Director Background
Directed by Charles Ferguson and released in 2010, Inside Job analyses the 2007 financial crisis. Ferguson himself is quoted as describing the film as being about “the systemic corruption of the United States by the financial services industry and the consequences of that systemic corruption.”
Charles Ferguson is also the founder & president of Representational Pictures, Inc, and has directed and produced No End in Sight: the American Occupation in Iraq (which won a special jury prize for documentaries at the 2007 Sundance Film Festival and was nominated for an Oscar in 2008 in the documentary feature film category). He has always been intrigued by film, regularly attending film festivals such as the Telluride Film festival for over a decade. Ferguson also credits narrator Matt Damon for contributing to the film, specifically the structure of the ending, in addition to his narration duties.
There is also rumour of Ferguson directing a film about Julian Assange, the founder of Wikileaks.
Reason for Selection
There are several reasons I have selected this documentary for analysis, part of which is due to it winning the Oscar for Best Documentary in 2010. Another reason is due to my personal interest in economic corruption in America, which has been reignited by the “Occupy Wall Street” movement/protest currently being taken place in various financial districts of major cities in America. This is however, a whole separate topic in itself, however it does relate to the topics this documentary covers. The trailer for this film can be seen below.
Textual Analysis of Poster
The poster itself is extremely aesthetically pleasing, depicting a businessman with his back to the camera standing atop a huge pile of 1$ bills, with his right hand behind his back, fingers crossed. Quotes from multiple critics are faded in the background, behind the businessman and “his” pile of money. The headline for the film is designed to stand out; it’s written in black as opposed to the greyish-faded writing of the critiques reviews and is bordered by a black outline. It’s an extremely powerful line which reads “THE FILM THAT COST OVER $20,000,000,000,000 TO MAKE” in block capitals. I believe that the crossing of the businessman’s fingers is symbolic and suggests that he (much like the corporations and businesses that line Wall Street) has hidden agendas focused on reaping maximum profits at the expense of the countries regular citizens, ultimately costing them the established trust they once had. Two of the quotes that stand out to me are “A crime story like no other in history” & “If you’re not enraged by the end of the movie, you weren’t paying attention”. These are two very powerful quotes which help to embody the seriousness of this topic and how corrupt global (in?)equality actually is. Another tagline which is on the pile of money reads “The global economic crisis of 2008 cost tens of millions of people their savings, their jobs and their homes. This is how it happened.”
Reception
The film received overwhelming positive reviews, earning a 98% “fresh” rating on popular review website “Rotten Tomatoes”. The film was selected for a special screening at the 2010 Cannes Film Festival and was nominated for 8 awards, of which it won 3, including the Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature and the award for Best Documentary Screenplay at the Writers Guild of America Awards.
Inside Job also received a metascore of 88/100 based on 27 critics, also receiving a user score of 8.0 from metacritic.com. (http://www.metacritic.com/movie/inside-job)
The film also received a userscore of 8.2/10 (based on 14k+ ratings) on IMDB.com, (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1645089/) making it the second most-rated documentary on there, behind Planet Earth, which is arguably the best documentary of all time.
The YouTube trailer for this documentary received nearly 1 million views.
Audience
I believe that the target audience for this film would be people who have little to no understanding of the financial meltdown, but want to understand the concepts behind the economy. The film lays these concepts out through its immaculate visual aids and narration, however the subject can often seem daunting and the viewer may found themselves lost attempting to understand the technical terms used. In terms of a demographic, I would assume that it’s primarily aimed at Americans as it focuses heavily on their government and the effect the economy has on it, which can consist of anyone interested in this particular topic. These people would typically be at least 20 years old, possibly even people around the 40 age mark, as these issues affect them the most.
Genre/Form
To assess which sub-category of documentary this particular film falls under, it is crucial to first evaluate the different styles of documentary.
Fly on the wall documentaries conventionally have an “invisible camera”, and the camera crew works as unobtrusively as possible; however it is common for participants to be interviewed by an off-camera voice. Essentially, it is filmed as if it was seen through the eyes of a fly.
Video Dairies differ from other forms of documentaries in that they are often filmed by a one-person crew, using an easily portable camera. They commonly contain many piece-to-cameras, and this style is slowly replacing fly on the wall documentaries.
Docusoap/reality TV contains several sub-categories of its own, including special-living environment, celebrities and professional activities. The editing and camera style of these forms of documentary give the impression that the viewer is observing the occupant’s going about their day-to-day business. Big Brother is possibly the most popular reality TV programme.
Docudrama is a style that contains dramatized re-enactments of actual historical events. They often focus on recorded facts, and some minor historical facts are often manipulated simply to enhance the drama and make the documentary more interesting. This is why it is often misinterpreted as docufiction
There are obviously several more different forms of documentary (such as historical, personal and objective); however these are some of the most common/popular.
