MEDIA - 2008 Financial Crisis Movie

What to be scared, really scared?

"'Margin Call': Calm Before the Storm of 2008 Financial Crisis" by Jeffrey Brown and Saskia, PBS Newshour 10/21/2011

Excerpt

The 2008 financial collapse is a complex phenomenon to fathom. It's an even harder phenomenon to recreate in a cinematic narrative. 'Margin Call,' a film that opens in theaters Friday, takes on that challenge and offers a fictional account of the first 24 hours inside a Wall Street financial firm as it discovers that it's over-run with toxic, essentially worthless assets.

The director of the film, J.C. Chandor, drew on his own experiences to build the story's narrative and characters: His father worked on Wall Street for Merill Lynch for more than 35 years, which gave him a unique insight into the world of traders.

"I knew why these people made the decisions that they do, why they get hired, why they get fired, why they get promoted," he said. Chandor himself had taken out a loan to invest in renovating a building in Manhattan several years back. Halfway through that project, he was advised to sell early. "I started to think back on what it must have been like to be an insider and actually really feel like the world was going to come apart but still seeing leaders of investment banks hitting the accelerator instead of the brake pedal," Chandor said.

"Margin Call" is full of intensity, but it's a quiet drama. Don't expect any explosive face-offs between villains and heroes. Rather, most of the action unfolds through the dialogue of traders talking calmly on the phone at their desks and conversations between executives in suits in austere conference rooms. Chandor admits that he's surprised that audiences are kept on the edge of their seats since the film is "essentially about information coming across fairly static forms like computer screens and pieces of paper," he said.

The film is Chandor's directorial debut. Despite the low budget, short shooting schedule (just over two weeks) and limited location (a single floor of a skyscraper in lower Manhattan), he managed to line up an all-star cast. He credits the film's force to the performances of Kevin Spacey, Jeremy Irons, Paul Bettany, Stanley Tucci and Demi Moore.