The feature film Margin Call is interesting for a number of reasons. It was written over four days by writer-director J.C. Chandor, who before that had made a number of shorts films and documentaries. It was shot in 17 days, and apparently the screenplay immediately began to attract ‘name’ actors as it began circulating LA.
Craig Matheison has the details:
SOMETIMES a young filmmaker only has to look to his family and upbringing for
compelling material. For his outstanding debut feature, Margin Call, American
writer-director J. C. Chandor tellingly explores the Wall Street life that his father
spent 35 years amidst working for the investment bank Merrill Lynch.
”It feels like an honest representation of that world,” says the 37-year-old Chandor,
who has only recently returned with his young family to their home in Rhode Island
after spending the awards season in Los Angeles following his Academy Awards
nomination for best original screenplay.
He wrote the moral thriller in just four days in 2009, but with its allusive dialogue,
twisted institutional allegiance and breached ethics, Margin Call does for Tom
Wolfe’s Masters of the Universe what David Mamet’s Glengarry Glen Ross did for
shady salesmen: it creates a self-contained milieu where the characters are
compelled to reveal their true nature.