Greed Is Good v3.0: The Wolf of Wall Street

It took David Chase four-- debatably, five-- seasons of The Sopranos, to drag us along through the tragic decline that was Christopher Moltisanti's battle with heroin addiction. In season two, a stock market "pump and dump" scheme becomes the family's latest enterprise, and Moltisanti takes the lead-- though his substance use, and perhaps his mental capacity, keeps him from understanding exactly what's taking place in the office he leads. Later in season two, Moltisanti hits "rock bottom," having his car stolen while he's trying to score heroin; by the season's close, the office is empty, the Webistics scheme having run its course.

Christopher Moltisanti, stockbroker.

There is no "rock bottom" for the character of Jordan Belfort, in Martin Scorcese's The Wolf of Wall Street, in terms of substance use, but also in terms of what he'll do for the benefit of his own hide. The film is gloriously excessive, so graphic and repugnant as to make the oft-referenced opening scenes of Kubrick's A Clockwork Orange look tame, the stuff of comic book fantasy. DiCaprio as Belfort has created one of the greatest villains in the history of American cinema.


Move over, Alex-- there's a new ultra-violence to be had.

The gluttonous tale is told in just under three hours, and Scorcese does well in making every minute count. A keen structural choice-- telling Belfort's arrival and early days in retrospect-- allows for storytelling at lower stakes; the second half of the film accelerates as Belfort's greed, reckless abandon, and obsession with Quaaludes and cocaine lead him to savage just about everything in his life: his boat, his marriages, his relationship with his children, his home, his partnerships. From his first day on the job, it is obvious that Belfort is smitten with the challenge of cold-calling the unsuspecting, and with the illegal deals made by other traders. Scorcese's storytelling is especially well-done during these early chapters; the second half takes the viewer on a frenzied first-person ride, as Belfort loses his grip. An especially great scene is Belfort's first day on the job, at a "pink sheet" stock brokerage firm located in a strip mall on Long Island-- where Belfort shows off his ability to sell anything (or, as he puts it, "selling garbage to garbagemen").
But The Wolf of Wall Street is not merely a morality play; neither good nor evil triumphs. The repercussions of Belfort's egoism are ever-limited, by his excessive (and ill-gotten) wealth. He is uninjured when he, nearly in a stupor, crashes his helicopter; he is unfazed as he, his wife, and guests are rescued from their yacht in a storm at sea; he endangers the life of his daughter late one night by putting her in his car and promptly backing into a wall at his estate, only to suffer a dirty look from their live-in maid; his prison sentence is represented by a brief shot of Belfort on a tennis court. Christopher Moltisanti had to answer to the family patriarch, Tony, and Alex in A Clockwork Orange was forced to atone for his sins through participation in a government program, that sought to fix people like him. But Belfort answers to no one.

To call the film 'Fear and Loathing on Wall Street' would be appropriate, except that Hunter S. Thompson's original mission had nothing to do with an unquenchable lust for inordinate wealth, but rather the opposite. Not even Dr. Thompson could, or would, have destroyed an entire floor of a Las Vegas hotel, as Belfort and company do during his bachelor party weekend, prior to his marriage to his second wife (the weekend cost $2 million). The Wolf of Wall Street does have DiCaprio raising his arms like Rupert Pupkin before an audience of his phone-calling minions, screaming, beating his chest with primal rage-- a few times, I wonder if DiCaprio has started copying facial expressions from Jack Nicholson. Belfort cheers on the daily screwing of the public, via telephone: the world he rapes financially is far from his existence, in and around bullish downtown Manhattan. Belfort's substance use is constant, as he rages on, with the pulse of the brokerage firm constantly thundering in his veins. His original team of brokers consists of the kind of creeps (all but one were drug dealers) that need constant reminding, about not selling heroin along garbage truck routes.
The only magic or mystery to Jordan Belfort, beyond the charm of his (fading) boyish looks, comes in wondering how deeply his selfish streak actually runs: he admits to sleeping with many, many prostitutes; he attempts to bribe an FBI agent; he tries to make out with his second wife's distinguished British aunt; he tries to circumvent his promise of cooperation with the FBI; his drug excesses (especially his fawning over Lemmons, a rare Quaalude no longer produced) are embarrassing; he risks the lives of just about everyone in the film, and no one else comes close to losing control in such a way. No one helps him out, either.



