by Karl Smallwood
In 2005 a homeless man called Ted Rodrigue stumbled upon a briefcase
filled with crisp $20 and $50 bills totaling $100,000 (about $123,000
today). Ted was then told by screenwriter
Wayne Powers that
the money was his to keep and do with as he wished, so long as he would
allow a film crew to document the result. Rodrigue, understandably,
jumped at the opportunity, leading to a somewhat controversial
documentary-
Reversal of Fortune.
According to an interview with Powers, the genesis of the documentary
stemmed from his time in LA where he was frequently asked for money by
the homeless, prompting him to ponder, “What would a homeless person do
if I gave them a million dollars?” Powers was curious if such a
substantial amount of money could change a person’s life for the better
or if it’d simply make it worse. He took this idea to an executive at
Showtime where he’d briefly written a short-lived series called
Out of Order. The
executives loved the idea, but weren’t exactly thrilled at the idea of
paying out a million dollars, eventually talking Powers down to
$100,000.
With funding in hand, all Powers needed was a homeless person to give
the money to. According to him, he picked Ted after filming several
conversations with him and coming to the conclusion that Ted was a man
who’d been dealt a bad hand and deserved a break for once.
As Ted put it, “When I look back at my childhood, I think it was
screwed up. My mother was an alcoholic. We used to have parties all the
time at the house. We used to as kids sneak in and grab a beer;
sometimes they’d even give us one. I started drinking- I’ve been
drinking since about 13.”
