The Wolf of Wall Street (2013)

I must say I had difficulties empathizing with the marital and substance abuse problems of a billionaire and difficulties finding anything funny when in the back of my head I know Belfort cashed a juicy check for the right of his book while still not paying the money he owes. Ultimately I find the discourse of the movie unclear: is it saying that Belfort was just the product of an era and a business culture and that everyone in his position would have done the same thing and took the opportunity to live large as he did? That demonstration is a bit weak without showing the moral compromise needed (the film never shows the victims and refuses any kind of explanation as to how and why the things they are doing are illegal). Is it saying that money does not mean happiness? Then why use a crook to prove that tired point? Bah.

That said, I loved all the scenes where Hill is spewing bullshit while trying not to laugh. The guy has such amazing delivery.

Szlia_sl said:

Is it saying that money does not mean happiness? Then why use a crook to prove that tired point? Bah.

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Agree completely. This stuff in movies and TV has ALWAYS annoyed me. It's like some kind literary, social consolation prize for the plebs that will never have this kind of money. "Oh don't worry; the wealthy really aren'tthathappy. It's all illusory and hollow. The joy you're seeing while they driving their car that costs more than your house is actual just a facade to fill a giant emotional hole somewhere, I swear!" What an absolute crock of bullshit. If people want to see real sadness? They should go look at a couple that have to tell their children they're being thrown out of their home because they can't afford it anymore due to little Timmy's cancer treatment costs. That is real, honest depression level sadness.

Watching a guy feel bad because he's coming off a huge coke binge and doesn't have anymore supermodels to snort his next line off of? Comeon. It's just insulting that they even try to wrap this up as a moral lesson by trying to tug some heart strings with his poor kids.

The best review I saw was, "It's a masterfully well made movie, great performances, and it's not judgmental of the subject material".

And i'm sitting here thinking... well, why the fuck NOT? If there is only a presentation without any hint of editorial slant, it's just a glorification. Like it or not, something like this is a political movie.

And I'm sure itisa great movie about a poor little rich boy. It really makes a lot of sense that this movie came out of New York though.

The quaalude scene makes that point loud and clear.

The plebs will never win. That is the point. To me, at least.

Intrinsic_sl said:

Because you just watched a movie about a crook based off a book about the crook's life written by the crook himself. If anything I think the movie has done a horrible job preparing people for the fact that it was not an impartial observer's telling of the life and times of Jordan Belfort nor was it an attempt to critique him or his actions. They took a book written by a megalomaniac and made a movie.

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For reals, it was an adaptation of the book that was written by Belfort himself - if you were expecting the movie to conclude with a bout of flagellation then I don't know what to say

Ossoi_sl said:

For reals, it was an adaptation of the book that was written by Belfort himself - if you were expecting the movie to conclude with a bout of flagellation then I don't know what to say

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Nope, I just don't want some artificial sympathy jammed in there showing how the poor man lost his family and succumbed to substance abusebecauseof how wealth destroys your soul. And so, all the plebs out there should be happy they aren't wealthy--because money is the root of all evil. After all, just look at what it did to this man; there's no chance he could have been a sociopath, narcissist before the money, right? Nope, he was just a product of the culture that is pervasive among those with wealth; because wealth is evil. (I actually thought the best part of the whole film was showing what a joke min security jail is for wealthy people; and how he's still making money. That no artificial need to show "justice" there. That would have been perfect it also showed the effects of what he did to others. )

Anyway, what bugs me is movies like this always try to trace the route of the problem to money. And that narrative IS the problem; because money is NOT the problem. This guy wasjustadick. He was no different from a guy who say: robbed banks, except his ability to lie was probably better. Movies always have such a hard time just portraying that. In all of these movies the crimes are victimless and the laws they are breaking are arcane; so you almost get a sense the government is just being a dick, and the real tragedy here is the main characters lack of self control. Yet these crimes typically hurt a lot of people and the tragic thing here should be how these guys destroy a lot of lives and then walk away.

Instead it just shows a guy that gets addicted to a wealthy life that rots him from the inside out. It tries to purport money as if it were a cancer--a terrible cocaine snorting, super model fucking cancer that this man couldn't control! Almost like he was addicted to heroin or alcohol and it robbed him of what makes life REALLY worth living; his family! And that's why all us poor folks should be happy; because we may have to worry about car payments or keeping our homes. Butbecausewe are such salt of the earth workers; we won't have to face this kind of insidious evil known asmaterialwealth,the destroyer of families. And we'll get to keep what "really" makes people wealthy, the little things, like the love of our children (Dawwww--because you know poor people don't get divorced and estranged from their children or succumb to substance abuse; oh wait, they do at a higher rate than wealthy people.).

Essentially, it boils down to what Siz said. The movie is trying to convey money can't buy happiness (Or more appropriately it, it causes unhappiness). And that's not true. Money CAN make people happy. What it can't do is fix someone who is a psychotic asshole with no regard for other people. And these story lines that push the former narrative? Are dumb and tiresome. This movie should have instead emphasized the latter; that this guy WAS a criminal.

Ben Affleck is such a bad actor.

Intrinsic_sl said:

edit: ah sorry you edited your post to remove what I responded to so it is kind of less relevant. Doing this on a tablet while cooking wings for super bowl party

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lol, I re-added it...I think it still fits, so I put it back in. I think it would bother me less if the actors and writers didn't say "oh this is a cautionary tale" in interviews. Bullshit. If it were, we would have actually seen the victims and all the destruction he caused. We didn't. And what's worse, he attempts to blame it all on the environment (Not directly mind you but in the narrative/theme). As if to say--"Had you been in my shoes, you'd have also done this. So feel bad for my problems!"

