movies blog | September 02, 2010 | 4 comments

Freakonomics -- Premieres On Demand

A book like Freakonomics doesn’t immediately scream “movie,” but six filmmakers came together and made one anyway, the results of which you can see starting Friday, September 3, as the documentary becomes available on demand. Directors such as Morgan Spurlock (Super Size Me), Alex Gibney (Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room), and the team of Heidi Ewing and Rachel Grady (Jesus Camp) each took a chapter from the book, and illustrated its topics from sumo wrestling to crime waves in unique ways.

“My segment is called ‘A Reshonda By Any Other Name,’” explained Spurlock, “which is the last chapter of the book. It asks do names matter, so it examines race, it examines socioeconomic status. We talk about the kids named Winner and Loser, who are from the book, and a lot of other people. I think when we first started tackling this chapter, the question was, how can we make it palatable, acceptable, digestible, so you don’t need to reference the book while it’s happening? Not to dumb it down, but to make it cohesive, easy to understand. So my thing was, always bring it back to something humorous. If you can make somebody laugh, you can make somebody listen!”

Authors Steven D. Levitt (the economist) and Stephen J. Dubner (the journalist) also appear in little interlude moments between the film’s “chapters,” providing context and commentary.

“Never was it more true than film is a collaborative medium than this one,” Gibney said. “I love it, because it’s a multi-director film where we’re all friends and colleagues.”

“We were really lucky,” Spurlock added, “because we all come from different perspectives and so we could each tackle different chapters. And it’s unlike anything I’ve ever seen. Look at the trailer, come on!"

 

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