The New Classics: The Wolf of Wall Street
Tuesday, September 15, 2020 at 4:30PM 
Scene: Quaaludes
It’s difficult not to lapse into hagiography when talking about Scorsese so I will simply say this and attempt to reign in the fawning as best I can: As much as anyone in the medium’s history he understands that the power of film isn’t in the text. It’s not in constructing an argument like an essay or a speech. It's in the images.
Like all of Scorsese’s period pieces, The Wolf of Wall Street covers mountains of information in its headlong dash through the years, but what makes these films great are the moments when they distill all that material into a memorable frame. The technical gambling know-how makes you buy into the world of Casino, but it’s an overhead shot of a reckless Sharon Stone making it rain chips at the craps table that leaves a mark on the audience...
So what images does The Wolf of Wall Street leave you with?
Well, this one should bubble to the surface whenever someone says the problem with Wall Street is over-regulation:
Then there’s this which sums up the mindset financial meltdowns are made of:
But for my money the image that most captures the heart and soul of Wolf of Wall Street is this one:
I truly believe five minutes of a spasmodic, drooling Leonard DiCaprio writhing and dragging his way to his luxury car is more effective than five hours of anti Wall Street documentaries bulging with charts and doomsayer talking heads.
An insidious problem with films like Wall Street or Margin Call (which is excellent, don’t misunderstand) is that even as they build a damning case against their subjects’ behavior they can’t help but make a case for their competence. Gordon Gekko might be utterly without conscience or scruples, but he’s not a maniac. He is one of the “adults in the room”. He’s going to twist the system to his advantage, sure, but he’s not going to burn it to the ground.
Not so with Wolf. You watch financial hotshot Jordan Belfort wasted beyond all motor function, hurling himself down a flight of stairs, and one can’t help but wonder how the Stock Exchange ends a single business day without crumbling into the sea.
I’ve seen interviews with Michael Douglas where he is surprised anyone regards Wall Street’s Gordon Gekko as a role model. I’m baffled how he can be baffled. Gekko draws worshippers because the visual that lasts in the viewer’s mind is that of a colossus standing before a rapt crowd, a beautiful woman at the end of one arm, a microphone the other, and both arms clad in a suit that costs more than your first year of college. Gekko gets his comeuppance at the end, but those are the vegetables one eats in order to assuage the guilt of indulging in all that sweet, sweet power fantasy. Audiences never have any difficulty spotting them and leaving them on the plate.
Wolf of Wall Street doesn’t bother with the vegetables. It’s all dessert. No pretending sin can't be fun and that temptation isn’t tempting. Which is not to say the director and writer Terence Winter ignore Belfort’s flaws - he is shown punching his wife in front of his crying child, among the many crimes. They are just acutely aware that the wealth porn on display supersedes any condemnation they could tack on. This dynamic even plays out in the film when a journalist exposes Belfort’s shady practices and the only consequence is a waiting room clogged with job applicants.
Nobody is going to mistake Scorsese for Mel Brooks, but he knows how to weaponize comedy much like the director of Blazing Saddles. The quaalude sequence is to Reaganomics what Springtime for Hitler is to Triumph of the Will. You can question the taste and the intent all day long but with both there is a level of grotesquery on display that cannot be defused, a buffoonishness that cuts clean through any power the subject holds.
I’ve noticed some comedies will turn around and shame the viewer for having fun in the film’s closing minutes in a disingenuous play to keep the filmmaker’s hands clean. Wolf doesn’t pull this stunt. It owns its laughs. I don't think I've heard a theater rock with laughter as hard since this scene landed back in 2013. But like the lemon ludes that turn Belfort into a flailing infant, Wolf has a fuse. The full effect might not hit until after you're done laughing and home watching the evening news, when you realize Wolf’s absurdities are our reality.
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Reader Comments (23)
DiCaprio's best adult performance, the one that should have won him the Oscar. A marvel of physical acting, especially that quaalude scene.
Aside from Margot Robbie, I found Wolf to be one of Scorsese’s most cringe-worthy and no ‘classic’ in my book. It seemed like it hopped aboard and tried to copy the.Goodfellas ‘all my life I wanted to be a gangster’ narrative to such an underwhelming effort. The drug scene was so long and with Jonah Hill hamming it up was nowhere near the stirring the sauce, rolling/snorting the coke, being followed by helicopters, can’t fly without my lucky hat, rock-n-roll, glad it’s so long brilliance of the Goodfellas drug scene masterwork. Not even in the same league.
Yeah. I nearly wet myself laughing. Both times.
A classic ?! No I only saw it once in the theater was not that impressed not too mention a script that is basically non stop f words
Oh man, never in my life did I laugh so fucking hard at a movie theater but I wasn't alone. Yes, there weren't a lot of people at the screening I went to but we laughed our fucking asses off during that entire Quaaludes sequence. I remember someone accidentally pissed him/herself at the screening and I think a few of us found who it was but then we were like... "ah fuck it, it's worth it".
