Documentary shows billionaire’s virtues, values

HURTLING as we are toward a Trumpian plutocracy, why not take 90 minutes or so to be pleasantly reminded that not all billionaires are heartless cabinet nominees?

In any other context, Peter Kunhardt’s HBO documentary Becoming Warren Buffett would seem like too much of a tongue bath – a warm portrait that verges on fawning and honours the success, personality quirks and eventual magnanimity of the famous “Oracle of Omaha”, who amassed enough billions through seven decades of shrewd investing.

Now, as a nation braces itself for an even further widening of the gap between rich and poor, Becoming Warren Buffett can also be seen as a case study in recognising both virtue and value.

Those who love money and retain a sure faith in the concept of the self-amassed fortune will have all their hopes in capitalism affirmed here; at the same time, those who believe that the hearts of old men can soften just as much they are reputed to harden will be encouraged by the back story of how Buffett decided, in 2006, to part with all but a tiny sliver of his net worth (currently estimated around $75 billion).

Kunhardt’s camera follows Buffett through his daily routines within the comfortably drab Berkshire Hathaway headquarters in Omaha, where the billionaire spends most of his days sitting and absorbing information – most of it from the day’s newsprint.

“Sometimes there aren’t any good answers with human problems,” Buffett says at one point in the film.

“There’s almost answer with money.”

Buffett’s legacy will likely be somewhere between the two – answering and aiding quite a number of human problems with the fortune he leaves behind. – The Washington Post always an