The big crash margin call

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Movie
German title The big crash margin call
Original title Margin call
The big crash.png
Country of production United States
original language English
Publishing year 2011
length 109 minutes
Age rating FSK 6
Rod
Director JC Chandor
script JC Chandor
production Robert Ogden Barnum ,
Michael Benaroya ,
Zachary Quinto ,
Neal Dodson ,
Corey Moosa ,
Joe Jenckes
music Nathan Larson
camera Frank G. DeMarco
cut Pete Beaudreau
occupation

The big crash - margin call (original title: margin call ; literally: value adjustment; requesting further collateral ) is a film drama from 2011 by director JC Chandor , who also wrote the screenplay.

The main story is told over a period of approximately 28 hours in a major Wall Street investment bank during the early stages of the 2007 financial crisis . It focuses on the steps a group of employees takes during the subsequent financial meltdown. The main roles are played by Kevin Spacey , Paul Bettany , Jeremy Irons , Zachary Quinto , Penn Badgley , Simon Baker , Demi Moore and Stanley Tucci . The score is by Nathan Larson .

The film received overwhelmingly positive reviews. The script was nominated for an Oscar .

Margin Call was produced by Before the Door Pictures . It premiered at the Sundance Film Festival on January 25, 2011 and was released in US theaters on October 21, 2011.

action

Shortly before the outbreak of the great financial crisis in 2007, there was massive downsizing in the securities trading department of a large New York bank. In order to prevent the dismissed from taking away business-relevant information as well as any disruption to business operations, the action planned by the general staff takes place within a few hours. External HR consultants briefly and emotionlessly inform the employees concerned about their termination and their severance payment arrangements in one-on-one discussions. Computer access is blocked during the call and the company mobile phone is deactivated. The (ex) employee can then briefly fetch personal items from his desk under the supervision of a security employee and is then led out of the building onto the street by security .

Those affected include Eric Dale, the department's experienced risk manager. He had worked for the company for 19 years. Shortly before the elevator door closes, he hands his young employee Peter Sullivan a USB stick with sensitive data, but warns him to be careful when using it.

While his remaining colleagues celebrate their "survival", Sullivan inspects the contents of the USB stick and checks the calculations documented by Eric Dale. With a few corrections, he comes to the same conclusion as Dale and immediately notifies his colleague Seth Bregman and his supervisor Will Emerson; he immediately informs his boss Sam Rogers. As a result, his supervisor Jared Cohen also arrives at the office. Sullivan informs her that for some time the risk potential of certain securities portfolios ( asset-backed securities and mortgage-backed securities : securitized real estate loans bundled in packages and trigger of the 2007 financial crisis ) has been incorrectly assessed, the bank has far too many of these securities in its own books and already has insolvency threatens if there are minor deviations from the forecast market movements.

The Executive Committee (roughly equivalent to the Board of Management) is informed immediately and there is an overnight crisis meeting. Here the CEO , John Tuld, who flew in by helicopter at night, decides that the next morning all “bad papers” must be sold immediately, regardless of the price, just so that the bank can be saved. Tuld senses "that the music has stopped playing" (alluding to the famous comment by Charles "Chuck" Prince, former Citigroup boss) and realizes that the market will collapse. His motto is that if you want to survive in this business you either have to be very smart, faster than the others, or you have to cheat. He does not want to “cheat”, but he wants to be “the first out of the door” - although he knows and all of his employees know that his customers, the buyers of the papers, suffer heavy losses, some of which may be driven to ruin and trust in the bank will be destroyed for years.

Eric Dale is visited early in the morning by Emerson and Bregman at his house that has not yet been paid off: To ensure his silence, he is offered a last day's work in the bank with a salary of one million dollars. If he does not accept, he is threatened with a legal mud fight and the denial of his dismissal compensation. Dale initially refuses, but later comes to the bank because he needs the money.

Rogers has moral concerns, and Tuld offers him a high bonus. In the morning briefing before the new business day, Rogers offers each of his traders a bonus of $ 1.4 million if he sells 93 percent of the value assigned to him. He promises an additional $ 1.3 million for each employee if the whole department can dispose of 93 percent of all papers. The whole thing has to happen in a few hours before the market becomes suspicious. All dealers participate. Rogers is then opened by Cohen to continue to be employed in the bank.

In a conversation with Sam Rogers, Tuld justifies this way of dealing with the market with the fact that people are just like that and simply cannot keep their hands off playing (with money), and lists the crises since the beginning of stock market trading:

Rogers eventually decides to stay at the bank for another two years, but says he is only doing so for financial reasons, not Tuld's arguments.

