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Business Ethics: Enron Documentary

Enron: the smartest guy in the room is a documentary made by Alex Gibney in 2005 it deals with Enron bankruptcy. Enron Corporation was an American energy company based in Houston, Texas. Before its bankruptcy in 2001, Enron employed approximately 22,000 employees and was one of the world's leading electricity, and Natural Gas Company.

The documentary expounds the facts that led Enron to Bankruptcy by interviewing many formers actors or witnesses such as formers employees or lawyers, some of them lost money in the company.
This documentary deals with a complicated case that had a strong influence on American people. It is divided in many parts, that we could call chapters. There are titles before each part: we can see shocking titles, they attract attention, even before a fact. We can also hear an off screen voice, it is not the voice of a journalist, it sounds like a very dramatic actor voice, who explains briefly the most shocking part of the facts.
Music is also very present in this documentary, for instance I recognized Marilyn Manson and Red hot Chili Peppers’ (Californication) music. We could say that is not a “very serious” music, it is rather used to entertain rather than think. I think that well known music has been used to maintain the audience attention, and to make them like, and subscribe to the argued ideas. A lot of images are also used to illustrate, and to maintain the rhythm of the documentary: the church at the beginning, the casino for the gambling executives, the strippers… These images are sometimes useful to illustrate some facts, for the church for instance to explain the link between American culture and god, but sometimes I think that they only are eye-catching and barker, for the strippers for instance.

I think that this kind of documentary is rather interesting because it is directed to a public that is maybe not used to read newspapers,