Cinema Feed #12: The Wolf of Wall Street (2013)

Works produced between the partnership of Martin Scorsese and Leonardo DiCaprio have alway been a blockbuster guarantee. Without failure this time, the duo marked their fifth collaboration by presenting this entertaining black comedy, The Wolf of Wall Street (2013).


Trailer:


Based on the Memoir of Jordan Belfort, starring Leonardo DiCaprio as the notorious founder of the Long Island brokerage firm, Stratton Oakmont. The Wolf of Wall Street (2013) unfolds how Belfort engaged in earning multi-millions of dollars as a stock market manipulator and money laundering convict during his early years of life in the 90s.

Real Wolf of Wall Street, Jordan Belfort

"Let me tell you something, There's no nobility in poverty, I've been a poor man, and I've been a rich man. And I choose rich every fxxking time." 

One must be extremely greedy in order to be successful. This is the lesson I've learnt from The Wolf of Wall Street (2013).  Possessed with innate greed and extreme detest over poverty, Jordan Belfort was born and raised in a middle class family at New York, who refused to lead the similar lifestyle of his folks. According to Wolf of Wall Street info, Belfort dropped out from dentistry on his first day of university after the dean declared that the "golden age of dentistry was over and not to expect to become rich".

As Belfort strived to be wealthy, he dug into the financial world and later on, founded his own company. The company and his wealth expanded drastically as they constantly manipulated the stock market with the "Pump & Dump" scheme. The scheme functions first with Belfort and his gang
artificially pumping up the price of some worthless stocks and then releasing huge amounts of fake promising news of that issuing company to attract other investors. Once the profits are obtained from the price differences, they sold off the stock and as a result, the stock price plummeted.

The three-hour biography feature starts off with Belfort as a narrator who scornfully announced that he was a former member of the middle class, and bragged over his outstanding financial accomplishments by the age of 26. To present with authenticity the lavish and debauched lifestyle that Belfort was leading, Martin Scorsese deployed an abundant amount of nudity, sexual and drug snorting scenes to emphasise the outrageous level that Belfort and his gang were on. What's more, with almost every single sentence ending with a F word to strengthen the snobbish attitude of the characters, I felt like I was watching a pornography parody after an hour later.

This absurd life story of The Wolf of Wall Street (2013) is intriguing and hilarious. I do not personally favour it but it is a pleasure to watch. With its moral ambiguous content, DiCaprio and Scorsese are exploiting the notion of greed to challenge our moral acceptance range. I do enjoy seeing the sparkles ignited by this clash. At the end of the day, The Wolf of Wall Street (2013) is not meant for judging on Jordan Belfort's behaviour or admire his once luxurious lifestyle. The duo are transmitting the message for us to reflect on this fundamental desire in everyone. Hypothetically, if we were to put ourselves into this infamous figure's shoe, be empowered with enormous wealth. Can we be absolutely certain that we would not be as depraved as he was. I'm not sure about myself, can you?

Last, I'll end this Cinema Feed with the soundtrack and interview that worth your time to take a look at it. Happy Weekend!