Movie Review on The Movie Capitalism: A Love Story - Essay Example

Video Review Video Review Capitalism is a film which was written by Michael Moore in the form of a documentary. This American filmfocuses on the recovery stimulus and the financial crisis that occurred in the Western World. Capitalism was openly released in 2009 and was welcomed with numerous positive reviews. Some of the topics that were covered in this film include Goldman Sachs’ and the casino mentality in Wall Street, the poverty level of workers and insurance issues among other topics. In addition, this film also focused on a religious component whereby Moore inspects about capitalism as a critical topic (Gabriel, 2011). This paper is a movie review on the movie Capitalism: A Love Story. As stipulated above, the movie was directed produced by Michael Moore and Anne Moore. This was accomplished with the help of The Weinstein Company and Dog Eat Dog Films. The distribution was done by Paramount Vantage and Overture Films, which is based in the United States. Statistics affirm that the total budget of the film was approximately $20 million. The movie that runs for 127 minutes also premiered at the 66th Venice International Film Festival that took place in 2009 (Gabriel, 2011). This film was also displayed at the Toronto and the New York Film Festivals in the 2009 after its release. In fact, the critical response of the movie was also positive. According to the Rotten Tomatoes website, 75% of the critics were positive. This attracted an overall score of 6.7 out of 10. According to some of these reviews, Capitalism substantially resulted to direct blames to the political parties in the United States. For example, they blame the Democrats for helping out with the bail out of Wall Street. However, this film also spares the likes of President Barack Obama who still upholds a symbol of justice and hope in the United States (Gabriel, 2011). This film begins with several security surveillance footages of armed robberies in banks. Thereafter, Moore portrays a video comparison of the modern America and the Roman Empire. The film also reveals clips of homeless families in comparison to the Florida based real estate agency known as Condo Vultures (Moore, 2009). According to the movie, it is rather evident that Condo Vultures business flourished after the foreclosures. Some of the scenes from this movie trigger the emotions of the viewers. The film then presents the events during the victory in the United States after World War II. This is then followed by a speech from President Jimmy Carter who was warning the Americans about consumption and self-indulgence, which he described as idols. Moore also presents Ronald Reagan who was significantly favored by most Americans and other individuals due to his charismatic nature. Reagan was also favored by most individuals because of his communication skills and obedience but not his leadership skills. Moore also interviewed several evangelical leaders from the Catholic Church who were certain that capitalism was one of the radical evils which are contrary to the teachings in the Bible (Moore, 2009). Moore also presents a probable situation about the likely condition if Jesus was a capitalist. Moore also moves to Wall Street after Dr. Jonas Salk’s scenario in order to seek a clear explanation about the credit default swaps and derivatives. However, he was shocked after he got a response that he was not supposed to make any more movies. Marcus Haupt and Kenneth Rogoff also tried to help Moore, but they were unable to define these difficult terms. Therefore, Moore concluded that Wall Street was just an insane casino and the complex system and terminologies were established in order to confuse individuals (Moore, 2009). In the film, Moore also studies some of the roles of the treasury body of the United States and Alan Greenspan. According to his studies, Moore proved that these two parties were leading the housing bubble, which affected the middle income individuals in the United States. He also interviewed one of the ex- employees from Countrywide Financial about the favorable mortgages they received. These favorable mortgage rates were also issued to the political figures in the country. Moore also talks with William Black who relates this event to the collapse of a dam (Moore, 2009). After this scenario, the movie reveals several events that led to passing of the 2008 bailout. This bailout was proposed by Hank Pulson who was a secretary in the treasury committee. He also speaks with the Members of the Congress such as Marcy Kaptur who claimed that the bailout was a coup d’état in the financial sector (Moore, 2009). He also interviewed Elizabeth Warren, who claimed that she was not aware of the bailout money that was issued by Congress members to the Wall Street Investment Corporations among other leading banks in the United States. Some of the scenes in the movie also assert that the campaigns that were led by President Barack Obama made a mere 37% of the youths, to act in favor of capitalism over socialism. There is a scene that evidently reveals the death of Franklin Roosevelt and the proposed bill of rights. This is shown alongside the Allied victory after the 2nd World War whereby, most of the nations that lost the war were issued several rights, which were proposed by the FDR. On the contrary, the United States was not subject to any of the rights that were issued by the FDR team (Moore, 2009). The film is then fast forwarded 60 years later showing the devastation that surrounded the individuals after Hurricane Katrina. However, Moore suggests that this devastation would have been less rigorous if not for the economic condition surrounding Wall Street. The final scene of the movie portrays Moore, who places police lines around some of the banks and Wall Street. His concluding statement asserts that capitalism was an evil that could not be eliminated and replaced by the inception of democracy (Moore, 2009). In this case, the democratic rule was supposed to entail a rule by individuals and not rule by money. In this film, Moore reveals his talent that is engrossed in this film after contrasting the archive images from the 50s and 60s that described the economic disaster. Therefore, as stipulated above, this documentary significantly focused on the political parties and their respective members. According to various film critics, the prominent role played by Moore in this documentary clearly affirms that he had encountered the effects of the crisis. His critics also claim that he tried to manipulate the emotions of his viewers as stated above through cries from children and tear jerking music pieces (Moore, 2009). The film has been researched by several individuals in connection to the labyrinthine web of connections between the financial world and authority. Moreover, the interviews by the financial experts and leaders prove that there was something wrong with the current economic system. Anthony Steven-Arroyo who is a religious expert proposes that Moore was supposed to be crowned as the Catholic of the Year since; he raised critical issues related to the Catholic teachings. He also presents some of the current issues facing justice in the Christian religion in the film (Schumpeter, 2008). His main message lingers around the fact that a democratic rule should preside over capitalism. Being one of the unwieldy subjects, Moore was able to tackle this issue amicably as presented by the events in the film despite numerous negative critics. This is also incorporated in the poignant scenes which depicted banks that were re-possessing people’s properties. Some of the unlucky individuals who are depicted in the film include the likes of Goldman Sachs, Reagan, Alan Greenspan and Dubya among others. Research asserts that the term capitalism, which is used as the title of the film, refers to an economic system which is based on the private ownership of several means of production for profit purposes (Schumpeter, 2008). Capitalism had become predominant in the Western World especially after the demise of feudalism. Based on different perspectives from political economists, historians and economists, capitalism has had a vast impact in the Western World. There are several forms of capitalism that were prevalent in the Western World during the 19th and 20th century as depicted by writings from Karl Marx including mercantilism, free-market capitalism, corporate capitalism, social-market economy, state capitalism and mixed economy. From an overall view, the film concludes that Moore was a provocative entertainer from his point of view. The film also confirms that capitalism is entirely opposite from socialism. Capitalism was also applicable in several historical instances are presented in the film (Schumpeter, 2008). In conclusion, Moore also takes up the wager in his loudspeaker scene where he walks around Wall Street and banks with the crime scene tape as stipulated above. This scenario is quite significant since it reveals that Wall Street together with the leading banks that were located in the United States closely resembled those of the Mafia. This was after these banks had re-possessed the properties belonging to several middle income individuals in the United States during the economic crisis era. This documentary has received several awards and honors since it was released late in 2009 (Schumpeter, 2008). References Gabriel, M. (2011). Love and capital: Karl and Jenny Marx and the birth of a revolution. New York: Little, Brown and Company. Moore, M. (2009). Capitalism: A love story. New York: Michael Moore. Schumpeter, J. (2008). Capitalism, socialism, and democracy. New York: Harper Perennial Modern Classics Publishers. Read More