Sorry, Charlie-- DiCaprio's Jordan Belfort
has you beat, many times over. #winning

Before The Wolf of Wall Street, Oliver Stone's Wall Street films may have been some of the best attempts at depicting an obscure and little-known world: of stock brokerages and high-level swindling. Unlike Oliver Stone's Wall Street films, however, the only moral voice in The Wolf of Wall Street is Belfort's first wife, who asks why, if the stock is bad anyway, would you sell it to poor people? Stone's first film used the narrative engine of a father-son relationship, played by Martin and Charlie Sheen, to great effect. Michael Douglas' character of Gordon Gekko would, had he appeared in the film, appeared far more rational, level-headed, and realistic than Belfort or his cronies: an elder stateman from the school of "greed is good," but lacking the tenacity necessary to serve as Belfort's security guard.

Jordan Belfort makes Gordon Gekko
look like he belongs on a Florida golf
course, and nowhere else.

Jordan Belfort is not a character who experiences development or growth, in The Wolf of Wall Street; rather, his life spirals, in a swirl of greed and intoxication. Like Stone's first Wall Street film, Jordan Belfort does consult, and eventually hire, his father, "Mad Max," to serve as a security guard at their brokerage. But as Max questions outrageous bills from a prostitution ring, and expresses his disbelief, he stops short of condemning his son's actions. Not long into the film, Belfort's divorce from his first wife seems inevitable, but happens only after Belfort is caught in the back of a limo, doing cocaine from the breasts of the woman who would become his second wife. The way Belfort seeks to monopolize on his relationships reminded me most of Bob Fosse's film All That Jazz, except that Belfort (unlike Joe Gideon) is totally ethically reprehensible, void of aesthetic or artistic interest or talent, and a total sociopath, moving without abandon, from one cheap thrill to the next. 


B.J. Novak's character of Ryan Howard, from the U.S.
version of The Office, is a rare breed, in that he's much like Jordan
Belfort--if not for having pulled off a meteoric rise to corporate power
and wealth, but for his tenacity and lack of humility, after his fall.


Belfort is a real person, now said to be living in Australia, following a three-year jail sentence for securities and wire fraud; he is at the center of a controversy regarding whether or not he has, or will, stand to make money directly from the release of Scorcese's film. Not having read Belfort's book, the portrait of him in the film is so far from likable that I'm hesitant to spend any money on anything he may profit from. There are no moments in the film in which Belfort displays real skill: he is not especially good with numbers, and the moments in which his over-the-phone salesmanship of junk stock are actually few and far between. He has no skill, only sensation. He has no leadership qualities-- unless you call leadership offering a woman in the office $10,000 to have her head shaved, on a Friday afternoon, to rally the troops and begin the party. Real-life Jordan Belfort's web site peddles his skills, as a motivational speaker and investment consultant, claiming:

"While “Wolf” has its fair share of Hollywood-style exaggeration for entertainment’s sake, one thing is absolutely take-to-the-bank factual: I really ‘did’ crack the code on how to persuade anyone to do anything…and how to teach anyone, regardless of your age, education, or skill level, to be a master sales person, closer, negotiator, online entrepreneur, or speaker in as little as two weeks flat."

 

So what, then, is Scorcese's point, in making The Wolf of Wall Street? Unlike his other films, there is little religious imagery or any journey to faith, no acts of redemption or introspection. If The King of Comedy (1980) can be summed from the scene of Jerry Langford (Lewis) strapped to a chair, held hostage by a strange and seductive Sandra Bernhard-- from which we are to derive a message about our celebrity culture-- The Wolf of Wall Street sees Belfort finally tethered, restrained for the first time in hours, on an airplane, after causing a dangerous commotion (and, calling the pilot "the n-word," according to Benny, Belfort's best friend and himself a total creep). This film is probably meant to unite us, through providing a gross display of a stock broker's total lack of morality: no matter how lavish the "capitalist" party becomes in New York's financial district, it is still not an event any of us would like to be invited to. Wealth corrupts, power corrupts, and Belfort would be an immoral slimeball anyway. If this film to demolish the mysteries of the Wall Street investor class, whose lives and inglorious wealth may be having more of an impact on middle- and lower-class mobility than anybody wants to (or can afford to) admit, The Wolf of Wall Street is timely, its excesses successful. Are we--those not in the highest income brackets-- to recognize Belfort as being one of many, who profiteer all day long, in the intangible business of securities and exchange? A portrait of a 21st century snake oil salesman, the entrepreneur who will 'stop at nothing,' The Wolf of Wall Street is a remarkable and sickening film, giving new understanding to what it means to be "evil" on-screen in the United States. 



Occupy Wall Street protest, Sept. 30, 2011. Investment
bankers threw themselves a champagne reception on
the terrace following the closing bell, to taunt protestors.