“As far back as I can remember”, Ray Liotta’s Henry Hill says in Goodfellas, “I always wanted to be a gangster.” And so, accordingly, chimes Leonardo DiCaprio’s Jordan Belfort: “As far back as I can remember, I always wanted to be a stockbroker.” Scorsese didn’t use the same line by accident. By making a film about the wiseguys that ripped us off, Scorsese is ripping himself off – he’s made the same film for different times.
The Wolf of Wall Street is a faithful adaption of the very unreliable post-jail memoirs of true-life multimillionaire Jordan Belfort, who founded the investment firm Stratton Oakmont in an abandoned Long Island garage and legally peddled penny stocks to the poor and gullible. Belfort, who now works as a motivational speaker, went on Piers Morgan’s CNN bratshow to say he lost his soul “as much as a person can and still be walking around.” He said he had remorse, but not shame. “I’m not going to live my life in shame”, Belfort said to Piers. “I think that’s a toxic emotion.”
So what’s changed between now and then? Back in the day, gangsters lived by the gun. They were outlaws, with prostitution rings and betting scams and guns under their pillow. Our gangsters – men like Belfort – hide in clear daylight; on TV, in the magazines, on the book-shelves. They’ve worked out a way of operating within the law.
Gangsters and bankers like Belfort are one and the same – that’s Scorsese’s point. Whether they hook the little man with dope or the stock exchange, they’re still after the same thing; another, better high. They want the Armani suits, the sports cars, the coke, the whores, the trophy wives to go home to. They want to spend $2m on a Vegas stag-do, so they can OD on dope and live out every adolescent dream they ever had.
Scorsese has spent a career glamourising criminals. Look how likable these wiseguys are, he says. Aren’t they stylish and liberated and enticing. And then he shows you the fall when they finally fuck up, the taste of hot lead from a Tommy gun, or the first night in prison after ratting on all your friends.
What an indictment The Wolf of Wall Street is of 2014. Because it’s bloodless. There’s no jeopardy, no threat, no fear, just a mildly impolite FBI agent at your front door and an urgent call to an expensive lawyer. The Wolf of Wall Street sobbed and whined his way through his fall; a divorce, a bit of mea culpa in court, a hefty bill and then 22 months playing tennis in a low-security slammer.
Writing in The New Yorker, Richard Brody says: “Scorsese, without at all seeking to justify, explain, or apologise for Belfort’s actions, reveals the impulse behind the vulgar self-indulgence and the grotesque insensitivity, the terrifying yet ecstatic inner force within the petty monster of vanity.”
Scorsese has glamourised white collar crime, bellow the critics. He’s ignored the victims. It should have shown the impact. It should have depicted Jordan Belfort as morally wrong. Why did Scorsese let Jordan Belfort get away with it? Because Jordan Belfort did get away with it. He rose, but he never really fell. And now he’s smiling on TV, as if he can’t believe his own luck. Because he did of all of that, and we let him. And then he got caught, and he got let off, and we let him. And there’s a thrill in that. A leering, smirking thrill that’s very difficult to ignore. Just remember: shame is a toxic emotion.
Credits
Text Tom Seymour