At the end of the sales day, most traders, including Seth, have to be laid off. However, Peter is promoted. John Tuld says there will be a need for intelligent people like Peter in the future. Sam drives to his ex-wife's house at night and buries his dog, who has died of liver cancer. His ex-wife speaks to him briefly and tells him that she doesn't want him to enter her house. From the conversation it becomes clear that their son works on Wall Street and that Rogers had not warned him about the crisis.

background

  • The film is the first work by director and screenwriter JC Chandor.
  • The film was released in Germany on September 29, 2011, and in the USA on October 21, 2011.
  • Margin Call was presented for the first time at the Sundance Film Festival and then at the 61st Berlinale 2011 in Berlin. Here he was also nominated for the Golden Bear .
  • Margin Call was produced by Zachary Quinto's production company, Before The Door Pictures, by Quinto and his two co-producers, Neal Dodson and Corey Moosa.
  • The character John Tuld based on the CEO and chairman Richard S. Fuld, Jr .
  • Contrary to what the film title suggests, a margin call does not play a role in the film. A margin call is not part of the plot, nor is the concept even discussed.

Reviews

The Rotten Tomatoes review collection lists 158 reviews, 89% of which are positive. The average rating is 7.3 out of 10 points.

“The drama develops in the lofty heights of the executive floors. Again and again the camera directs the gaze out of the windows over the skyline of New York, which shows its beauty and at the same time makes clear the height of fall that is negotiated in these high-rise buildings. The corrupting effects of greed and fear become visible. It soon attacks people who believe they have a conscience. The film describes a short period of long-term mischief, and all of this is pushed ahead smartly enough to capture that highly sensitive moment when a period of economic recklessness ends. But the fictional twenty-four hours of 'Margin Call' only show the big bang of a crisis. The surprise is long gone. It has been overtaken by more and more financial crises, which in reality gradually develop an everyday presence. "

- Doris Kuhn : Süddeutsche Zeitung

"Unlike Oliver Stone in" Wall Street II ", JC Chandor tries not to explain the crisis in a fascinatingly evil form. Knowing the world of financial brokers from his father, who worked at Merrill Lynch, the director balances between 'system' and 'character': In fact, it is surprising to see normal people at the center of the huge catastrophe have to act somehow while their backs are against the wall. [...] "The machine of which you are a part has become so large and complex that no one could comprehend the destructive power it exerted. Until it was too late," says JC Chandor. You can also put it the other way around in a less friendly way: The people who operate such a machine are so limited, trivial and lacking in character that the catastrophe becomes inevitable. "

- Georg Seeßlen : The daily newspaper

“In the style of a classical tragedy, an explosive moral conflict is being carried out in a tight temporal and spatial framework, which condenses into a captivating study of human scope for action in the capitalist system. Staged in a concentrated manner, accurate in dialogue and exquisitely played, questions of personal responsibility in the face of anonymized market structures are negotiated. "

- Lexicon of international film

Awards
  • 2011 Independent Spirit Awards, Best Picture
  • 2011 Independent Spirit Awards nominated for Best Screenplay
  • 2011 Independent Spirit Awards: Robert Altman Award

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Release certificate for The Great Crash - Margin Call . Voluntary self-regulation of the film industry , September 2011 (PDF; test number: 129 321 K).
  2. ↑ Interview with the director JC Chandor on the German-language film DVD (2012)
  3. ↑ a b Margin Call. In: Rotten Tomatoes. Retrieved August 18, 2018 .
  4. ↑ a b 84th Academy Awards Nominees . Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS). January 24, 2012. Retrieved January 24, 2012.
  5. ↑ Before The Door Pictures, official website . In: Google . Retrieved October 12, 2011.
  6. ↑ Doris Kuhn: Film review When it crashes in the realm of evil . In: Süddeutsche Zeitung . October 3, 2011.
  7. ↑ Georg Seeßlen : Film review The traders crash . In: The daily newspaper . September 28, 2011.
  8. ↑ The big crash margin call. In: Lexicon of International Films . Film service , accessed June 27, 2014 .Template: LdiF / Maintenance / Access used 
  9. ↑ AACTA Awards winners and nominees . Australian Academy of Cinema and Television Arts (AACTA). January 31, 2012. Archived from the original on January 23, 2016. Info: The archive link has been inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. Retrieved February 4, 2012. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / aacta.org
  10. ^ Casting Society of America Announces Artios Awards Nominees . In: The Hollywood Reporter . August 20, 2012. Retrieved December 9, 2012.
  11. ↑ Archived copy ( memento of the original dated February 23, 2010 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / detroitfilmcritics.com
  12. ^ Richard Corliss: Year-End Awards: National Board of Review Says 'We Go with Hugo' . In: TIME . December 1, 2011. Retrieved December 12, 2011.
  13. ↑ Steve Pond: San Francisco film critics pick "Tree of Life" . In: The Wrap . Reuters. December 11, 2011. Retrieved December 12, 2011.