Another week, another great documentary. ‘Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room’ documents the rise and fall of what used to be one of America’s largest corporations, who conceded to bankruptcy after years of fraudulence and fabricated figures. The story behind Enron is elaborate, but despite the complexity of the schemes and the workings behind the stock market the documentary managed to communicate the information in a way that was both accessible and engaging. This was most likely due to how the story was presented in a chronological timeline form which gave the information some narrative structure and made it easy to follow. A particularly strong point for the film was the interviews. Each interviewee spoke with eloquence and passion, and the responses from those directly effected by the scandal were expressed with poignancy. I’ve found that since covering the basics of how to approach conducting interviews in class I have been conscious to watch them more critically in future documentaries.
I can’t help but admire the way professional interviews are conducted and how the interviewer is able to draw such candid responses from their subjects. Some of the answers given in the film’s interviews were so well articulated that I almost felt inclined to believe they had been pre-prepared… Though I’m sure this wasn’t the case. In general, the more I know what goes on behind the scenes of film-making, the more impressed I am when watching documentaries of such a high calibre. Even though I don’t yet fully understand how they do it so well, it’s definitely inspiring to see what those at an elite level of film-making are capable of achieving.
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