Big Money, Big Fun
by Gary Phillips
So I read that HBO is preparing to do a cable movie about the financial collapse based on, as they say in Hollywood-speak, at least two the books as source material. One is the already published by Andrew Sorkin, Too Big to Fail: The Inside Story of How Wall Street and Washington Fought to Save the Financial System -- and Themselves. Apparently a book to be published this fall from Joe Nocera and Bethany McLean, All the Devils Are Here: The Hidden History of the Financial Crisis, is the other basis for this project.
Sorkin has been quoted as saying about that time, "You see their human sides, the hubris, the ego. You see [Treasury Secretary] Hank Paulsen literally vomiting and [Lehman Bros CEO] Dick Fuld crying with his wife as their world fell apart."
While I'm sure this will be a fine effort and worth watching, what we really need to tell this tale is the kind of large canvas melodramas the late novelists Arthur Hailey and Harold Robbins used to churn out in books. For instance in Hailey's The Money Changers, the story takes place in the halls of financial power. Also, at least as I recall from watching the TV mini-series made from the book starring Kirk Douglas, there were working Janes and Joes in the storyline too, showing how they were affected by the machinations of the bankers.
To put on my populist (or is that socialist?) hat for a second, it's compelling and necessary to tell the Wall Street side, but stories of single moms doing their best to pay the rent and keep their kids off the street, those struggles can be told in interesting ways too. Okay, I gotta go light some candles, throw in a few chants, and see if I can channel Robbins and Hailey through my fingers...
Comments
No comments.
