers, analysts, and journalists commenting here compare Enron to the Titanic, and indeed, The Smartest Guys in the Room soon takes on the feel of a disaster flick, with a feeling of dread building during even early celebrations. The information presented is based on a book by Fortune reporters Bethany McLean and Peter Elkind. It was McLean&rsquo;s mildly critical 2001 article &ldquo;Is Enron Overpriced?&rdquo; that first called attention to the company&rsquo;s not-quite-right financial reports; until then, no one had questioned Enron&rsquo;s heavy reliance on mark-to-market accounting, which allows projected income to be counted as current earnings and kept the company&rsquo;s profits high and stocks higher. Essentially, that meant everyone involved was getting rich, with no clue of the collapse that lay ahead. The Smartest Guys in the Room focuses on the brainy duo of the movie&rsquo;s title, former Enron Chair Ken Lay and onetime Enron CEO Jeff Skilling. The story of their ingenious money-magicking is divided into chapters with facetious titles such as &ldquo;Kenny Boy&rdquo; (President Bush&rsquo;s nickname for Lay), &ldquo;The Sorcerer&rsquo;s Apprentice&rdquo; (referring to Skilling&rsquo;s assistant, Andrew Fastow), and &ldquo;Ask Why, Asshole&rdquo; (a rather funny combination of the firm&rsquo;s motto&mdash;&ldquo;Ask Why&rdquo;&mdash;and Skilling&rsquo;s caught-on-tape cursing of a questioning analyst). The film presents footage of Lay and Skilling at meetings, strutting and boasting while their company was still the darling of Wall Street, as well as maintaining their ignorance and innocence of illegal practices at congressional trials when their paper palace began to tumble. The most stomach-churning of the company&rsquo;s activities is its alleged involvement in the California energy crisis. The documentary includes phone conversations of Enron traders celebrating the state&rsquo;s rampant fires (&ldquo;Burn, baby, burn! That&rsquo;s a beautiful thing&rdquo;) and joking about the rolling blackouts that, far from being unavoidable, were ordered to drive the price of power up (&ldquo;Let &rsquo;em use fucking candles,&rdquo; one trader gloats). While Lay and Skilling keep up their cheery, back-patting attitude throughout, Gibney relates the mutable health of the company with a ticker that occasionally scrolls Enron&rsquo;s stock price across the bottom of the screen. The filmmaker also tries to keep things light with the use of pop songs and even a Simpsons clip that shows the family considering the Enron Ride of Broken Dreams at an amusement park. Both are successful strategies. Unlike last year&rsquo;s sprawling anti-big-biz screed The Corporation, the tightly focused The Smartest Guy in the Room is edifying to the eye as well as the conscience. Of course, when the numbers of Enron&rsquo;s bankruptcy are listed at the end of the movie&mdash;20,000 jobs lost, along with an equal number of pensions; average severance: $4,500&mdash;the &ldquo;corporate crime of the century&rdquo; elicits anything but amusement. The scandal even took the life of Enron Vice Chairman J. Clifford Baxter, whose suicide note says that he wished he&rsquo;d taken the company&rsquo;s slogan more seriously: &ldquo;I didn&rsquo;t ask why enough.&rdquo; http://www.spout.com/blogs/jimbell/archive/2007/2/28/5864.aspx Post By: JimBell
Post To: JimBell Blog
Post Date: 2/28/2007 3:45:00 PM
Body: Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room (2005) documents the rise and fall of a natural gas and energy company once ranked most admired company in the United States of America. Executives got approval to implement “mark-to-market” accounting, which means—almost unbelievably—that once they had an idea, they could start claiming profits from it even though they had done nothing. As an example, Enron built a power plant in India where the locals could not afford the power, but Enron claimed huge profits for the great idea while the plant was actually shut down and lost over a billion dollars. As things get tough, the Chief Financial Officer creates dumby companies which allow Enron to hide its losses. The principal phoney company earns him personally $45 million. As things get even tougher, Enron rank and file traders are heard purposely shutting down California power plants in order to create rolling black outs in the world’s seventh largest economy. This drives the price of electricity through the roof and makes Enron $2 billion, while costing the people of California about $30 billion. In one month in 2001, Enron, a company worth about $70 billion dollars, goes bankrupt. The executives bail out secretly and early—the CEO taking $200 million. The thousands of employees are given 30 minutes to clear out of the Houston headquarters, and receive an average severance of $4,500 while losing pretty much all of their retirement funds. As shocking as the figures are, the strength of the documentary is probably that it focuses on the characters involved more than the accounting. The co-author of the book The Smartest Guys in the Room, Bethany McLean, is somewhat sympathetic to the CEO. The weakness of the movie is the heavy-handed sound track playing obvious songs such as Billy Holiday’s “God Bless the Child.” Fortunately, in retrospect I remember the movie’s content and not its sound track. I watched this documentary in the midst of an on-line discussion of why young men are doing so poorly in post-secondary education. I wondered what teenage guys would think if they saw this film. What proportion of guys would be powerfully motivated to work like dogs to create and/or profit from corrupt companies ripping off and hurting millions of people? What proportion of guys would be disgusted and say they wanted nothing to do with the entire system that supported such crap? What proportion of guys would feel thankful that they live in a wonderful system which could so quickly catch and punish rogues breaking the rules?Jim Bell
]]>Wed, 28 Feb 2007 20:45:00 GMTJimBellJimBell Blog2/28/2007 3:45:00 PM Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room (2005) documents the rise and fall of a natural gas and energy company once ranked most admired company in the United States of America. Executives got approval to implement &ldquo;mark-to-market&rdquo; accounting, which means&mdash;almost unbelievably&mdash;that once they had an idea, they could start claiming profits from it even though they had done nothing. As an example, Enron built a power plant in India where the locals could not afford the power, but Enron claimed huge profits for the great idea while the plant was actually shut down and lost over a billion dollars. As things get tough, the Chief Financial Officer creates dumby companies which allow Enron to hide its losses. The principal phoney company earns him personally $45 million. As things get even tougher, Enron rank and file traders are heard purposely shutting down California power plants in order to create rolling black outs in the world&rsquo;s seventh largest economy. This drives the price of electricity through the roof and makes Enron $2 billion, while costing the people of California about $30 billion. In one month in 2001, Enron, a company worth about $70 billion dollars, goes bankrupt. The executives bail out secretly and early&mdash;the CEO taking $200 million. The thousands of employees are given 30 minutes to clear out of the Houston headquarters, and receive an average severance of $4,500 while losing pretty much all of their retirement funds. As shocking as the figures are, the strength of the documentary is probably that it focuses on the characters involved more than the accounting. The co-author of the book The Smartest Guys in the Room, Bethany McLean, is somewhat sympathetic to the CEO. The weakness of the movie is the heavy-handed sound track playing obvious songs such as Billy Holiday&rsquo;s &ldquo;God Bless the Child.&rdquo; Fortunately, in retrospect I remember the movie&rsquo;s content and not its sound track. I watched this documentary in the midst of an on-line discussion of why young men are doing so poorly in post-secondary education. I wondered what teenage guys would think if they saw this film. What proportion of guys would be powerfully motivated to work like dogs to create and/or profit from corrupt companies ripping off and hurting millions of people? What proportion of guys would be disgusted and say they wanted nothing to do with the entire system that supported such crap? What proportion of guys would feel thankful that they live in a wonderful system which could so quickly catch and punish rogues breaking the rules?Jim Bell http://www.spout.com/members/0/tags/documentary/MemberTagFilms.aspxdocumentary
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