There is a movie we went to see last week that is a perfect miniature of the entrepreneurial life. Father of My Children in English (in French, Le père de mes enfants) won a special Jury Prize at Cannes but don’t let that put you off.
I also don’t want to say anything about the film itself since it is a movie best watched with no expectations about what will happen next. In fact, that is part of its theme. The very last moment of the movie, and I don’t think there are any spoilers in saying this, the background music is Doris Day singing Che Sera Sera with heavy emphasis on the “future’s not ours to see” motif.
It is a film to think about on a number of levels. And as there are very few movies with a strong underlying theme embedded in economics – aside from The Fountainhead are there any others? – if that is the kind of thing that interests you, you might put it on your list.
The Third Man?
Ken Nielsen
1 Sep 10 at 3:45 pm
For those of lower brow…
I skipped The International and Book of Eli until the weekend.
Turns out they’re both GREAT.
C.L.
1 Sep 10 at 3:51 pm
Not economics, but two movies that illuminate game theory and negotiation are Ransom and A Simple Plan.
daddy dave
1 Sep 10 at 4:02 pm
I saw it. Was a little apprehensive in seeing it because it’s french and from long past experience frog movies were boring. However this wasn’t bad at all.
Frog movies have got better over the past few years.
JC
1 Sep 10 at 4:10 pm
Having said that, it was lame at the end of A Simple Plan how it turned out the money was all unusable anyway. It gave it a ‘dont’ be greedy’ theme.
daddy dave
1 Sep 10 at 4:10 pm
The lesson I got from A Simple Plan was, don’t get involved with stupid hicks even if they are your relatives.
Steve Edney
1 Sep 10 at 4:13 pm
I like Bill Paxton as an actor. Great pity about the name though.
I thought the way the crooks cottoned on to who took the money was bullshit and it sort of wrecked the movie from what I recall as I saw it a long time ago.
JC
1 Sep 10 at 4:16 pm
I haven’t seen The Expendables yet. Damn slack of me.
Infidel Tiger
1 Sep 10 at 4:19 pm
“It gave it a ‘dont’ be greedy’ theme.”
Well I can see how upsetting that must be to libertarians, d-d.
Personally, I can’t work out why there hasn’t been a bio-pic on Ayn Rand. The recent biographies of her indicate there’s a wealth of strange material to work with.
steve from brisbane
1 Sep 10 at 4:26 pm
There is a biopic on Rand:
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0140447/
THR
1 Sep 10 at 4:35 pm
There’s been a few attempts at it , Steve, but from what i understand the person that owned the film rights to it was a real fuckhead and thestudios kept walking away from his demands.
The latest I’ve heard was that they were thinking of either doing a movie or creating a mini series.
I would think though that a two part movie or trilogy would be a much better idea.
JC
1 Sep 10 at 4:35 pm
Thanks THR, I had missed that. I see it was only on TV though, and I get the impression it doesn’t try to cover her whole life.
steve from brisbane
1 Sep 10 at 4:40 pm
It would be a great idea to make a movie during the current fool’s term in the White House as it would really hit home.
In fact there is a capital strike of sorts going on in the US at the moment as we have the unheard situation of historic returns on capital by the S&P 500 and no one hiring for obvious reasons. When you have a med plan which is 1200 pages long and no one has any fucking idea what it all means.
The banks are saddled with 2400 pages containing perhaps as many as 250 new regulations administered by dozens of agencies and the threat of unionization and removing secret ballot in the work place.
The shock is that the country has actually managed the current level of economic performance.
Of course the moochers will hit a wall come November.
JC
1 Sep 10 at 4:41 pm
From memory that movie is based on Brandon’s wifes recollection. They used to show it on Fox.
Sinclair Davidson
1 Sep 10 at 4:42 pm
The Barbarian Invasions incorporated a stark contrast of socialist and capitalist systems, Steve/
Warwick
1 Sep 10 at 5:49 pm
If you want to teach the follies of government deficit spending to your kids, go for the Asterix book “Obelix & Co”. For a book originally in French it is a pretty good go at being Hayekian.
Andrew Reynolds
1 Sep 10 at 6:49 pm
Yikes! I just finished reading the Fountainhead two days ago. When I get the chance, I intend to watch the movie. Interestingly, although Rand wrote the screenplay to the film, she didn’t like it.
Capitalist Piggy
1 Sep 10 at 7:32 pm
I love French movies (there are on SBS every other day) but the French are the last people expected to do one on economics or enterpreneurship.
Boris
1 Sep 10 at 10:21 pm