Oliver Stone’s sequel to Wall Street, Money Never Sleeps, has received mixed reviews – not so much in the sense that it’s divided critical opinion, but that the critics themselves are uniformly conflicted about the film, with considerable merits balanced with equally considerable flaws. It’s worth remembering that the original was far from flawless either, its flaws overshadowed by the genius of the character of Gordon Gekko, and the conviction Michael Douglas brought to the role.
It’s worth watching, again, Douglas, as Gekko, deliver his speech to the shareholders of Teldar Paper:
Stone, without doubt, intended Wall Street as a critique. But, as A.O. Scott notes in the review of the sequel, it served as a rallying call for a whole generation of aspiring Gekkos:
In the person of Gordon Gekko, played both times with leonine bombast and reptilian cunning by Michael Douglas, Mr. Stone has conceived one of the definitive heroic villains of modern pop culture. John Milton, a dutiful Christian seeking to justify the ways of God to men back in the 17th century, made Satan the most vivid and interesting character in “Paradise Lost,” so much so that, according to William Blake, Milton was “of the Devil’s party without knowing it.”
Similarly, Mr. Stone, a heterodox, occasionally hyperbolic leftist, has conjured a capitalist bad guy whose dynamism and charisma — whose relish at the sheer, ruthless fun of predation — leaves a much deeper impression than his duplicity or his greed. Back in 1987, “Wall Street” may have been intended as a cautionary tale, but it has also always been an irresistible advertisement for the excess it condemns.
For what it’s worth, I don’t think it’s possible to separate the two: without a charismatic Devil’s Advocate – which Gekko surely was – the moral tale would have had no force. That some perversely took Gekko as an inspiration is no more the fault of the filmmaker than the moronic gangsters who took their inspiration from The Godfather.
The last 23 years have obviously given Stone and Douglas plenty more to critique, and the movie apparently attempts to tell some part of the story of modern American finance-dominated capitalism. According to the reviews, it probably spreads itself too thinly. Regardless, I doubt it will really tackle how the richest 1% of Americans have accomplished a thirty-year heist on the other 99%, in which the events of the subprime crisis were only a sideshow.
The heist can be most clearly seen in this graph (h/t Kevin Drum, data source is the Congressional Budget Office), which shows the relative size of the chunk of US national income going to various income groups, with 1979 taken as the baseline:
changes in after tax income share of income groups in the United States - 1979 = 1.0
There’s hints of some of the causes of this dotted throughout the original Wall Street, and presumably its sequel. But expecting him to put the pieces together in a movie is probably expecting too much. But I’d like somebody to try.
That graph is telling, Robert – after all, that was always the intended result of the neoliberal project. I’m surprised the top 1% lost some ground in the early years of the century, but they’ve more than made up for it since.
I watched the DVD of Wall Street a month or so ago. The first time I saw it years ago it didn’t over impress me, and this time found it more powerful. Will be interesting to see how the new movie deals with the changing technologies.
As to the archetype of the evil capitalist I’ve always liked this one:
http://greetingsearthlings.files.wordpress.com/2008/02/fat-capitalist.jpg?w=450&h=533
Call me shallow, but I also watched Wall Street again recently, and the biggest impression it made on me was the tacky Eighties styling. That apartment – ugh! And Darryl Hannah’s outfits – yurgh! I suppose the tackiness was part of the satire. Gecko’s braces had a certain something though.
I’m not sure whether this thread is designed to be about film criticism or income inequality in the the US.
If the former, no comment. If the latter, then I am sure you are aware that the figures you instance have been subject to a considerable amount of criticism, even aside from the outrageous cherry-pick of a 1979 start date, exactly the time they began going up after 40 years of essentially being level. To say the least, “heist” is a somewhat loaded term.
Wozza, you can nitpick the figures however you want, but income and wealth disparities in the United States have been growing. A lot. And most of it is that the super-rich have been getting richer relative to the other 99%.
For instance, as far as the 1979 start date goes, if 1979 had represented the bottom of a steep trough you might have had a point. But 1979 represents the end of a flat line that goes pretty much from the end of WWII.
And, frankly, it is a heist, or at the very least an outrageous deception, because most of it is due to Republicans convincing middle-income Americans to support policies that advantage the super-rich and disadvantage themselves.
This is by former Bush aide David Frum.
He isn’t concerned by the acquisition of wealth by the top 1% in the 21st century, let alone in 1979. He doesn’t support strong government action for the lowest quintile in the above graph. He’s even cynical enough to oppose Obama’s healthcare reforms, for purely partisan reasons, despite the fact his 2008 article declares that to be a key area in need of redistributive policies.
