Park Avenue: Money, Power and the American Dream

I find it interesting that this documentary came out in 2012 and at that time people were bringing attention to the ever widening income gap between the wealthiest Americans and average Americans. Ten years later nothing's changed, in fact it's worse. Who would've thought that a single person would be worth hundreds of billions of dollars? Two such people exist now.

What we see in "Park Avenue" is what we see in "Inside Job" (2010), "Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room" (2005), and "Capitalism: A Love Story" (1997) just to name a few movies about unchecked greed.

"Park Avenue" is eye-opening in that it says a lot about the world's wealthiest and our government, but it says a lot about the average American as well. We live in a democratic republic. That means that the people run the country on the basis of having a vote. Even with the strength of corporations and fat cats having a direct line to lawmakers, if enough people made enough noise, things would change.

But what does the average American think? "That could be me one day." They could be the next Jeff Bezos, Elon Musk, David Koch, or John Thain and they wouldn't want the government in their pockets. It's that idea and that dream that is constantly dangled in front of every American that keeps us complicit in the status quo. All we need to see is a handful of rags-to-riches stories and we're sold. If that were not the case, we'd have long ago changed things.

Is class warfare the rich against the poor, or is it the ultra-rich pitting the middle-class against the poor (and each other)? While maybe not objective, this documentary looks at the power behind the politics.

I love that Jack Abramoff appears here and speaks candidly. I do not care whether he feels he was right or wrong, but that he is able to come forward and explain how the game is played really adds to our understanding.

I further love the film's turn towards David Koch and from there towards the state of Wisconsin (where I have lived over 30 years). It was great to see familiar faces like Mahlon Mitchell and Mark Pocan, and hear the connection between Ayn Rand and Paul Ryan.

We even got to see real folks in Waukesha and hear more of the Scott Walker prank phone call. From the start it looked like we would be focusing on the Park Avenue of Manhattan versus the Park Avenue of the Bronx. I am glad it went beyond that. Will other non-Dairy State viewers enjoy it as much? I cannot say.

Review of: Alex Gibney's Park Avenue: Money, Power, and the American Dream Alex Gibney's Park Avenue: Money, Power, and the American Dream, is a documentary that compares the Park Avenue in Manhattan, NY to the Park Avenue of the South Bronx, NY. Gibney starts out by showing the audience the residential building 740 Park Avenue. Here, is the home of the most billionaires living on one block (and building), in all of the United States. The Film focuses on Economic Development and Inequality by using the comparison of the Park Avenue billionaires to the Park Avenue residents of the South Bronx.

Eventually the director focuses his attention to these billionaires and the United States government. He brings up points that tie the interests of these billionaires to the way in which the government is currently corruptly run. He uses the classic "School House Rock" cartoon "I'm Just a Bill" to show that maybe in 1975 (when the cartoon came out) the S.H.R. interpretation may had been factual and educational in teaching kids how the system works. Today however, the reality up on Capitol Hill bares no resemblance to the cartoon. Today, bills rarely make it to the house to be voted on.

Gibney goes on to make strong ties between Ann Rand's ideologies of capitalism in her book Atlas Shrugged with the underlying beliefs of certain CEO billionaires like the Koch brothers and Republican Senator Paul Ryan. Gibney is here stating that the Republican Party and the Democratic Party members have all been bought. They no longer have the interests of the voters, but they have the interests of the lobbyists who give them money for their campaigns.

Gibney goes on and on giving examples of how corrupt the government system is today, and says that billionaires including the ones who live in 740 Park Avenue are constantly playing the game of capitalism. They know that in order for them to become richer, others have to become poorer. This is why they want to have close ties in Washington in order to get the bills they want passed.

Although the film succeeds in lifting any veil that was hiding the ugly truths about our government system, it does not offer any solutions. Sure it gives us statistics and pie charts letting us know just how poor the majority of American citizens have become, while the 1% has only gotten richer. It ties this subject back into the beginning of the film where at one end of Park Avenue lives people in the 1%, while at the other side of Park Avenue in the South Bronx lives people in poverty struggling to give their kids shelter and an education.

At some point in the film I was waiting for some logical solution scenarios to pop up. Gibney does a great job at making me shocked and angry at how the country's government no longer has the interests of the majority of its citizens in mind, but that is all I felt after it was over, angry. I felt angry and helpless. Maybe this film was produced by the 1% to scare us and put us down. Gibney really missed the marked on the ending of this film. It was surprising to see how stingy billionaires in 740 Park Avenue to their doormen, as one who was interviewed in the film said for Christmas he only received a $50 check from David Koch.

What about the Park Avenue residents in the South Bronx? Their identities weren't given to us like the billionaires at 740 Park. They were mentioned very briefly and then forgotten until the last few minutes of the film. Gibney should have and could have interviewed a sociologist, professor of economics or urban planner in order to get their thoughts on how to improve the inequality of the blighted areas like the South Bronx. There is no need to only give the audience the disastrous details of America's economy without also mentioning the theories and plans being devised in order to rebuild and fix the enormous inequality gap.

It makes me wonder if Gibney really believes in change for the better, or if his priority all along was just to scare his audience into a nihilist persona. If I had to rate this film on a scale of 1 to 5, I would give it a 2.5. It is not boring, and it will keep you watching, but it will leave you sorely disappointed.

I watched this movie with great interest - and read the reviews with almost the same interest, especially those criticizing the movie. For me this actually underpins one of the movie's important messages: the challenge for society with very conflicting world views. Basically, I think it is almost impossible to make the perfect documentary, at least when it comes to social and psychological matters. If you want to include everything the movie will be extremely detailed and complicated. So - you have to choose an angle, as every writer on history do. By choosing to highlight one aspect of an issue, you necessarily will have to skip others. But does this mean that you cannot learn anything from the story told? No. As a Scandinavian I am very eager to achieve a deeper understanding of the American society since it has a profound influence on the rest of the world- and I must say I disagree completely with Brian, also from Denmark, when stating that Gibneys movie was a waste of time. The movie seems to me very clearly to document a serious problem for the stability of the American society, based apparently on very different ways of perceiving and interpreting the surrounding world. But a difference with vast consequences for the less powerful and well-off population. Of course you will be able to point your fingers at aspects in any documentary, as mentioned before - but does that mean that the remainder of the movie is irrelevant, as Brian seems to think? For me - no. His argument is for me merely a fig leaf for avoiding a discussion of very serious matters. Thanks and credit for Alex Gibney for presenting this thought-provoking movie for us, and for giving us the opportunity to continue investigating and reflecting.

Voter registration records (which are public in NYC) and campaign contributions and bundling records at FEC dot gov show that Park ave is overwhelmingly Democrat. Yet no mention of this and the implication by anecdote that it is GOP when it is Dem?