"THE WOLF OF WALL STREET" PROWLS THE OSCARS

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?  

MEANWHILE, ACROSS THE POND... : "MEAN STREETS"

Now we skip a few years. And an ocean – but I digress. What I like about Mean Steets – in conjunction to this weeks’ entries that is, I like a lot of things about the film but more of that in a sec – is that it is actually almost contemporary with Call the Midwife. At a push they are just about 10 years apart. But they both are, basically, a slice of life from impoverished, dangerous areas in two countries literally across the pond from each other. If you think about it, Johnny Boy or Charlie (ok, perhaps not Johnny Boy, but definitely Charlie) could well be one of the husbands of Jenny Lee’s patients. What we have here, you might say, is a simple reversal of perspective. Here however, there is no benign convent and nuns watching over people. Here, it’s a dog eat dog world and it’s really and truly every man for himself…

Charlie (Harvey Keitel) only knows this too well. Of course this is America, you can always build and live your dream, but in Little Italy, it can be a bit harder to do that than your average neighbourhood. Luckily Charlie knows how to use his head. And he has the right connections in the shape of his uncle Giovanni, an influential man in the neighbourhood, a businessman and unofficial moneylender. Giovanni likes Charlie a lot and is even considering making him manager of one of his restaurants, a job that Charlie dreams of and that would secure him for life. However, Charlie is a man torn between his head and his heart. Although his head shows him clearly what path to follow to become a “big man” of the neighbourhood like Giovanni, Charlie’s heart leads him directly to his distant cousin Teresa of whom Giovanni does not approve (on the grounds that she is “sick in the head” i.e. has epilepsy). That could be sidestepped, albeit with difficulty, if they manage to keep the relationship under the radar, which Charlie is doing despite loud protests from Teresa. But then there’s Johnny Boy (Robert De Niro). Charlie’s young, irresponsible and slightly mad cousin is nothing but trouble. Johnny Boy owes money to the entire neighbourhood and has neither a glimmer of hope of paying it back nor an ounce of respect for anyone. He is, as you can imagine, constantly in and out of trouble and heading straight for a very sticky end.  If he wants to achieve his own dreams Charlie may well have to stop bailing him out and concentrate on his own life. But that’s the problem with these head – heart conflicts you see…

This film is, of course, one of Martin Scorsese’s first films. But even so early on we can see the themes the cast and the style that will preoccupy Martin Scorsese for most of his career. This particular film is not for the most part quite as “hard hitting” as his later films. But in a funny kind of way, I like that. Yes, there is a very clear storyline, but the style of the film is a clever mix; that of a fly on the wall documentary mixed with a commercial film. So events unfurl a lot more slowly and less predictably then they would in your “average” Hollywood flic. This also matches Johnny Boy’s character very well, I guess the character in his early twenties (De Niro is 30 at the time but as you know that means very little in the world of film) and in any case Johnny Boy has the level of responsibility of a particularly air-headed 12 year old. He lives with utter disregard for the consequences of his actions and that means things can “erupt” at pretty much any moment. In short, be prepared for surprises.

This is, in fact, the classic story of a main character caught between his heart and his logic. Here the pull of the heart is twofold, because not only does Charlie desperately want to help Johnny Boy out, there is the matter of the woman he loves, Teresa. The dynamic there is also interesting because all Teresa wants is to get out of Little Italy, get a nice little flat and have a quiet life. Charlie however, is determined he will become a man of the neighbourhood. And leaving Little Italy is categorically out of the question. So already we see the strong feel of “neighbourhood” present in a lot of Scorsese films. Here, perversely it almost acts as the ultimate curse that brings Charlie down. To be fair, he would have had a calmer life if he had gone along with Teresa’s plan. Ah, but would their story then be worth making a film about? That, my dears, is a totally different story all together…

AN EPIC TO SWEEP YOU AWAY : "THE AVIATOR"

