Is It Really That Big a Deal That Ric Burns Made a Film For Goldman Sachs?

The Wall Street Journal published an odd feature today elaborating on documentarian Ric Burns's little-known in-house film commissioned by Goldman Sachs. You might best recognize Burns as the director of the epic PBS series New York and as the co-director (with his brother Ken) of the landmark documentary The Civil War. You might not recognize Burns as a filmmaker like hundreds (if not thousands) of others who take private industrial gigs between their more commercial projects. Which somehow seems to be giving folks ethical brain cramps today. One question: Why?

It not like Burns has made much of a secret of the film, casually noting it in two press appearances this year and having worked on it since Goldman approached him in 2007. That was a different time, of course -- pre-financial meltdown, pre-bailout and pre-reform -- that no doubt bloomed into a prime bit of access as Goldman and its leaders weathered the economic and cultural storm that followed. Or maybe it didn't: We don't know, because Burns isn't talking about the specifics of the film with the WSJ or Movieline (neither of whom received replies to requests for comments) or anyone else for that matter.

All that's really known is that it's a Goldman industrial video for internal use only and that the the company itself retains editorial control -- which some filmmakers and critics seem to think is heretical. Agitprop director Robert Greenwald was among the most conspicuous to lash out at Burns: ""It is very unusual for a documentary maker of his stature to take on a project like this, and especially one with strings attached," Greenwald told the paper. "It goes against everything we fight for as documentary makers." Others were more magnanimous; double Oscar-winner Barbara Kopple thought the access could yield something interesting (assuming there's anything for us to to see, which there probably won't be), while even the piece's writer cited one of the most famous examples of crossover corporate filmmaking: Robert Flaherty's 1948 Louisiana Story, which was underwritten by Standard Oil and eventually earned an Oscar nod.

But even the Maysles brothers use to shoot junket footage for MGM, and Errol Morris has directed commercials for Citibank, AIG and Toyota -- not optimal clients from a PR point of view. Memo: That's how documentary filmmakers eat. Not all of them, granted, but there is often a reason -- whether it's industrial videos, TV-for-hire, commercial productions, you name it -- that a lot of your favorite documentarians only make movies once every three or four years. They take a crapload of time to develop and produce, and a director's got to stay busy in between.

Of course, now that Goldman's been sued for fraud and CEO Lloyd Blankfein is one of the most reviled villains of Wall St., there is a sense that Burns is tarnished by association -- my favorite backlash comes from those calling Burns some modern-day "LenI Riefenstahl," as though Burns adapted the Nazi filmmaker's gifts for propaganda to abet one of America's most controversial corporations.

Again: Huh? He's Ric Burns, people. You've seen his work, and it speaks for itself. Let's have a little faith in his judgment, shall we? And also have a little faith in the way modern nonfiction works. If these relationships really make you that uncomfortable, then there's only a few solutions: Go see every doc that opens theatrically every week, and take 20 of your friends. Donate liberally to PBS. And if you're a distributor, think of new ways to stimulate and boost the market on TV, online and anywhere else a film can screen.

But ultimately: Relax. It's really not that big a deal.

· Goldman, the Movie. By Goldman