The Wolf of Wall Street: The Price of Greed

what would you give up to make your unrestrained wildest fantasies of wealth come true okay now what would you give up if those fantasies became a reality to sustain that lifestyle forever that's the thing about greed ironically in the pursuit of materials you lose more than you gain my name is sheamus mentrum not him me my first year of high school i [ __ ] you not we would literally chant the mantra from martin scorsese the wolf of wall street during assembly [Music] anyway it lasted about two weeks until one of the teachers complained not

that i had actually seen the wolf of wall street at the time this movie is restricted to over 18 year olds in australia so i definitely didn't watch it like once a month when i was 14. yeah i would be lying if i said i didn't think this movie was [ __ ] awesome 22 billion dollars in three [ __ ] hours so i asked myself when is it in the wolf of wall street that we first get onto the wolf jordan belford's side when do we first start internally justifying his villainous actions we're pretty

much endeared to jordan instantly during the opening montage although honestly that's largely because leo is so likable in the role and we're impressed by his money and this rich lifestyle that's luxuriously being displayed the moment that we truly get enlisted by him as honorary members of stratton oakmond is when he's on the phone in the penny stock sequence one thing i can promise you even in this market is that i never ask my clients to judge me on my winners i ask them to judge me on my losers because i have so few jonah becomes

something out of nothing through selling his clients nothing it's in the scene that we're impressed by jordan and it establishes the difference between a wolf and a sheep hey fellas come on board flake's right around there jordan and fbi agent denim are essentially two sides of the same coin you amplifies with denim as the everyman not because he's a cop but because he's seemingly a moral and honest person and at the start of the film jordan belfort is also betrayed as a moral and honest person the moment jordan is exposed to this extreme level of

wealth this boys club the moment he cheats on his wife it's all over jordan changing into this wall street hound is symbolized by him leaving his first wife and his old morals interestingly denim wanted to be a broker himself so he can question if he would have gone through the same metamorphosis in other words what do you have gone down the same road that jordan did it's easy to judge jordan belford but many of us have never been put in a room where these opportunities were offered to us in exchange for giving up our morals

it's the faceless victim mentality because jordan is never confronted with the people who he's hurt which begs the question does money make people inherently bad well jordan tries to bribe denim but he doesn't take the bait we see him riding home on the train later and it's sad because he's a nice person and at the end of the day he did the right thing really the only two characters who have some grip on morality in the wolf of wall street are denim and teresa jordan's first wife she loved him when he was broke and also

when he became a millionaire but more importantly she actually called him on his business schemes however whichever way the relationship would have gone had jordan not cheated on her he was destined to divorce her because they would have eventually had a disagreement on how he was making money there's a scene later in the film where jonah hill's character swallows an employee's fish and it's not because he was doing anything wrong it's because he wears a bow tie and likes to clean his fishbowl bottom line the guide didn't fit in with the culture of stratton oakmon

same thing with jordan's first wife it's basically like this if you can't get with exactly what jordan is doing then you're out so jordan's second wife naomi who is played by marco robbie is essentially perfect for him on paper because she's perhaps almost as greedy as him maybe she doesn't deserve to go to prison but she's well aware of his criminal enterprises i mean she's in the room for when jordan and donnie are planning how they'll launder their money into switzerland and she doesn't say anything they are both leaving behind their morals for money and

funnily enough i i was the one i thought i walked into the meeting thinking that i was gonna have to really fight to keep my clothes on and by the end of it i was like no i think she would no she wouldn't do that she wouldn't wear she wouldn't be having underwear on then it would she wouldn't do that she just wouldn't that doesn't make sense the first and only time where jordan shows concern for his clients is when he has lunch with mark hannah at the start of the film but hannah immediately shoots

that idea down basically saying [ __ ] that energy you had for caring about people other than yourself that won't make you money this parallels the same with naomi where she comes out naked in the apartment it's a split second of consideration that jordan has but once he takes that step that's it for the rest of the movie and for him it's probably worth it he won't have to deal with a horrible divorce with his wife because women are disposable to him and he won't have to ever see her again the same way he won't

have to see those victims who he screws over financially me and you as the audience we have an easy time separating ourselves and indulging in the fantasy for the first two and a half hours precisely because scorsese intentionally chooses not to show the victims of jordan's stock manipulations jordan doesn't want to live in the normal world and neither do we in the middle chunk of the movie there is no conflict because jordan isn't at all opposed to what he is doing the conflict of jordan going bad is solved within the first 10 minutes we watched

two hours of rise not rise and fall just the rise of jordan it's a party there are small conflicts such as how do i hide my money but they are answered in the next scene the film is told almost entirely from his unhinged perspective and we only see what jordan cares about there aren't any consequences or resolutions until it's forced on him by the fbi as a result in the last 30 minutes of the run time jordan beating his wife and taking the baby is a reflection that this isn't the life that anyone should be

living it's a moment of clarity because previously we've seen jordan do drugs in the house we've seen his friend almost choked to death all these wild events that we've been making excuses for upon thought are horrific for a person no less a father and a husband to be involved in now there's something intriguing that jordan says here that truly reveals the heart of his character you're not gonna stop me you're not gonna stop me does that remind you of anything i'm not leaving i'm not [ __ ] leaving jordan has been the rules so much

that no matter what the price he will not take no for an answer jordan becomes furious about naomi taking his kids at the end of the movie but i question does jordan even care about his kids we never see him actually engage with his children other than that scene again you only see what jordan cares about throughout the film he's narrating and he's telling his story but he cares more about his sports car being depicted as the right color than his children's birth his perfect wife and children a little more than highly valued objects jordan

is greedy in the sense that he doesn't know when to say no for instance in the scene where he's with naomi's aunt like what the [ __ ] is he doing there he just goes along with things if it guarantees him more sex or more money it's the same with the quaaludes they don't work at first so he just has more and more and more and more if he just took a moment he would have been okay furthermore jordan is willing to almost die just to ensure his money is secured three people get killed on

the plane coming to rescue him and truthfully he doesn't really give a [ __ ] he doesn't care about the people who just died he instead thinks that that could have been me and i should now make money in a way that won't get me arrested jordan gets addicted he could have stopped early on with 22 million in the bank but instead he says no and thinks he needs to rip off more and more people he only got investigated when he was on a huge yacht and had like six houses if he had stopped early

he'd be fine so what would you give up to sustain your wildest fantasies your friends and associates your marriage your children your humanity the wolf of wall street is a story about a guy who gains everything and yet loses everything look at this final shot scorsese doesn't ask you to judge jordan or even respect him for that matter he simply asks what would you do i was fascinated with doing something like a modern day caligula you know the darker nature of these guys not necessarily on wall street because the more i researched this it wasn't

necessarily about wall street it was about something that's in our very culture you know the attitude of these guys the the need to uh incessantly consume as much as possible with complete disregard for anyone except you know themselves [Music] you