Mark Jenkins on ‘Margin Call’ — Quoting Me
Posted on October 27, 2011 at 8:00 am
Many thanks to my friend Mark Jenkins for including me in his insightful piece for the Washington Post about the timeliness of the new movie, Margin Call.
As the Occupy Wall Street protests continue and expand, “Margin Call” might seem the right movie at the right time. The psychological drama, which observes roughly 24 hours at a crisis-rocked New York investment firm, is strongly evocative of the 2008 money-quake that shattered major banks and brokerages. But the movie, which opened Friday, may not be set in 2008.
“The actual film has absolutely no time-stamping,” cautions writer-director J.C. Chandor. “The company is unnamed. There are no dates. For me, it was really important that this could have taken place in 2004, in 2005, in 2003. … “Margin Call,” Minow says, “comes at a teachable moment. The Occupy Wall Street movement has reminded people that the perpetrators of the financial meltdown are still doing the same things.”