Edit: One thing I will say. I actually found him getting off at the end of the film, great. Because it didn't try to say "see; look, he paid!" I just wish they wouldn't have kept up the pretense of him being just carried along by the times and his crime being victimless. The director should have shown it's effects more--that would have really made that final scene carry some heft. Even if it wasn't in the autobiography.

I would add two things:

1) What the hell is the point of making a movie out of a book if it's not to make the material your own or at least shine an original light on it?

2) Belfort, the people that rushed to his company after the WSJ article, the people that go to his seminars... not one of them saw the actual impact on the victims. The victims are just an idea the crooks and wannabe crooks can toss aside and easily forget (only the first wife does not forget and proposes the not much less immoral idea of screwing rich people instead of poor people). So I guess the only argument that can be made for the movie is that instead of reminding the viewers there are victims, it puts us in the same situation as Belfort and test our moral compass: Do you want to be like him or are you able to realize what he did was wrong without having the film shove it in your face? That argument is a bit of circular one though and it does not cover the drug/family problems.

Well, if you want to understand why the narrative of 'wealth is evil; plebs have it better' has pervaded our culture so thoroughly, look no further than the texts of Antonio Gramsci.

Marx, however, constructed a good argument against money in his early works. If you're interested,it's not long.

Szlia_sl said:

2) Belfort, the people that rushed to his company after the WSJ article, the people that go to his seminars... not one of them saw the actual impact on the victims. The victims are just an idea the crooks and wannabe crooks can toss aside and easily forget (only the first wife does not forget and proposes the not much less immoral idea of screwing rich people instead of poor people). So I guess the only argument that can be made for the movie is that instead of reminding the viewers there are victims, it puts us in the same situation as Belfort and test our moral compass: Do you want to be like him or are you able to realize what he did was wrong without having the film shove it in your face? That argument is a bit of circular one though and it does not cover the drug/family problems.

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See though, that's the thing. They probablydidsee the impact. The way leads work is that they had to call and develop an account with the people. So I'm sure a lot of these guys had conversations post-losses with the people that they robbed. That was the twisted thing about their crimes: They convinced people to put their savings into a stock by using their trust with the consumer, and telling the consumer that their opinion was an expert one. It's like a realtor covering up a huge flaw in a house intentionally; these guys are supposed to have a professional knowledge about what they are putting money into. And they used that belief to trick people into trusting that these OTC stocks had some of the same qualities as an exchange traded stock; and what's worse, they did it all knowing the price of the stock would go down, because they artificially inflated it.

The theft was a lot more direct and deceitful than most people realize. Because it took a really terrible person to sit there, and hear some small business owner literally tell you he was moving his nest egg into the stock you're peddling, all whileknowinghe will lose it all by letting you control it because you're putting it into junk. (Also, they tried to say they were going after "the 1%"...but everything I've read says he went after, essentially, small business owners--not the super wealthy. I think he put that in there himself to make him seem more sympathetic.)

However, that wasn't really what annoyed me; what got to me was what you mentioned at the end.

The drug/family problem. They were so heavy handed with making money out to be just another drug that they literally just say it at the start of the movie: "I'm addicted to this, 100 dollar bills baby!" And then they tried to work in the family problems, and other addictions, like they were symptoms of that main addiction of money. It's that narrative that just....really rubs me the wrong way, like as if we are supposed to feel sorry for him, because how could he stop it when the money forced him into all this and all that stuff is just a byproduct of how evil and addictive money is. Bleh. I just despise that narrative for all the reasons in the above posts.

Ossoi_sl said:

For reals, it was an adaptation of the book that was written by Belfort himself - if you were expecting the movie to conclude with a bout of flagellation then I don't know what to say

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Nah, I don't expect that. But I do find it mildly insulting. If anyone other than master craftsmen had made it, I would find it egregious. To be honest I don't think that other movie, the one where michael moore flaps you with his flab and tells you these are horrible people, needs to be made. If that's really what you think the complaint is you don't understand the problem. I'm not askin for a mockumentary or a sermon.

But this is nothing more than an emotional defense of the culture of deceit. Might be a good movie, I just don't think it was a good idea. The subject matter is just not entertaining, and the simple act of making entertainment out of the subject matter says more about the movie than the script. You can't go with "it's educational, a human interest story, it's a cautionary tale, trying to raise awareness, it's trying to tell the other side" because honestly it's none of those things either.

These guys seriously destroy lives. But heeheheheh cocaine.

You guys don't remember how at the end of Goodfellas Ray Liotta was whining that he had to live a normal life? That was my biggest problem with the movie, I'd seen it before with cooler criminals. Good god that blonde wife though.

There's also a very plain cops and robbers expectation on the part of the audience for Goodfellahs. Even if Ray Liotta had never got caught, retired to Miami, and lived the goodlife it's a different type of narrative. It's just a political subject. Honestly, I think only 3 dudes could get away with making this film. Speilberg could get away with it, but he'd never make it. Tarrantino could get away with making this movie -- but that would be a bizzare fucking movie.

You're right though, I hadn't really thought about it. It kinda is the same basic story.

Wouldn't put it past Scorcesse to make a movie that's intended to age 20 years before it reaches its real audience. He is one of the best and he elevates the form.