Yet he admits there’s a problem, and says the US version of economic orthodoxy isn’t doing anything to fix it.
Oliver Stone, heh heh. Wow man, that takes me back…
Hey wait a minute. Are you trying to tell me that there are still people who pay attention to what Oliver Stone thinks about… well, anything?
If there are, then I’d certainly like to meet both of them.
Stone is a filmmaker and, as such, I’m never that interested in what he would think about anything. It’s irrelevant. What matters is how strong the story is that he’s telling and whether he knows where to put a camera and cut and how he’s working with his actors. As I haven’t seen the film, I have no opinion on any of those things.
Oh dear. All these envious and covetous people worrying that someone else has got more money than them!
And hyper-rich multimillionaires like Stone, or Michael Moore, making movies to denounce the super-hyper rich!
Leftism; where everyone has the misery shared around equally!!
Meanwhile in the news today…
Remarking on the ever wider discrepancy between super rich and and the rest seems to be an exercise in futility. Mainstream politics seems to avoids talk about wealth distribution and the ALP has apparently decided the topic is unhelpful to their economic credentials.
Considered in context with say climate change, the issue highlights the fundamental weakness of our political system whereby both issues potentially have a far reaching and serious impact on a majority of voters yet the instrument of change is powerless to act effectively.
Shorter Bean Counter – “Let them eat cake”.
Fine,
Wall Street’s not bad. I didn’t think it was as good as his Presidential bios, especially Nixon and ‘W’, certainly nowhere near as good as The Joy Luck Club, but probably, from memory a lot better than Platoon, and certainly much better than the recent movie he made about 9/11 firemen. As you can see, I’m quite a Stone fan.
The “Greed is Good” speech is actually a good speech if watched in full rather than just the out take above. His point is that Teldar Paper is being run by corrupt and greedy corporatist managers, as is the USA, and that it is time for the shareholders to stand up and demand what is theirs. He is encouraging the shareholders to stop being sheep who will do whatever the company managers want, and to stand up and defend their wealth. In full and in context it is actually a good speech. Of course Gekko is a crook but that’s a separate matter.
The fully speech:-
http://174.132.193.190/~eiden/videoclips/videomoviespeechwallstreetgreed.wmv
p.s. The irony is that the moment when Gekko is the most lucid and honest is the moment that is cited so often as Gekko being evil.
I watched his father Kirk, in The Posse last night, thought them to be similarin the vainglorious-fink-stakes. Well cast on both counts.
I’ll never forget how I felt the day I got off the ferry at the Quay, to read The Bulletin billboard- ‘Greed is Good’, it was viscerally appalling, it was prophetic. The world had come to this, facing up to what it was/is and would be. Greed is largely the result of fear (if not entirely the result of fear).
Terje: indeed it is – and Gekko had a point, too.
Or, should I say, Carl Icahn had a point, because “Greed is good” was apparently heavily inspired by a speech Icahn gave.
Icahn and his ilk may have sometimes done things that resulted in more economic growth. Mostly not, to be honest – most M&A activity reduces shareholder value.
But in any case, even if they did occasionally assist in productivity growth, the net result was far more money in their own pockets. Shareholders, let alone the broader public, mostly lost out.
Robert – as I recall Gekko was acting as a corporate raider who wanted to bust up the company. He was not into mergers which do generally destroy shareholder wealth.
p.s. If a company is worth more busted up than not, then if somebody busts it up and makes a profit it is hard to see how on aggravate the public is worse off. Only if commerce was a zero sum game would that conclusion follow.
Gekko’s speech is a rough approximation of the unmasked face of capitalism.
The speech cuts through all the human relations double-talk about corporations being “families” and the like. The speech implies that only idiots buy that double talk. All involved in corporate life legitimately look after their own interests.
But what if the laws favour one set of interests over another? Surely, greed dictates that it is legitimate that those with interests to attempt by whatever means seem most efficient to ensure that their interests predominate.
Moreover, institutions called “families” do indeed exist. Don’t the precepts of greed also apply to how families operate? Just as Gekko’s speech is explicitly aimed at dismantling greedy corporatism, it is also implicitly aimed at dismantling patriarchy.
He used the word greed in a very broad sense of the concept saying “greed, for want of a better word”. He didn’t mention families but he did mention the USA which he describes as a “malfunctioning corporation” and one that in my view is over managed. At some point the excessive management means that the thing broken up is better than the thing remaining whole. I think the USA, and to a lessor extent also Australia, have passed that point.
Sometimes those interests will be served by thinking of the corporation as a family. Just not always. We obviously come together in collective groups such as families and tribes because it provides some payoff.