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Lie! Cheat! Steal! Fake It! At Mass MoCA

Film Series Opened with American Casino

By: - Jan 26, 2010

Films Film Film Film

Approaching Mass MoCA on a recent Thursday evening its signature upside down trees were bare. It was a signifier of being hunkered down through the off season winter months in the Berkshires.

We were delighted to join friends for the opening night of the monthly documentary film series Lie! Cheat! Steal! Fake It! That is surely a provocative title and we viewed the first in the series American Casino directed by Leslie Cockburn and written by Andrew and Leslie Cockburn.
 
The 89 minute film which was released in 2009 focuses on the sub prime mortgage mess that spawned a melt down for major banks and lending organizations. America lost a bet that real estate values would continue to inflate. Or at least not plunge into the dismal market and pervasive foreclosures that few saw coming.

The film demonstrated the manner in which lenders were eager to provide sub prime loans to generally unqualified,  first time home owners. In particular, they targeted minorities. Often these potential homeowners failed to read the fine print and were surprised by monthly escrow payments which increased by a healthy percentage what they had anticipated having to pay. For those on tight budgets it was just enough to eventually result in losing their property and ending up declaring bankruptcy. Those who held on and refinanced were often in greater long term difficulty.

As we know by now the lenders handed off all the bad debt and peddled it to Wall Street which bundled it as "investments." One investor was interviewed who bet a billion that the loans would be foreclosed and reported some $500,000,000 in  profit on his wager.

If you haven't had your head in the sand for the past couple of years all of this was hardly new information. But American Casino provided a compelling and thought provoking experience. There was a nice balance between the talking head experts who explained the financial strategies and interviews with the average folks, primarily minorities, who lost their homes.

Much of the footage was shot in Baltimore which was a text book example of a largely poor and working class community with a significant minority population. It was contrasted with a tract house community near Los Angeles where families speculated that their $800,000 homes would continue to rise in value. They are currently selling for $350,000 with no takers.

The neighborhood views and profiles of working class families in Baltimore vividly recalled scenes from the HBO series The Wire.  During the talk that followed the film with Williams College professors Mark Reinhardt, Shawn Rosenhelm, and Michael Mc Donald I raised that point. They agreed but said that instead of Baltimore the film might just as easily focused on Detroit, Las Vegas, Miami or any number of hard pressed American cities.

On a dank winter night there was a moderate turnout for the film. It was fun to have a bar and drink Berkshire Brews at tables set up in a café style. But, good grief, those designer metal seats are tough on the bottom during a film followed by discussion. Next time we attend it will be best to bring along our Tanglewood cushions.

Next up is Yes Men Fix the World on Thursday, February 11. The blurb says "Two gonzo political activists squeeze raucous comedy out of how corporate greed is destroying the planet."  After that Fraude: Mexico 2006, about the recent presidential election,  on Thursday, March 25. The series ends with Orgasm Inc. which looks at the medical industry on Thursday, April 29.