Silverdocs Kicks Off with Freakonomics
Last night's post-screening discussion with (from left) 'Freakonomics' Producer Chad Troutwine, filmmakers Heidi Ewing, Rachel Grady and Alex Gibney, with moderator and financial advisor Alvin Hall. Photo courtesy Silverdocs.
The film itself was an engaging, slick and entertaining documentary, serving exactly the purpose an opening night film should: appeal to a broad audience with easy likability, and get people fired up for the week of films that is to follow. Freakonomics might seem an odd choice for a filmed adaptation, given that its only through line is economist and co-author Steven Levitt's commitment to the idea of economics as the expression of human psychological response to incentives. The examples that he and co-author and journalist Stephen Dubner use to illustrate are unrelated to one another, and illustrate disparate points. But producer Chad Troutwine looked on this as a potential strength, and enlisted five prominent documentarians to create an omnibus doc that would allow each of them to choose and film a different part of the book.
Of course, omnibus films are rarely 100% successful, and Freakonomics does fall victim to some of the usual problems inherent to mashing together short films by stylistically distinct directors into one feature. The producers attempt to mitigate the tonal shifts slightly by tasking one of their directors, King of Kong's Seth Gordon, with filming interlude segments to bridge the four longer short films by the other directors. Gordon's pieces, which center around interviews with Levitt and Dubner, do give the film a consistent home base to return to (and are excellent, brief distillations of their thinking), though they don't quite smooth over the rough edges that are bound to spring up when, say, the irreverent, sardonic style of Morgan Spurlock (Super-Size Me) runs up against the dark, near-operatic elegance of Alex Gibney (Taxi to the Dark Side).
Spurlock's segment ("A Rashonda By Any Other Name") opens things up, with one of the most oft-cited sections of the book, regarding whether or not the names we're given at birth are a major determinant of our success or failure in life. It's the weakest of the four. Spurlock is at his best as a documentarian in the Michael Moore mold: his personal charisma is the thing that carries a movie like Super-Size Me, and in this segment, he leaves himself out of the proceedings, and it feels like he's trying too hard, with over-the-top jokes, and far too many goofy reenactments. The "man on the street" interviews he throws into the mix feel far too funny to be truly off-the-cuff, and the appearance of what I'm nearly certain was an uncredited cameo by James Ransone (Ziggy Sobotka from The Wire) throws into question whether any of these folks are the random people on the corner that they're made out to be.
Gibney follows with a segment on cheating in the world of sumo wrestling. The B-roll he shoots of slow motion wrestlers engaging one another — grimy from the sand of the ring, surrounded by the noirish darkness that Gibney also favors for shooting interviews — may be some of the most gorgeous footage of the sport ever committed to film. The thesis of the section, that "purity masks corruption", allows him to explore how people with unsullied reputations may often be most likely to cheat. A concept that he extends out from sumo to the world of finance as well. It's a fascinating section, and one gets the sense that Gibney could have easily made a feature exploring these ideas just as well as a short.
Eugene Jarecki (Why We Fight) is next, with the film's pithiest segment, a largely animated examination of one of Levitt's most controversial assertions in the book: that the largest factor in the steep drop in crime that occurred in the United States in the 90s was Roe vs. Wade: the direct result of that decision ensuring the right to abortion was a sharp and sudden decline in crime-prone unwanted children, who would have come of age in the early 90s. Jarecki skillfully weaves together original animations with scenes from "It's a Wonderful Life", connecting George Bailey's wish to have never been born with this large group of children who were actually never born. It's a powerful argument, succinctly made, and is bound to anger just as many people as Levitt's original postulation.
Lastly, the directing team of Heidi Ewing and Rachel Grady (Jesus Camp) take on the film's only segment not taken from the book. In the post-film Q&A, the pair related how they prefer projects that follow stories to which they don't know the ending. So when they asked Levitt if he was currently involved in any experiments that might reflect the spirit of Freakonomics, he told them of a University of Chicago study he was engaged in measuring the impact of financial rewards — essentially, bribes — on the academic performance of 9th graders. Ewing and Grady focus on two under performing students in particular, following them throughout the half of a school year during which the study took place. The pair couldn't have chosen their subjects better, as the two students are hugely charismatic and obviously bright, and they immediately establish in the audience a stake in whether these students are going to improve or not.
Freakonomics the film is less an adaptation of the book as it is an introduction to its concepts. If economics are all about incentive, then the film is more than enough incentive to seek out the book and dive deeper into these concepts. It's not always entirely successful on its own terms, but it's entertaining and thought-provoking enough to stand alone as a reflection of Levitt and Dubner's work.
Last night's screening was the only one scheduled for Silverdocs, but Magnolia Pictures is planning on an autumn theatrical release for the film, just in time for the big awards season. So keep your eye out for your opportunity to check it out in D.C. once we're past the summer heat.