Okey dokey, we hadn’t had a good old “true story” for a while now (documentaries don’t count). And I hadn’t watched a Martin Scorsese film in a while. The main reason for the latter is that I have gone through pretty much everything he has filmed to the present day and watched it (at least once) with great gligany. I was overjoyed to see The Aviator priced at a mere 2 pounds sterling in a large supermarket chain in the U.K – so as you can see I haven’t abandoned my frugal habits! The time was ripe to watch it the other night and boy oh boy… Leonardo di Caprio and Martin Scorsese are well on the way to becoming one of those “classic duos” I reckon… I have great respect for Leonardo di Caprio. He started off with half the planet quite sure he was nothing more than a pretty face. Now, you’d be hard pressed to find anyone to refute the fact he is a damn fine actor. But I digress. Let us get stuck into the story of the aviator – Howard Hughes.
Howard Hughes (Leonardo di Caprio) was a young man in the ‘30s. He was a wealthy heir, inheriting large companies and a lot of money in Huston Texas at a very young age. A lot of people assumed he would continue the family business – drill bits – but Howard had other plans. There were two things in life he wanted to do: Build airplanes and make films. So, much to the surprise of his elders and betters, that is precisely what he channeled all the family fortune into. It seemed like a gamble, it seemed foolish, and a in fact Mr. Hughes skated on the borders of complete bankruptcy for most of his career. However, it turned out, that Howard Hughes had a flair for both. And this flair was so great, that the size of his success and his ventures began to attract the wrath of the stronger men in both industries. But these were not the only enemies Mr. Hughes had to deal with. He had many personal demons, very severe Obsessive Compulsive Disorder that worsened although his life almost crippling him towards the end of it, to battle as well… To the point that it becomes pretty clear that if one set of enemies don’t get him, the others definitely will… Or will they?
The thing I love about Martin Scorsese’s films is their grandeur. I figured this out last night as I watched The Aviator. And it has to be said, Howard Hughes was ALL about grandeur. I mean, really and honestly. His first epic picture Hell’s Angels was shot with a total of 26 cameras, nothing short of lunacy in his time, but he insisted, went as far as mortgaging companies to get the job done and even made a profit out of what Hollywood deemed to be an impossible film. He was by all accounts an impossible man to work for, but his personal life was constantly populated (over-populated by some accounts!) by some of the greatest and most striking names of the time, including Katherine Hepburn (Cate Blanchette) and Ava Gardner (Kate Beckinsale). His eccentricities were incredibly extreme – I’ll let you discover them as you watch the film itself – but the strength with which he battled them and then came up on top, “winning” over all his demons, be it in the business world or in his head, was equally incredible. So yes, it is a big film full of big emotions and Scorsese gives the film its due in a way few directors could. There is something innately satisfying about sitting down in front of a really big, epic movie and being swept away by it. Something cathartic you might say. This film is everything it promises to be, plus a fascinating true story to boot. Not to miss.

TAKE ON THE WORLD WITH THE "RAGING BULL"

Ok, let’s go on star-gazing, and why not… Next in line, another classic. Martin Scorsese, Robert De Niro with an Oscar ® winning performance and a heart-hitting true story in more senses than one. This is the true story of one-time middleweight champion of the world and controversial character Jake La Motta.
Jake La Motta (Robert De Niro) knows and cares for one thing in life. Boxing. Luckily he’s good at it too. Along with his brother Joey (Joe Pesci) who is his manager they have just embarked on a boxing career. Jake rises meteorically in his chosen field, there is nothing wrong with his boxing but his character… That’s a different matter. Stubborn and determined to do things (everything) his way and his way alone, La Motta is no good at politics of any kind and it is all Joey can do to keep his unruly older brother on the good side of the various “powers that be” that are interested in his career. But Jake will not be content with just being “a bit difficult”. Especially after divorcing his wife and marrying Vickie who is about 5 years his junior and very beautiful, what starts with slight insecurity about his young and beautiful wife will turn to obsession and violence. Despite the tumult going on around him, he gets his “title shot” and wins it too, becoming middleweight champion of the world. But with Jake’s already crumbling self-confidence fading fast and with Jake alienating contacts around him on a seemingly daily basis how long can he defend the title? In fact, how long can he survive at all?
I do realize that’s kind of a rhetorical question for anyone who knows the man’s actual life story but if you don’t (I didn’t) it is a question that springs to mind as you watch the film. Boxing is, of course, a destructive sport but La Motta carries the trend right through into his own life. And this makes the film – that is brilliantly made in all aspects – very, VERY difficult to watch… The actual boxing scenes may well send those faint of heart running from the room and as to the “Raging Bull” s antics outside of the ring, well, some of them may send you running too. Now, a note on the actual boxing is that Robert De Niro actually trained with Jake La Motta until La Motta deemed him fit to fight professionally. The fact that he has been able to observe La Motta for such a time and doing what he is best shows clearly in his performance – no wonder the guy won an Oscar®…
And as you can tell from the paragraph above – yes, La Motta does survive, if by the skin of his teeth. He quits professional boxing (I’ll let what he does take up remain a surprise) and gets over quite a few of his more “anti social” thought patterns. Though the film makes absolutely no bones about this being touch. There is an especially touching scene towards the end of the film (you can’t miss it) where Jake is questioning why things always seem to end up the way they do; for all his faults you can’t help feeling sorry for him as you watch… Reading up on his life I see that as of 2007 he has been married quite a few times ( I believe it was four in total) and seems to be living in New York to this day, aged 80 years of age.
Well, the film is a tough film about a very tough guy. And it’s quite possible that you will not find this film easy to watch. But I reckon it’s worth a spin, if not for De Niro’s stunning performance, because it’s the true story of one of the most intriguing “tough guys” in boxing…

