Wall Street's for the Wolves

Since I'm redoubling my efforts to see the movies that are getting Oscar buzz, I went to see The Wolf of Wall Street, which seemed to be getting pretty polarized responses. Here's my take: it's funny, it's scathing, and it's a little brilliant, but in shooting for comedy, it loses its edge just enough that the message gets muddled.

Wall Street's a brutal satire of capitalism and the cult of money, and in many parts of the movie it gets its point across. I loved the scenes at Stratton Oakmont, where everyday Americans foamed at the mouth, beat their chests, and screamed profanity, cursing everything but money. It was hilarity of the scary-but-true variety, and Jordan Belfort (Leonardo DiCaprio) acting like a televangelist healer at the head of all this money-worship wasn't lost on me.

As I thought about it in relationship to some of Scorsese's previous work, I started to think of Wall Street as a third part of an informal trilogy about American institutions--the other two parts being Goodfellas and Gangs of New York. All three involve a naive-but-talented protagonist climbing the ranks of an organization and getting seduced by its decadence. All three are also (in my opinion) a bit long and a bit meandering. But each takes a different slice of American history and deconstructs it. In theory, The Wolf of Wall Street is the culminating stroke in a series of important and intellectual films.

Here's the problem. The movie's marketed to college-age males, a fact that becomes obvious as you watch the trailers that play before it. I doubt, though, that most college guys are interested in a deconstruction of American materialism. I'd wager they're in it for the partying and the unclothed boobs, the sheer number of which discourages an effort to count them. But hey, if you want to see some naked chicks, I won't stop you--although, if that's what you want, you'll find more satisfying and time-efficient resources elsewhere. So why does The Wolf of Wall Street want to draw in an audience that's going to miss its point? Well, money. Isn't it ironic.

I'm not speculating either. Plenty of audiences have mistaken Scorsese's satire for sincerity. I recognize that a lot of people didn't meet the movie halfway, but at some point a filmmaker is accountable for whether his statement reaches the audience. Especially when the film is all about the statement, which Wall Street seems to be. My impression is that Scorsese had so much fun depicting the depravity of Belfort and his entourage that his enjoyment bleeds into the presentation, and as a result his film's bite is dulled.

I'd be surprised if a woman really liked this movie. Granted, the masses of hookers and strippers probably balance out the gender representation, but from a feminist perspective it's a complete bust. Let me throw it into sharp relief: not once in the entire movie do we hear a woman speak to another woman. Wall Street fails the most primitive element of the Bechdel Test. Shame on you, Mr. Scorsese. I refuse to believe that there was nowhere in the three hours of DiCaprio snorting crack off prostitutes' various body parts that you could have inserted two women having an audible conversation.

Maybe I was less impressed by Wall Street because its message isn't new or innovative to me. I'm pretty disgusted by the mundane materialism that I see every day, so watching a farcically heightened version of it didn't deepen that sentiment. It only blurred the line between this movie and any other inane, college-targeted sex comedy.

My recommendation? If you love Scorsese, you'll probably enjoy the movie. And don't get me wrong, it's hilarious--funnier than most of his stuff, and in the same style of half-hearted, twisted farce that's now pretty signature for him. But for my money (and time), I'd rather watch Goodfellas, which is less funny but twice as meaningful.

Cracking Llewyn Davis

I love folk music, especially pre-Dylan traditional folk. Also, my wife and I are actors struggling to make ends meet by doing what we love. These two facts make me the precise target audience of Joel and Ethan Coen's most recent movie, Inside Llewyn Davis, which follows a folk singer whose refusal to compromise his artistic passion is gradually drowning him. It's a layered examination of the artist's soul that I found almost too subtle to immediately appreciate. Like a good puzzle, it's better looking once it's cracked. It might even be the most mature Coen offering yet.

Those who have lived or worked closely with me will understand why I quickly related to Llewyn Davis. He doesn't have a practical bone in his body, and relies--directly or indirectly--on a lot of people to take care of his most basic needs. On the surface, it's because he's too poor to afford rent, but there's also an underlying disconnect between him and the rest of the world that's the source of both his brooding impotence and his artistic soul. I felt like I understood him, so I liked him.

At several points, Llewyn demonstrates that compromising his passion is to him synonymous with death. There's probably nothing he fears more than becoming his father, a former union man of the Merchant Marine whose joyless life has culminated in near-total paralysis. It's the fight against returning to the Merchant Marine himself that sows disaster for Llewyn and those closest to him. We slowly realize (as he does) that he has two options--sell out and have a career, or drown in his own artistic integrity. Both would leave him miserable. It's a dearly bought epiphany that hurts to watch.

Llewyn's definitely got flaws. My wife Bethany (being one of many practically-minded people who have to remind me to eat and sleep) had some trouble feeling for Llewyn when he refused any suggestion of structure or compromise. The only thing stopping us from not caring about him is that his screw-up lifestyle hurts him more than anyone else. I didn't have a problem with him, personally.

I was captivated by Oscar Isaac, who delivers an intimate and charismatic performance both musically and emotionally. In fact, I thought all of the performances were great. Seeing Carrie Mulligan play edgy was like meeting up with a High School friend who's gotten cooler. And all the action is captured in deliberate, tender cinematography that I'd call pretty near perfect.

The whole movie's in the music, and actually the music came first, as it did in O Brother, Where Art Thou?, the Coens' last collaboration with music producer T-Bone Burnett. This one may not be as much of a fan-pleaser, but if you know your folk, you'll see it's got ten times the research as O Brother's soundtrack. Llewyn's sound is moody, raw, and a little ahead of his time (1961), despite being firmly rooted in the traditional. He gravitates toward bluesy arrangements of melancholy and self-effacing songs like "Hang Me, Oh Hang Me" and "The Death of Queen Jane."

Early on, we hear a snippet of Llewyn's gorgeous recording of "Dink's Song" in duet with his late partner. It sounds young, optimistic, and more mainstream than the stuff he's playing now, which openly challenges his audience. It's the Hard Day's Night to his Abbey Road. He plays it again, just before the movie's heartbreaking conclusion, and the transformation that we've almost unconsciously witnessed is a little haunting. He's barely clinging to life by the time we glimpse an up-and-coming Bob Dylan play "Farewell" (his own interpretation of "Dink's Song") as Llewyn steps out. That's extremely significant. It's the arrival of the era of singer-songwriters, an era of which Llewyn will never be a part.

If there's one big problem with Inside Llewyn Davis, it's the fact that you have to pick up on these somewhat obscure suggestions implanted in the music if you want to understand exactly what the Coens are trying to say. The Dylan moment is a good example. If you don't know that it's Dylan, or what he did for folk music, you don't get that Llewyn Davis's chances of a career are eclipsing. Likewise, it takes a little familiarity with the folk genre to recognize the subtle things that distinguish Llewyn's music from that of the corny, more pop artists whose careers are taking off. It took me a few hours to piece it all together.

There's a funny circular structure to the movie too, which actively tricks you into confusing the chronology of events. It threw me a lot when I saw it, but the more I think about it, the more it starts to make sense. It's actually become, for me, one of the film's best selling points. I won't spoil it, but I do think it's good to be warned. I found Richard Brody's article pretty illuminating. If you don't mind spoilers, or if you've seen the movie already, check it out.

I'd guess that Llewyn Davis is a movie that reveals itself better with a rewatch. If that's not the kind of movie you want to see, maybe skip it. If you're an artist or into music, especially folk, go get tickets right now, because this is a movie that's as important as it is engrossing.