Martin Scorsese has always been known for making high-tier films but I think he showed everyone that he too has a love for low-brow comedy and wasn't afraid to show something stupid but funny. A year later, my dad saw the movie on TV and he laughed his fucking ass off for that scene and felt Leo should've won the Oscar for that whole sequence alone.
Whether or not the whole film is a new classic is arguable -- it's aged interestingly for me, some aspects has gotten better with time while others have lost some bite -- but the ludes sequence definitely falls into 'classic' territory. It's the only time from the past decade when I can recall being in a packed multiplex theatre that was UNANIMOUSLY roaring with laughter for five minutes straight.
This movie frustrated me. I thought most of the performances were wonderful. Margot Robbie was best part about it in my opinion. I thought the movie didn’t really go anywhere so when it was over all I could think about was how long it was. Not to mention as good as DiCaprio is in the film I couldn’t get invested in the character and I didn’t care about what happened to him good or bad.
If DiCaprio would have let Scorsese show his dick, he would have won the Oscar--and maybe the film would have gotten a couple. It was just a moment in the film--nudity without showing audiences the goods--that made one think the film and the performance weren't quite as fearless as they were presenting themselves to be. Showing Jonah Hill with a prosthetic is nothing. The coy, non-frontal nudity nudity scene, right out of a late 60s Blake Edwards flick, was the one moment in TWoWS where the film was admitting it just wasn't really that ballsy after all. After all, we aren't seeing any balls.
Genius-level acting from DiCaprio in that scene. Deserved the Oscar
I love this movie. I’m sure it has a message or something, but who cares when it’s such ridiculous fun. I only wished they had gone completely balls to the walls and titled it Titties and Cocaine (or at least put that as an “or” or after a colon type thing). Far and away the best Leo has ever been, because he’s riding on/not fighting against some star wattage. We need more star turns in this world!
I honestly think this may very well be, Scorsese's best film. And that scene, the best in the whole movie, and should have earned Oscars to both di Caprio and Hill for their fantastic skills of physical comedy.
Oh, and the film is a so-on-point satire... one of the very best. Billy Wilder and Stanley Kubrick would be proud of it.
This is a fun scene, but it points to the biggest flaw with the film. Everyone equates his physical performance as to how great he is, but what is the difference between this performance and Jim Carrey in Liar Liar?
Both go overly big and both are physical comedians when it is necessary. I like the performance, but saying this is Leo's best performance is almost insulting to the rest of his films.
God lord, I hated this movie. The only pure dud I've ever seen Scorsese release, and I've seen all his films. It's doubly disappointing considering it's sandwiched between two films in his filmography I love, Hugo and SIlence.
Yep - I was crying laughing at this scene in theatre. He should have won the Oscar for this.
One of Scorsese and DiCaprio's best for sure
I thought Leo would win his Oscar for this. Nope! Wrestling the bear won.
"This is a fun scene, but it points to the biggest flaw with the film. Everyone equates his physical performance as to how great he is, but what is the difference between this performance and Jim Carrey in Liar Liar?
Both go overly big and both are physical comedians when it is necessary. I like the performance, but saying this is Leo's best performance is almost insulting to the rest of his films."
Not a terrible comparison, actually. Liar, Liar, is an abysmal movie, but Carrey's performance is one of his strongest ones, in my mind. I think Wolf of Wall Street operates on a higher register, script-wise, and I think DiCaprio's charisma/anti-charisma carries it a long way.
That said, I don't think he's such a strong actor that "it's almost insulting to the rest of his films" is actually.... well, all that wrong...? I actually don't think he's made a better film, to be honest.
I enjoyed about the first half to two-thirds of the movie, but I felt like it was about an hour too long. There's no point Scorsese can make, it seems, without driving it home again and again, until you're exhausted.
Ben, I think the difference between Carrey's Liar Liar and di Caprio's (and Hill's) Wolf of Wall Street are clear.
Liar Liar is a soft family slapstick from beginning to end. Carrey goes WAAAAY over the top and gives a really funny but unrealistic performance.
Wolf is a satire, the slapstick is completely justified from the very same screenplay and situation, and di Caprio and Hill walk the tightrope between realism and comedy to perfection.
Again, this is to Marty what Dr. Strangelove was to Kubrick and what One, Two, Three was to Wilder. Disappointing for most fans for the completely unexpected change of tone and genre, but to my taste, Marty at its best (and away from being pretentious, this could have easily been panned as a "minor" film).
Agreee. DiCaprio deserved the Oscar for this performance.
Scorsese has always admired Jerry Lewis. I think you see some Lewis in the Quaaludes sequence.
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