Short and sweet

BANKS failed, unemployment soared, house prices slumped and American politics was transformed by the emergence of the Tea Party. Given the drama created by the 2007/08 financial crisis, one might have expected it to play a bigger role in popular culture. But Hollywood directors and commercial novelists have all struggled with the world of finance.

Financiers are not easy heroes, though they make great villains. Gordon Gekko (as played by Michael Douglas) was the most charismatic character in “Wall Street” in 1987. More recently, “The Wolf of Wall Street” (2013), may have tried to demonstrate the utter cynicism of share pushers, but the film revels in the hedonism of Leonardo DiCaprio and his sidekicks. More often, financiers and businessmen are shadowy off-screen presences, manipulating politicians and the environment for short-term gain.

This is an age-old problem. In the 19th century Charles Dickens and Anthony Trollope both created financial fraudsters who could have been the model for Bernie Madoff in the form of Mr Merdle (in “Little Dorrit”) and Augustus Melmotte (“The Way We Live Now”). But neither is as vivid as the hapless Mr Micawber in “David Copperfield”, whose homilies on the misery of debt are still quoted today.

Film-makers often try to make financiers and businessmen seem sympathetic by focusing on their human qualities: in “Pretty Woman” (1990) Richard Gere’s corporate raider abandons his machinations for the love of Julia Roberts. Mark Zuckerberg is a tough little nut in “The Social Network” (2010) until you realise that he seems to have created Facebook just to impress a girlfriend who dumped him. This year “Steve Jobs” has Apple’s co-founder juggling company-building with the need to care for his daughter. Success in business or finance is not enough to nourish the soul; in “Citizen Kane” (1941) Orson Welles dies in his castle, surrounded by luxury, but yearning for his childhood sled.

In “It’s a Wonderful Life” (1946) Jimmy Stewart’s character, George Bailey, was a rare example of a sympathetic banker in a Hollywood movie. His speech to the citizens of Bedford Falls as he tries to prevent a run on the bank was perhaps the best explanation of finance in popular culture. But George Bailey’s heroism stemmed from his resistance to the real villain of the piece—the money-grubbing Mr Potter. Ironically, “It’s a Wonderful Life” was not a box-office success; it owes its classic status to its repeated showings on television.

Any director making a movie about modern finance faces two huge difficulties. The first is that there is nothing very dramatic or compelling about someone typing at a computer screen. The second is that the language of finance, full of acronyms and jargon, can be quite impenetrable.

Adam McKay has broken the mould. In adapting “The Big Short”, Michael Lewis’s book about the debt crisis, for the big screen, he has chosen to tackle the problem head-on. When a complex term has to be explained, he brings on Margot Robbie in a bubble bath (for mortgage-backed securities) or Anthony Bourdain, a chef, to describe collateralised debt obligations with the help of fish stew. This is just one of the many stylistic devices he puts to good use; others include aggressive cutting and asides to camera from the actors. On occasion, a character tells the audience that what they have just seen did not actually happen. “I wanted a cinéma verité style because finance films often seem austere, monolithic and cold,” says Mr McKay, who is best known for directing comedies starring Will Ferrell. “And I aimed for an unpredictable, visceral effect.”

The success of “The Big Short” can also be put down to its sharp dialogue (Mr McKay wrote the script as well as directing) and a starry cast with Ryan Gosling, Steve Carell and Christian Bale, as well as Brad Pitt in a cameo role (pictured). It is a rare breed: an entertaining film with a financial theme that is also educational. The film works because Mr Lewis’s book focused on a group of oddball outsiders who realised before anyone else that the American economy was heading for disaster. The protagonists are not conventional heroes (they are betting on a crash in American house prices, after all) but the audience can root for them because, at the same time, they expose the corrupt practices in mortgage lending that were widespread before 2007. They are the little guys taking on a complacent financial system, not unlike Eddie Murphy and Dan Aykroyd end up ruining the Duke brothers in “Trading Places” (1983).

This focus sets “The Big Short” apart from Hollywood’s earlier analysis of the crisis. “Margin Call”, which came out in 2011, also had an excellent cast (Jeremy Irons and Kevin Spacey), but its focus was on an investment bank trying to sell dud assets before the rest of the market caught on to the coming financial apocalypse. It was hard for the audience to care about bankers struggling to deal with a crisis created by their own greed and stupidity.

Hollywood’s ambivalence towards finance—and capitalism in general—sits oddly with an industry marked by high salaries, huge corporations and product merchandising. But actors, directors and scriptwriters are creative types who like to feel they are rebelling. They favour stories where the little guy triumphs; audiences feel the same way. “The Big Short” wins because Mr McKay gives this cliché an entertaining and sophisticated twist.