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AFF Review: “Under the Boardwalk: The Monopoly Story”
Once again: We are living in a Golden Age of documentary filmmaking.
The preponderance of do-it-yourself moviemaking equipment — from cheap HD video cameras to more portable sound equipment to Final Cut Pro — has been a godsend to documentarians of all stripes. (I submit that said DIY materials have also resulted in a lot of feature/fiction films that flat-out don’t look all that hot and often suffer from sub-par acting, but your mileage may vary.)
Add to that the boom in reality-based television and an appetite for documentary series aimed at 18-24 year olds — such as MTV’s “Made,” “16 & Pregnant” and the consistently strong “True Life” — and there seem to be more and better documentaries being made now than ever before.
“Under the Boardwalk” is a perfect example. In 88 tightly-edited minutes, director Kevin Tostado intertwines a history of the game’s fascinating genesis, good analysis of its appeal, strong characters and a look at Monopoly tournament culture around the globe.
Most folks know the legend: Charles Darrow invented Monopoly in the 1930s to entertain his family during the Depression. The reality is more complicated, and “Boardwalk” conveys the information with witty animation and sharp storytelling.
Thirty years earlier, a woman named Elizabeth (Lizzie) J. Magie Phillips created a game to discuss Henry George’s single tax theory. She called it “The Landlord’s Game” and it was supposed to show you how landlord’s exploited tenants. Over nearly 30 years, the game circulated privately, with players often making their own modifications and revisions. Darrow played a version that some friends in Philadelphia had. He made his own, called it “Monopoly” and made many copies by hand before selling the rights (and wisely retaining a royalty) to Parker Brothers in ‘35. The game made Parker Brothers a huge company and the Darrow family wealthy.
All of this meant that the game had essentially several decades of play testing, something that is completely impossible for game-makers to do today. This goes a long way to explaining the game’s extraordinary longevity — the kinks had been worked out already.
So the game’s relationship to capitalism became reversed. Phillips wanted to demonstrate capitalism’s inequities. But as 30 years of modification shows, it was a lot more fun to pretend to be the landlord and force your opponents to go broke.
These days, there are literally thousands of customizations in dozens of languages and national tournements around the world. Tostado filmed or gathered footage from the U.S., Canada, Mexico, U.K., Norway, Japan, Singapore and Australia, all on about a $300,000 budget.
He also followed a couple of these players and personalities, from Phil Orbanes, a former vice-president at Parker Brothers and current Chief Monopoly Judge, to insufferable lawyer Ken Koury, who whines about cheaters who don’t exist and comes to tournaments with coaches. There’s Tim Vandenberg, who uses the game to teach his sixth-grade math class about probability and has only recently started to beat adults at the game, and low key lawyer Richard Marinaccio, who plays with his family.
It’s oddly riveting stuff and evne folks who can’t stand the game will walk away charmed. (Tostado, who was present at the screening, said he tired to get people who didn’t like the game on camera, “but none of them ever wanted to talk about it on-camera”).
The take-away? Remember, you can make deals with other players. And that red die sure speeds things up. Who wants to trade for Park Place?
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