Overview
The title of the film is taken from a confession by Alan Greenspan, the former Chairman of the Federal Reserve, to a Congressional Committee in October 2008. Greenspan acknowledged to the committee that after 40 years of using his financial and behavioural models he was concerned that he had discovered that they contained a flaw. The premise of the film is that this flaw (error/omission) was partially responsible for the Financial Crisis (FC).
The title of the film is also its hook-line. There is an inference in its title that the film itself would reveal to the audience exactly what Greenspan’s flaw was and link this to the damage caused by the FC. If these issues were intentions behind the film then they could have been more clearly conveyed.
The film rather than being an expose on Greenspan’s flaw was for the main illustrations of the impact and a discussion about the FC. An intention of the film seems to be the education/enlightenment of the audience.
The film is a dramatised documentary built around a series of interviews with ‘ordinary’ Americans who had been severely impacted by the FC. These interviews are interspersed with interviews with some of America’s economic experts and also flashbacks of various historical mainly news footage. In many ways the film is collage of perspectives about the FC. The film although promoted as a cinematic film is more akin to a television documentary.
Film Specific Points
The film did not include any footage of Greenspan explaining his model(s) flaw. The audience were left to infer this central pillar of the film for themselves. In his October 2008 presentation to the Congressional Committee, Greenspan explained that he had previously assumed that financial firms “would not imprudently borrow or lend to protect their shareholders”. Greenspan had assumed that the negative impact of bankers’ self seeking behaviour on the wider economy would be minimal. This he explained was his flaw. Sadly Greenspan's clarification was not included in the film.
It should be noted that faced with mounting evidence that his models had not predicted the FC Greenspan had little option but to publicly admit to some degrtee of personal failing. He did not refer to his own personal failings directly but rather he pointed to an understandable although regrettable fault in his models. The…