ANOTHER MIXED BAG: TAXI DRIVER

This was a funny film to watch… Almost unrecognizably young Robert De Niro, Jodie Foster on the verge of “being discovered” and Martin Scorsese doing his thing”. Though, as I write this another thing struck me, this was all thirty years ago of course, Martin Scorsese was pretty young too… I’m sure he hoped this film would become legendary but I wonder if he had any concept as to the legend it would become… Hmm, I’m sure there’s a quote on that somewhere… ; ) This was another film I kept meaning to watch but like so many of the great classics fell through black holes… I sincerely hope you haven’t taken as long as I have to get round to this one, and if you have, now is a good time to make a detour…
Travis Brigs (Robert De Niro) is (as the name of the film suggests) a Taxi driver. He is a taxi driver from choice, not necessity. He can’t sleep at night and therefore he works the night shift. He keeps to himself but he has strong ideas, like most people who are 26. He doesn’t really care who stops him but he hates the “scum” that dirty the city and hopes a rain will come to “wash it all away”. He’s slightly obsessive about things (like a girl who works at a party campaign headquarters he falls in love with) and slightly restless (he wants to “really do something” but is not sure what) but he’s basically a normal guy doing a dead end job. But time goes by, his ideas start getting bigger and bigger and when on top of all that eccentric patrons start giving him strange ideas as well, Travis is pushed well and truly to the edge. And if his basic good nature (buried deep beneath various obsessions and strange thoughts) keeps him from falling over entirely, it isn’t going to take much to push him over either…
“Are you talking to me? I don’t see anyone else in the room, are you talking to me?” we’ve all heard this one somewhere, right? I mean, you might not even know which film it’s from but you’ll know the line and you’ll know it was Robert De Niro. Funnily enough, that wasn’t my favorite moment of the film… No, I like the bit right at the end, when he pretends to shoot himself in the head three times. A wonderful touch, seeing as you physically CANNOT shoot yourself in the head three times. I can’t quite describe how it made me feel but it was cross between admiration and being spooked out… And then of course there’s Robert De Niro. We see a lot of him in Hollywood blockbuster romantic-comedies these days (no offence but I’m guessing the only purpose they actually serve in his career is paying the bills) but it’s great to see the master at work. And of course to see true talent in action… Travis’s part contains a delicate balance of psychology and action and De Niro pulls both of brilliantly… Jodie Foster (who appears later on in the plot) is also good and I am always slightly “creeped out” to see actors and actresses we know today when they were so young… Taxi driver, a stab at society and a cry from a generation who was looking for its place in the world… Worth watching more than once, this one…

KUNDUN

I actually never meant true stories to become such a great feature of this blog. I mean, I love films based on true stories (and I incidentally have one relative who will watch nothing else) but still… I guess it was to be expected though. I guess it’s the voyeur in all of us – or to give it a better name, human curiosity. And then there are those stories that have to be told. History, great men and women, sad or magnificent (or indeed both) events that need to be told and heard…

Now, I have no idea what your take on religion or Buddhism is. Frankly, this is not what this entry is about. The current (14th) Dalai Lama is however in the center of a political debate that spans a few decades now. Watching his life story helps understand a philosophy and a way of life often quite foreign to us in the west; and in the meanwhile, learn about the history of a major political dispute that continues today – the status of Tibet as “discussed” by Tibet and China. Add to that the fact that a master director such as Martin Scorsese is at “the helm” of the film. This is why you should watch Kundun.

