Some comparisons of Inside Job and Capitalism: a Love Story

            Inside Job is a documentary that has taken a very complicated and ambiguously originated, still to this day disagreed about,  subject; the mid-to-late 2000s financial crisis/meltdown. And compared to, say, Michael Moore’s Capitalism: A Love Story, this film attempts to be as fair as possible in how it deals with the subject. Throughout this exchange fairness and balance shall be discussed and numerous comparisons/contrasts shall be made between Inside Job and Capitalism.

            Now first, it might be pertinent to talk about similarities between the two films, so there is some familiar footing with which to work. Both films attempt to analyze and pin down an understanding of the financial crisis that rocked the global economy in the mid 2000s. Formalistically, both films accomplish this by contextualizing the crisis by talking about the years leading up to the collapse. They both pretty well cover the financial era(s) preceding the events, particularly the deregulation of savings and loans associations and the consolidation of a few financial firms in the 1990s. What Inside Job does, with great efficiency, is that it uses the words of the people involved in the crisis as a means of evidence and a tool to expose hypocrisy or naivety. And while Capitalism performs similar acts using similar tools, and in some cases the very same tools,  it uses it for more sardonic enterprises. While these two utilize similar tools for, ostensibly, the same goal, it is the deviations of the two that show which film is a more organized narrative.

            One of the big differences between Capitalism and Inside Job is the scope each movie takes on the subject, and in their treatment of the subject matter. Capitalism tends to examine the culture of the US, which Michael Moore is firmly entrenched in the idea that blame rests solely upon the bankers’ shoulders. Moore, also takes politico-economic jabs at individuals on the conservative side of the spectrum, using sarcasm and propagandistic sensationalism as tools in his call to action. Overall, it is this kind of sarcasm and sensationalism that presents Capitalism as the filmic equivalent of a punkish teenager, who has cracked open an economics text.

             Inside Job on the other hand, is much more focused in the scope of the subject. Rather than analyzing a culture from which the crisis might have had a partial impetus in, Inside Job stays focused on the financial crisis as an event caused by lackluster and amoral individuals who knew full well the consequences of their actions. This makes the film, although much less sardonic, it actually creates a gravity which makes the film more angry.

            I think that Inside Job, in this case, proved to be a stronger text on the subject of the financial crisis, mostly because of the maturity in its anger and the force of its formalistic elements of documentary.