I would classify Inside Job as an investigative documentary, as it is an investigation into a particular event and has placed great care and emphasis on the careful presentation of the argument and it's evidence.
Plot/Narrative
Inside Job covers the entire history of American financial ups and downs, spanning from the great recession all the way through to the crash in late 2008. The film is split into five segments, played in a chronological order to display the history of the economy. The film provides an in-depth analysis of the actual crash in 2008, where America unexpectedly plunged into a dark age, which at a cost over $20 trillion, caused record unemployment with millions of people losing their jobs and homes due to foreclosure (which is why people are currently protesting in America) in the worst recession since The Great Depression, nearly resulting in a global financial collapse. Through exhaustive research and extensive interviews with various professionals, the documentary accurately analyses the villains of this recession to be the people behind the irresponsible decisions and actions to be the “fat cats” of Wall Street and the banks. This documentary explains in simplistic terms how the world was brought to its knees by the greed and corruption of the US’s financial industry.
These powerful men on Wall Street knew that what they were doing was hurting the economy in the long run, but because they were making absurd amounts of money in such a short period of time from a flawed system, they pretended like everything was fine and milked the cash cow until it died, so to speak.
Textual Analysis
Analysing the whole 120 minute feature-length film would simply prove too great a task, so I will instead analyse particular scenes which I feel best display the overall style of the film and scenes which in themselves are worthy of being noted.
The film opens to several steady establishing shots of Iceland itself, ranging from its mountains to its coastlines, while a soft non-diagetic instrumental plays over the imagery. This is done to show the viewer how beautiful the country is, and to display their high standard of living; however this image is broken by simple overlays, as evident in the screenshot below.
The interviews which are had with the various sources throughout the film are consistently laid out in a similar style. The camera is set up on a tripod to create a medium-steady shot (however shot length does vary dependent upon context) of the interviewee, with a box that fades in displaying their information. The non-diagetic instrumental drops in volume but is still audible above the interviewee, which aids in adding atmosphere.
The narration is often accompanied and its points supported by the video clips which are overlaid. For example when the narrator Matt Damon is talking about unemployment levels in Iceland tripling in only 6 months, the camera performs multiple quick long shots between dormant work sites including that of a large building and a car park of what appears to be a furniture warehouse similar to Ikea.
During the title sequence, there are several quick cuts of expensive yachts, penthouse buildings, planes etc as Peter Gabriel’s fitting hit “Big Time” is played over the shots. The song finishes playing in synchronisation with the ending of the title sequence, which is most likely to be a shot recorded from a plane/helicopter, where the camera pans over the roofs of multiple skyscrapers.
During the narrative which can be quite extensive, there are a lot of establishing shots of cities to keep the viewer stimulated, also used to show the viewer how large a scale this financial crash was and how much it affected.
The film is conventional in many ways, one of them being that raw footage is used effectively when describing historic events. At one point, footage of news anchors reporting the Lehman Brothers bankruptcy was shown with an American reporter, followed by an Asian reporter to show that this was having an effect on a global, not just domestic scale. 
After the shot of the Asian reporter, the camera clean-cuts to an establishing shot of a major city, with a French voice assumedly talking about the financial collapse, again reinforcing how big this really is. Below is more raw footage showing a medium-long, high-key shot of an American reporter talking about the “biggest point drop in history.”
There is a frequent use of titles which are anchored to images throughout the film which often either simply sums up what is being said by the narrator, or contains key facts and figures in the hope of shocking the viewer. As evident below, the titles are used to show who’s being fined how much, and what for. Three key components that are visualised in only 6-7 words.
Another thing which this documentary executes flawlessly is the use of animated graphics to coincide with the narration during particularly complicated segments with a lot of technical jargon, which allows the viewer to understand and follow what is being said much easier than if there were just more establishing shots of buildings. The actual graphics they use are that of a simple design, yet extremely effective for the job they are carrying out.
Another element that this documentary takes full advantage of is the use of case studies. During an interview with a former factory worker in China, we discover the workers earn 70-80 US dollars per month, which, although being a lot for them, works out to less than minimum wage in America. She also talks about how workers are being laid off with minimal notice, and how the crisis which originated in America, is now affecting them in China. During this interview, we are shown several pans across the factory floor and its workers, who are all wearing some required safety apparel.
A major reason the protests in America are currently taking place is due to the percentage of wealth owned by the top 1% of the country, which was also talked about in this documentary. Protesters are seen to be bearing signs which often end in the same line “I am the 99%”.
Production
Ferguson jokingly refers to the montage-esque title sequence to be like a “rock video”, which features Peter Gabriel’s “Big Time”. The song “Congratulations” by MGMT is also used in the end credits.
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