Freakonomics is a 2010 documentary that is based upon the book Freakonomics. The film stars the two writers of the book, and also portrays a few minor characters such as analyst or those being analyzed. This movie analyzes how one's name can affect one's life, how some teachers are willing for their students to cheat if it means they will get a raise, and other things such as how Roe v. Wade affected crime rates in the U.S. Steven Levitt and Stephen Dubner, the writers, discuss all of these things through different director's approaches, a few instances of sets, and an intriguing plot.
There were six directors who worked on Freakonomics and eight writers. This gave a different perspective to the film that the audience might not have seen before. Each director and writer had a different perspective on how to do each chapter of the book. Every chapter in the book was covered by a section of the movie.
Levitt and Dubner
In one scene of the film, titled It's Not Always a Wonderful Life, Director Eugene Jarecki uses animations and statistics that appear on city buildings to get his point across. The use of a city in a section about crime rates was an interesting effect. The city was also inside of a snow globe, this made a section that could potentially be boring, very interesting. Another section that was interesting was a section about sumo in Japan. This section was directed by Alex Gibney and was titled Pure Corruption. This section was interesting by itself because it was about the cheating that goes on inside of sumo wrestling. Without knowing that much about sumo the viewer could understand this section perfectly. This movie is a lot about statistics and because of this, Gibney uses numbers as his transitions. In one sequence there are numbers on a screen, but in another there are numbers falling into water. The use of many directors in this movie keeps the viewer engaged and attentive throughout the whole film.
Throughout this film there were many firsthand interviews to keep the audience engaged. With each section there were average Americans telling the filmmakers what they think. I thought that the use of a sort of "man on the street" segment fit very well in the section on baby names. In this section Levitt and Dubner describe that "white and black" names can make a difference in the job market. The filmmakers went up to white and black citizens and asked them what they thought about names.
In this movie there were really no Dramatic Aspects. This film was mostly shot with on scene footage. Despite this, the use of sets could be an aspect. In the interviews with Levitt and Dubner they were in an office. This could possibly be to give them a more intelligent look.
An intriguing plot also helped this film. The plot of this documentary is based off of the book, which was a Times best-seller. An interesting plot, somewhat interesting sets, and a collection of directors, make this film great. This is why I recommend Freakonomics highly.
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