“The Big Short”
In the financial crisis of
2007 – 08, when the United States housing and credit bubbles burst and
securities’ values tumbled downwards, the key culprits, it is generally agreed,
were those who were trusted to keep American and world finances secure: Wall
Street investors, traders, bankers, regulators, ratings agencies, related
governmental departments, et cetera. Meanwhile, those who suffered most
severely as a result were the people who had done the trusting, who had
borrowed money to buy homes and establish security for their families, and were
ultimately roughed up by the ruthlessly greedy and fraudulent system. One of the
virtues of The Big Short, Adam
McKay’s adaptation of Michael Lewis’s account of the build-up to the crisis, is
that it both implicates the whole host of parties judged to be responsible, and
shows concern and sympathy for those who bore the difficult consequences, and
what those consequences largely entailed.
The Big Short is being called a comedy by most viewers and critics,
but formally it doesn’t quite qualify. The genre is satire, the form is
probably much closer to a tragicomedy, and the predominant stylistic elements
are those of a mockumentary, in which a fictional story is told using
documentary techniques, such as interviews and ostensible in-the-moment camera
tricks, capturing what seem like real events – think along the lines of the
television shows The Office and Modern Family. The two chief differences
between those shows and this film, however, is that they are entirely comedic,
whereas The Big Short depicts a
global catastrophe and all its harrowing implications; and the stories of the
two shows really are fictions, while The
Big Short keeps reassuring us of its non-fiction credentials, to varying
degrees of persuasion and annoyance.