I remember
when I first saw the trailer for The Wolf of Wall Street. I was working on
something or other with multiple social media websites running in the
background when Twitter gave a shiver and a jump. Within the space of ten
minutes over half the people I follow (and trust me, I follow a fair few) had
shared the trailer. If that isn’t an invitation to click on the link, I really
don’t know what is. The moment I saw it, I knew. Oh goodness, big, bold and larger
than life : The Wolf of Wall Street was going to take us all by storm and I
could NOT wait…
Now, unless
you have been living under a stone for the last few months, you will know full
well by now that this is the real-life story of Jordan Belfort. Played by the
once again brilliant Leonardo DiCaprio (and I REALLY want him to get the Oscar®
for this one) we watch the unbelievable rags to riches story of Belfort and his
cronies. Jordan is a young man with a gleam in his eye when arrives at Wall
Street all those years ago. That gleam is ambition and greed. Now, we all know
how Wall Street works. For those who are willing to be “flexible” and with a
talent in sales there are many back ways up the career ladder – and Jordan uses
and abuses every. Single. Step. Life is one big drug and booze fuelled party at
first. Jordan himself has trouble adapting to it – but like most humans, he
adapts quite quickly to the finer things in life and after that, honestly,
there is really no turning back. Or so it seems. Because for every
over-ambitious young man clawing in the cash by any means possible, no matter
how outrageous those means are, there is an FBI agent watching very closely and
patiently waiting for a slip-up…
There are
several reasons this film is brilliant. Now, you may have read my entry on The
Great Gatsby last week where I classed the film as an attempt to be larger than
life on an emotional and visual scale that failed – at least on the emotional
scale. This film is larger than life emotions done right. I mused for a minute
over what made the difference as I watched the Wolf of Wall Street. Because God
knows the setting is modernised but not that different : Jordan lives in a huge
fairy tale mansion with his trophy wife, kids, cars, yachts, helicopters and
God alone knows what besides. The parties are unbelievable but not “classy”
like Gatsbys – more sleazy. But still, larger than life. And for me, it felt
right. But why did Lhurman’s film feel beautiful but fake while Scorsese’s felt
completely real? It hit me as I watched a little further. And it’s a lot
simpler than you might think. Belfort’s life is one we actually live. No, we
do. It is very much a story of our times. First up, we have lived Jordan’s life
on a much smaller scale- and possibly not quite in the sequence he does things.
But most of us have been to a few truly wild parties where we got rip-roaring drunk
back in our day. Some of us even experimented with narcotics. Who doesn’t know
that “graduating to the big league” feel of your first pay check? You remember
your first apartment? Yeah? Did it not feel like Jordan’s mansion when you
first moved out of your parents’ place? Your first beat-up car, remember that?
Not the hand-me- down from your Dad but the one you BOUGHT with your own money?
Was that not the coolest ride ever, for
all the GIP it gave you breaking down every other day? Yeah… We all know that
feeling. Well that and the fact that, come on. I’m not saying we would all go
around boozing, doing drugs and defrauding people but who doesn’t want to be
rich? I know, I know, there are a lot of hippies out there, like myself, who
would fiercely argue that money isn’t everything and it really, really isn’t
but… You would enjoy that life. You would love your life to be one long party.
Hopefully one you didn’t have to fuel by lying and cheating but the pure “party”
aspect of it? You’d love it. You know you would.
Maybe if we
watched Gatsby or indeed Lhurman’s other films, Moulin Rouge for example, in a
different era it would feel different. Imagining cinema was as it is today back
in Gatsby’s day, the audience may well have reacted to the film the way we are
reacting to Wolf of Wall Street right now. That would be such an interesting experiment
actually. I must remember this for when I have a time machine.
This is
also why, I reckon, critics are in such a panic about Wolf of Wall Street glorifying
a certain lifestyle. It does not matter that Belfort and his cronies are
painted with almost no redeeming features. It’s the “realness” of it all that
creates the strongest temptation. DiCaprio and Scorsese may well complain about
this particular bit of the backlash but it was, I suspect, a risk they
knowingly took. It was the fact that they were tapping into this already
existing dream that makes the film sell so well. Critics can lambast the film
all they like. As The Wolf of Wall Street says, there is no such thing as bad
publicity.
I mean,
apart from anything else, including the quite serious messages it encloses, The
Wolf of Wall Street is basically a heist movie mixed with a drunken-boozey- hangover
comedy. I refer you, for one example, to the EPIC scene portraying Jordan and
the “delayed action” drugs – you know that particular event that marks the
beginning of his downfall. I do not laugh out loud much at this kind of comedy
but this… Oh my God I was in STITCHES. The entire film is worth watching for
DiCaprio’s performance alone.
Well, so
what can we say? The film does tell a very “materialistic” story but hey… Guess
what, that is the world we live in. If we’re all going to start griping about
art’s duty to change the world, let’s please remember that art is also a
reflection of the society we live in, albeit the larger than life subconscious.
The Wolf of Wall Street is precisely that. I mean, in the same vein, I remember
a rather bitter tweet stating (I paraphrase because I can’t for the life of me retrieve
the Tweet) “I never go to a Scorsese film if I want to see strong female
characters”. Err No. Honestly, neither do I. But then again, that’s the way
Scorsese’s films have always been. He has always been a “lads” type of
filmmaker and has always done what it said on the tin. His female characters
are always sketchy stereotypes with no real “meaty” part in the story and the
whole affair is generally full to bursting with testosterone. The Wolf of Wall
Street makes no exception. Jordan’s wife is the typical trophy wife in all
ways, as for his employees, there’s the sassy secretary character –who is
refreshing but has about two handfuls of lines – and one single female
stockbroker. One. I mean I know this was the ‘80s but come on people, surely in
real life there were more than one per floor? At least God I hope there were… I
mean, honestly, this almost is the topic of a whole new blog post but you know
what? Long story short, again, art is a reflection of the society it is created
in. So is this film. We need to change the society we live in before we start
griping about what we see in the mirror art holds up to us. I mean, if you look
into the mirror and see the warts… It’s not REALLY the mirror’s fault… You can
see that – right?
Kayıtlar
