Sometimes the best marketing plan for a documentary is nothing more than watching the daily news flow by.
“Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room” arrives on DVD this week, boosted by a recent guilty plea from a top Enron financial officer and the pending trials of villains-in-chief Kenneth Lay and Jeffrey Skilling.
So the biggest challenge for director Alex Gibney, whose film is on the official short list for potential Oscar nominees, is printing a DVD with a “Where Are They Now?” section that’s not hopelessly out of date. The plea deals, convictions and further indictments happen so regularly, Gibney said in a recent phone interview, that his DVD directs Enron-watchers to the Houston Chronicle website for the latest.
Gibney’s documentary, based on acclaimed reporting work by Bethany McLean and Peter Elkind, won raves last year for turning the complex Enron scandal into a character-driven drama that stuck to the outrageous facts.
Enron was an energy-trading company claiming to have created a new paradigm in business; its high-flying stock eventually crashed when it became clear top officers had invented profits and enriched themselves while ruining the firm. Lifelong employees of legitimate businesses sucked in by Enron’s scheming often lost their jobs and stock-invested pensions, giving the movie a poignant little-guy point of view.
Audiences hooted at scenes of Enron executives starting motorcycle clubs, building luxury mansions and writing skits making fun of the suckers who believed in their tricks. Gibney also featured audiotapes of Enron traders laughing about how badly they had ripped off little old ladies in California during that state’s energy crisis.
Politically connected former chairman Lay, once dubbed “Kenny-boy” by President Bush, and chief executive Skilling are scheduled to go on trial for fraud and conspiracy at the end of this month. Another prime character from “Enron,” Andrew Fastow, previously pleaded guilty.
Explaining Enron’s mindnumbing financial schemes in a two-hour movie meant focusing on right and wrong, Gibney said. “I dealt very little with ‘illegal’ or ‘legal,”‘ he said. “For me it was all about moral or immoral, good or bad. I’ll leave the rest to the courts.”
Gibney said he was disappointed but not surprised the judge overseeing the Skilling and Lay trials won’t allow the notorious trader tapes to be played by prosecutors.
“That was probably a reasonable ruling,” since their charges have nothing to do with the trading scandal. “But what they do show is a pervasive lawlessness that was running rampant at Enron, and that was the culture of the place,” Gibney said.
At screenings, the audience’s favorite shenanigans involve Lou Pai, who eventually became the second-largest private landowner in Colorado using enormous profits from Enron. Gibney still isn’t sure what genius Pai contributed to the world of business, but knows he was an Enron executive who “spent all his working hours at strip clubs, and ran off with a stripper and $350 million,” Gibney said. “We all fall prey to that fantasy from time to time.”
Gibney said he may fly down from New York to Texas to observe some of the latest trials, but has so far avoided any legal participation.
“I did get a subpoena from Skilling’s attorney for all my tapes and notes, everything but my boxer shorts,” he said. “I don’t plan on giving them anything. Maybe I’ll give them my boxer shorts.”
Staff writer Michael Booth can be reached at 303-820-1686 or mbooth@denverpost.com.
NEW ON DVD
Flightplan ** 1/2 Jet-propulsion engineer Kyle Pratt (Jodie Foster), whose husband has just died, and young daughter Julia (Marlene Lawston) are transporting his casket to the U.S. Pratt loses it – or does she? – when Julia goes missing on the mammoth jet. Is Julia off playing somewhere? Has she been abducted? Is she dead? Did she ever exist? These are the stages of reason and doubt Pratt climbs through as the crew, passengers and an air marshal (Peter Sarsgaard) become increasingly skeptical, then hostile to her plight. Directed by German filmmaker Robert Schwentke, “Flightplan” takes off smoothly, gains altitude as a moody psychological thriller before beginning to tilt into a last-act dive that suggests just how much the tricks of action flicks have overtaken the more sophisticated requirements of suspense. PG-13; 88 minutes (Lisa Kennedy)
Thumbsucker *** Tilda Swinton brings her trademark intensity and intelligence to the role of Audrey, a nurse and mother of two. Her husband (Vincent D’Onofrio) is increasingly harsh and depressed, teenage son Justin (Pucci) sucks his thumb obsessively, and she’s developed an odd fascination with a TV star (Benjamin Bratt). Though the movie is ostensibly about Justin’s journey toward self-acceptance, Swinton’s performance brings Audrey to the fore. R; 87 minutes (Moira Macdonald, The Seattle Times)
The Aristocrats ** 1/2Early on, this alternately compelling and tiresome documentary lets us in on the so-called dirtiest gag in the comedy biz. A man and his family visit a talent agent. The father begins to describe their act. He starts genteelly enough but then does a reverse somersault – with twists – into a cesspool of incest, bodily fluids, bestiality and sundry other horrors. What do you call the act, asks the agent. If you haven’t already guessed, the punch line is the film’s title. The doc features more than 100 comedians riffing on the joke. Not rated; 86 minutes (Lisa Kennedy)
