Going after the perps : Who caused the meltdown of 2008

"Inside Job" won the Oscar this year for best documentary, but surely that category needs some rethinking. I'm sure others have noted this, but I really don't think we should think of films like this one, like Waiting for "Superman" or An Inconvenient Truth, as documentaries: they're really what I would call Nonfiction Films. In a true documentary, the director and crew use their recording equipment and all their cinematic skills, including during post-production, to record or document an event, action, society, person's life, or way of life. In films like Inside Job and many others of its type, the director is investigating a topic or event or issue, but not exactly documenting it - it's like an essay, it has a strong point of view, its didactic and instructive, but not documentary. I know there is overlap and many films that would be hard to categorize (e.g., personal family histories such as Zachary, the Friedmans), but this is a useful polarity that might help us think better about these films and their intent. Inside Job is very persuasive and powerful, the most courageous and thorough look (in film at least) on the 2008 financial meltdown, in particular at who was responsible for it. At times it goes after targets that are just too easy and obvious - some idiotic and totally corrupt academic whores who will sign their name to anything for big pay, and a few Bush-era underlings unable to defend their absurd positions - but it also makes clear that the heart of the whole meltdown wasn't the greed of banks - that's to be expected - but complete deregulation and the complete lack of government oversight, all in service of the wealthy oligarchs who control our elected officials. I wish it had been a little harder on Reagan (and Bush II) and had drawn a tighter line between their ideologies and the interests their ideologies served - but Inside Job does make the right connections and it puts more than a few blowhards in their place.