Now, what is the story, basically? Well, the current Dalai Lama was born close to Tibet’s border with China, in a small village. Not what you might think an auspicious start – but not the case. Because as soon as the Dalai Lama dies, monks set out searching for his re-incarnation, for according to Buddhism the Dalai Lama will be reborn again and again to lead the people until the end of time. When he is found, he is tested – to be sure the right child is found – then taken back to the palace to learn how to rule and the ways of a monk. Such was also the case for the current Dalai Lama. However, one thing was very different from his predecessors. Just before his 18th birthday, when he was due to take over the rule of the country, Communist China invaded Tibet. It was the series of events that followed that forced the Dalai Lama to take refuge in India, where he is today…

Now, you may well be tempted to ignore this film seeing as you can just as well read this story on Wikipedia. But I strongly discourage this point of view… For a start, the whole film is so wonderfully filmed and constructed that one is, in fact, transported to Tibet in the 30’s and 40’s. The palace the Dalai Lama lives / was brought up in is, in a world, magical. And the landscapes in Tibet are absoloutely breathtaking. Even though I had no prior plans to go to Tibet, this film has made me think in fact maybe I should make some time to go there… The whole thing, the whole philosophy and point of view are all so different from our day to day lives in the West, the atmosphere alone makes Scorsese’s Kundun almost a part of Asian cinema. It isn’t a typical “westerners” point of view, it doesn’t “marvel at the gold” and find the day to day life “quaint”. It is a sincere film, attempting to tell a story honestly and openly. Naturally, since the story and the country are both quite special, it makes for quite a special film… Do not miss…

SHUTTER ISLAND

Now, here is another film that was much “hyped” about, especially where I live. Being the person I am, the fact that it was “hyped” gave me that “oh well, I’ll get round to it” kinda feeling. Doesn’t really make sense when you think about it: Martin Scorsese – a director I love ; Leonardo Di Caprio and Ben Kingsley – two actors I adore. (Incidentally, aren’t you getting the impression that the Martin Scorsese and Leonardo Di Caprio team is turning into something akin to “Tim Burton – Johnny Depp”? I sure hope so, they work so well together!) Anyway, I still resisted. Then a colleague – and a cinephile whose opinion I admire – insisted I watch it saying I was a fool to wait so long. I had a couple of hours spare (it was a slow day at work) and had the movie close to hand so I “conceded”. I honestly have no idea what was wrong with me – refusing to watch a Scorsese film indeed… Whatever next…

The year is 1954. And Shutter Island is, in fact, the name of an island in Boston. On it, there is an institution for the criminally the insane. From this institution, a dangerous criminal has escaped and U.S. Marshall Teddy Daniels has been sent to secure her. Major Daniels is an excellent Marshall, but like all of us, he has his dark spots. He is traumatized by his experiences of the liberation of the Dachau Concentration camps and the death of his beloved wife (another old favorite – Michelle Williams!) but keeps the two events apart as best he can. Along with his brand new partner Chuck (Mark Ruffalo – I like this guy, he keeps turning up as a familiar face in an array of different movies) he arrives at Shutter Island to recover the escapee. All seems to be going well, Dr. John Cawley, the head of the institute is friendly and helpful… However, it will soon become clear that Shutter Island is a lot more than it first pretends to be… Everyone seems to have some ulterior motive. Marshall Daniels is determined to get to the truth, and he will succeed. The truth he gets to, however, is something way beyond his wildest imaginings…

Now, I watched this film after I watched Inception. And in a funny kind of way I’m glad I did. Because the moment I finished watching Shutter Island, it became very clear to me that this was exactly the kind of film I expected Inception to be. (read my opinion on Inception here) There are many similarities between the two films. I will not go into detail incase you haven’t watched one or the other but if you have watched both just sit back and compare Dominic Cobb and Teddy Daniels. The similarities are so great that until the last half hour of Shutter Island I was actually disappointed, thinking Mr. Di Caprio was on the verge of being typecast. The topics are similar as well, I mean think about it, outsiders, breaking into a secure place connected with the human mind, searching for information…

Ok, I get it, if you’re exploring concepts such as “reality / dreams /subconscious /unconscious” it makes sense on a level to not arrive at a conclusion. However, with such fertile ground as the human mind as a stage, there is a lot of room for a big surprise, to turn the film, the story on its head… Mr. Scorsese has chosen this particular path – and boy will he turn you on your heads… Until the last half hour of the film, I expected pretty much what I got from Inception – an exciting Hollywood flick (minus the special effects). It is nothing like most things I have ever seen… A must…