Ferguson demonstrates in many ways using Logos, Pathos, Ethos, and Kairos how the American financial sector brought the country and the world to the brink. He explains using Logos how the beginning of the crisis occurred, explaining how banks used to provide mortgage’s to people who couldn’t afford them in order to profit in fees, later on these banks sliced and bundled up these mortgage’s into packages and sold them to foreign investors, who later lost these packages when house prices plummeted down. The director uses Logos all over the documentary, he uses statistic’s and facts, he also uses the testimony’s and the interviews of many of the people involved in the crisis, many people like Chief Lobbyist Scott Talbott, Chairman of the American National Bank Alan Greenspan, and Paul Volcker Chairman of the Federal Reserve at the time of the crisis.
The charm of the documentary inside job is that it makes this very complex and boring subject completely accessible, meaning you don’t need to be in finance, or an accountant to understand what the documentary is explaining. The film is structured into 5 parts leading to the finical crisis in 2008. This allows the viewer to best absorb the information, and not get lost in the translation.
In the sense of Ethos, the Director doesn’t directly demonstrate his credibility, although his arguments hold out a great amount of validity through the film, Fergusons claims are supported by raw data, experts, and testimony’s from induvial’s directly involved in the crisis. Throughout the film economic experts are interviewed and asked harsh questions about the event leading up to the financial crisis. Ferguson also mentions how so many of the executives involved refused to be interviewed where in his point of view shows that they may have something to hide about the financial crisis. Nevertheless, of people who weren’t interviewed, in one interview in the film, Paul Volcker who was the chairman of the Federal reserve at the time mentioned how large companies continued to spend massive amounts of money even after the crisis was predicted, which represents that these major companies had a leading hand in making the economic condition even worse.
Ferguson uses many other examples of the direct involvement of these massive companies to the crisis mentioning how many of these large companies at the time had no choice but to start laundering money, companies like JP Morgan, Credit Suisse, and Riggs bank. Eventually people discovered what these companies were doing, and the companies were forced to pay hundreds of millions of dollars in fines.
Ferguson used many different ways to emotionally connect with the audience, he begins the film showing how beautiful the world we live in is, he shows the viewers clips from high mountains, perfect beaches, and amazing waterfalls. What was his intention in showing this to people. He wanted people to realize the uniqueness of our world and to stop messing with it globally and economically. On a Pathos scale Ferguson’s uses many different cinematic techniques. Many different close ups, narrative stops, lighting, music, and TV clips that were used throughout the documentary to prove a point or explain the situation. Many technique’s used by Ferguson have been proven to evoke emotion in the audience.
With everything taken into account, inside job is a well-argued and comprehensive critique of the factors leading to the financial crisis. The director has successfully implemented Logos, Pathos, and Ethos to the film. He has done an excellent job explaining the details of the film in the easiest way possible. His film had made me realize how interesting and important it is for us to learn the repercussions that led to the financial crisis of 2008 so that hopefully, it won’t happen again.
