Inheriting the Trade

Some movies must be seen by everyone who is serious about understanding the world as it presently functions. I.O.U.S.A. is one of those films.

I can’t prove this but I have a hunch that in the late 1980’s something shifted with the release of The Thin Blue Line and Roger & Me. I believe these two films changed the way documentaries were made and that documentary films became more influential in the public discourse as a result of these groundbreaking movies by Errol Morris and Michael Moore.

I can testify personally to the fact that, even though I believe they’ve become more influential, getting a documentary film produced hasn’t gotten any easier. It took my cousin Katrina Browne a decade to raise necessary funds and complete the film of our family journey, Traces of the Trade.

I’ve seen some incredible docs over the years. Those that come immediately to mind as some of the best over the past few decades include Hoop Dreams, Crumb, When We Were Kings, My Brother’s Keeper, The War Room, and Streetwise, which was shot on the streets of Seattle (Northwest plug there…).

At the Sundance Film Festival in January 2008–where Traces had its world premiere–there was no shortage of amazing documentaries. I heartily recommend Gonzo: The Life and Work of Dr. Hunter S. Thompson, Nerakhoon (The Betrayal), The Order of Myths, Roman Polanski: Wanted and Desired, and Slingshot Hiphop.

But of all the documentary films that I’ve seen in the past few years the most timely, provocative, and important is I.O.U.S.A. (which also premiered at Sundance 2008).

I.O.U.S.A. deserves to have the attention paid to it that An Inconvenient Truth had a couple years ago. If you want to understand why we are in the financial crisis we are in, and what is required to repair the damage, this unflinching, non-political (by this I mean it doesn’t take partisan sides–this is VERY political in the sense of dealing with the structure/operations of government and the impact on people and society) is REQUIRED VIEWING (you can watch the 30-minute version of the film here).

This isn’t about a filmmaker crying “doomsday” (though if radical changes aren’t made in the way our government and “we the people” operate we will be in far worse shape than we are today). It’s a film that shows us where we are, how we got here, and proposes solutions to prevent our grandchildren from having a far different standard of living than most of us would like to leave them.

The Thin Blue Line and Roger & Me changed the way documentaries are made. I.O.U.S.A. will change the way you see the world.