Open Outcry

"I started lifting weights so that when these guys start pushing me, I can push back," says Leslie Henner Burns. Doesn't matter whether it's eurodollar or pork belly futures: when you're down in the "pit" at the Chicago Mercantile Exchange, lightning fast wits, strong vocal cords ("lungs and height count") and the stamina of a bull (or bear) are de rigueur. Impressionist filmmaker Jon Else's (Sing Faster: The Stagehands' Ring Cycle [VL-1/01]) latest offers a cinema vérité look at a day of buying and selling various markets the old-fashioned way--with paper slips, hand signals, and a chorus of urgent voices raised in "open outcry." Viewers watch clerks eagerly training for duty on the floor (where they can make as much as $100,000 per annum), and hear tales of fortunes large and small that were made or lost ("the last washroom break I had cost me $20,000; that's an expensive piss"), but the lion's share of the program is given over to the simple recording of this unique culture--a jam-packed sea of screaming humanity all trying to turn a buck (or a million) on March 2, 2000. And therein lies the critical rub: those familiar with the inner workings of stock exchanges will find this repetitive (a film half as long would have been able to convey the same overview), while those unfamiliar with capital markets and their arcane terminology are likely to be confused by Else's sudden immersion approach. Overlong, but intermittently fascinating, this is a strong optional purchase. Aud: C, P. (R. Pitman)