Kristy Matheson is the ACMI Film Programmer responsible for the centre’s First Look strand, and she explains the choice of the film and ACMI’s involvement in the Melbourne Writers Festival. “A lot of the Writers Festival actually takes place in ACMI,” says Matheson, “And when we have a festival in the building, or if there’s a big festival in greater Melbourne, we often try to theme our program to that festival and provide a filmic aspect to the festival.”
First Look feeds into the Writers Festival with this film with this non-traditional adaptation of a non-traditional piece of literature. As Matheson puts it, “This film proves that it isn’t just novels that get turned into great films.” The film itself follows in the same vein as the book, challenging conventional wisdom and daring to ask the question, in the words of co-author Stephen J. Dubner, “What if this thing everyone thinks is so, really isn’t so?” Indeed, the film’s conclusions are surprising, and surprisingly convincing as the film’s who’s who of contemporary American documentary film-makers ensure that Levitt’s statistical analysis not just accessible but enthralling.
Drawing on incredible pools of seemingly disparate sets of data, the film makes connections that elucidate the vague mysteries of human nature, as Levitt’s number-crunching drops truth bombs to ensure that your jaw is likely to be dropping for a significant portion of the film. The film covers a massive range of subject matter, from an in depth analysis of baby names to cheating sumo wrestlers, from the efficacy of bribing kids to get good grades and the correlation between Romanian birth-rates and the crime levels in the United States, the data seems to continually tap into universal truths about humanity that will both surprise and amaze.
Levitt and Dubner themselves are surprisingly down to earth, and obviously genuinely passionate about the subject matter. There is much more a sense of being allowed an opportunity to witness the authors search enthusiastically for the truth, rather than having a lesson spoken down to you. Indeed, the charisma of the authors is undeniable, and Matheson feels that this is one of the strengths of the film. “The writers are almost the narrators of the film,” She explains, “You get to meet them and they have a huge voice in the film. They act as your kind of guides to the film, and hold your hands as they go into all the different chapters”.
The different chapters of the film follow roughly the structure of the book, but are each differently presented as the film is famously put together by an A-list collaboration of American documentary makers, including Morgan Spurlock (Supersize Me), Academy Award Winner Alex Gibney (Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room), Heidi Ewing (Jesus Camp), Rachel Grady (Jesus Camp), Seth Gordon ( The King Of Kong) and Sundance Grand Jury Prize Winner Eugene Jarecki (Why We Fight).
According to Matheson this diverse, star-studded list of filmmakers involved in making Freakonomics is really one of the most exciting aspects of the film. “From a purely film fan point of view, it’s really wonderful to just see such a great collection of contemporary American documentary film makers in one big hit,” comments Matheson.
It is certainly not often that you can be exposed to so many different techniques of documentary filmmaking of such a high standard in the one film. The directors do an impressive job of putting together the four shorts and connecting interviews with Dubner and Levitt, as well as the animated interludes that provide entertaining points of visual difference that make the pure informational and statistical aspect of the film more engaging and easier to take in.
Each of the film’s various techniques are well suited to their subject matter, and complement each other in the context of the film. As well as this obvious strength in collective ability, this variety of techniques also provides a sense of freshness to each segment of the film, allowing the viewer to receive the prodigious amount of information without feeling bombarded by statistics.
“If it had have all been directed by one director, all that information would have been too much, I don’t know how you would have been able to keep up with it,” Matheson feels, “But by giving it to all these different directors, and by having this episodic structure, the film gave me enough breathing room, as a viewer, to take it all in”.
ACMI’s presentation of Freakonomics: The Movie as a part of the 2011 Melbourne Writers Festival provides not only an opportunity to experience a unique collection of filmmaking talent in a cinema environment, but also the opportunity to learn that economics can be fascinating, entertaining and even cool.
