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What do you think of Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room[0]? It's one of my favorite documentaries. I've watched it about a dozen times probably. Dirty Money[1

by csours 7y ago

What do you think of Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room[0]? It's one of my favorite documentaries. I've watched it about a dozen times probably. Dirty Money[1] shares a creator (Alex Gibney) [2] with Smartest Guys, and I also really like that. Over the weekend I watched American Factory[3]. It may be my new favorite. I don't know if I will watch it as much as Smartest Guys, just because of the storytelling in that. I like these because they clearly represent different viewpoints. Most documentaries feel like propaganda, and these don't feel that way to me. 0: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enron:_The_Smartest_Guys_in_the_Room https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enron:_The_Smartest_Guys_in_th... 1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dirty_Money_(2018_TV_series) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dirty_Money_(2018_TV_series) 2: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alex_Gibney https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alex_Gibney 3: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Factory https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Factory

cwkoss 7y ago
I watched American Factory last week and was pleasantly surprised with how unopinionated it was.
- aaron695 7y ago
  It didn't have a narrator, which pleasantly surprised me, but was it unopinionated? IMO I don't know. Almost all docos are at face value garbage, David Attenborough for instance never turns the camera around to the human rubbish or half a town behind them and never shows the true brutality of animals. When you get to docos on humans things really fall apart. American Factory pushes the divide between Chinese and Americans, but humour and brashness gets lost translation, not sure it existed as much as it implied. What was interesting was American Unions which was eye opening how illegal behaviour in most of the West was so normalised. But to be honest the biggest morsel was the 3 broken microwaves in the break room. WTF. One, understandable, but to get to three means a systematic break down in the supply chain looking after your workers.
  - csours 7y ago
    I vouched for your comment. It doesn't seem to be excessively strident or controversial. 3 broken microwaves to me indicates either a strict cost control approach, or potentially sabotage. Worker sabotage is sometimes mentioned, but rarely pursued.
  - cwkoss 7y ago
    There is certainly opinion whenever you choose to point a camera at something instead of something else, but I think in this instance the choice of no narration left the viewer with a bit more space to make their own interpretation than many documentaries do, which was refreshing.
arminiusreturns 7y ago
Did you know the girl from 'Great Hack's mother was an Enron employee that left before the fall?

by csours 7y ago

cwkoss 7y ago

I watched American Factory last week and was pleasantly surprised with how unopinionated it was.

aaron695 7y ago
It didn't have a narrator, which pleasantly surprised me, but was it unopinionated? IMO I don't know. Almost all docos are at face value garbage, David Attenborough for instance never turns the camera around to the human rubbish or half a town behind them and never shows the true brutality of animals. When you get to docos on humans things really fall apart. American Factory pushes the divide between Chinese and Americans, but humour and brashness gets lost translation, not sure it existed as much as it implied. What was interesting was American Unions which was eye opening how illegal behaviour in most of the West was so normalised. But to be honest the biggest morsel was the 3 broken microwaves in the break room. WTF. One, understandable, but to get to three means a systematic break down in the supply chain looking after your workers.
- csours 7y ago
  I vouched for your comment. It doesn't seem to be excessively strident or controversial. 3 broken microwaves to me indicates either a strict cost control approach, or potentially sabotage. Worker sabotage is sometimes mentioned, but rarely pursued.
- cwkoss 7y ago
  There is certainly opinion whenever you choose to point a camera at something instead of something else, but I think in this instance the choice of no narration left the viewer with a bit more space to make their own interpretation than many documentaries do, which was refreshing.

arminiusreturns 7y ago

Did you know the girl from 'Great Hack's mother was an Enron employee that left before the fall?