To celebrate not only last weeks release but also triumph at the box office, for the new Scorsese flick The Wolf of Wall Street, I thought I’d take a quick look down the road of all things Wall Street, and in essence I came to one big conclusion… Greed is Good!
Well, Gordon Gekko may have not necessarily been right but he was certainly on to something. As made clear by the recently revealed 2014 Academy Awards nominees the concept of greed remains a relevant (and prevalent!) topic in film. The reason being that we can all relate, on some level, to feelings of avarice. It’s not as if we must hold those feelings on any intimate level, but it’s merely the fact that money, more often than not, is seen as the solution to, and the reason for so many problems.
And in just the past seven years alone, there have been a number of notable films that dive headfirst into the topic to expose and investigate each and every part of it. A majority of these have been nominated for Oscars in the past and they’re now still available for you to view on either Blu-ray/DVD or through on-demand video services. One of them, the great American Gangster, is featured on the growing (and rather unique) Picturebox, where a panel of movie buffs handpicks the choices and rotates them every two months or so. This allows for a constantly fresh stream of films, which means other picks on this list should show up on there soon.
Now, here are seven movies about greed from the past seven years.
There Will Be Blood (2007)– This best film nominee brilliantly portrayed goldminer Daniel Plainview (Daniel Day-Lewis) conversion to the oil business—and the immense lust for greed that came with it. All you have to do is remember the once-popular phrase “I drink your milkshake!”, which Plainview growled to make it clear that he would stop at nothing to take down every other oil man in Southern California.
American Gangster (2007)– As is the case with any film of this ilk, American Gangster deftly examines greed through the activities of a crime lord and the police. It’s an gripping, true-to-life look at how avarice can lead to corruption (the cops) and inevitable downfalls (Denzel Washington’s Frank Lucas) in 1970s Harlem, New York.
Slumdog Millionaire (2008) – Greed serves as the driving force behind this Oscar winner through the juxtaposed lives of two brothers. One (Salim) sees money as the be-all, end-all solution and constantly chases it, no matter what. The other (Jamal) is fueled more by love. As you may guess, this leads to two very different outcomes for the siblings, with Salim struggling to overcome his feelings of avarice brought on by poverty.
The Social Network (2010)– Rather than stick to greed in the purely monetary sense, the Social Network explores it through an unwavering desire to be accepted. That right there is the downfall of Mark Zuckerberg (Jesse Eisenberg), who pushes away and pulls in everyone he can in his endless quest to fit in. It becomes clear that he doesn’t mind the money, either, but it’s not all about the bottom line.
Margin Call (2011)– In looking at the financial crisis that slammed the U.S. in 2007 and 2008, this slept-on indie film takes on the greed that spurred said issues. In particular, it presents a long night at the start of the crisis and how one investment banking firm “dealt” with it. The only downside is that Margin Call could have better presented how everyone else (the rest of the world) was impacted.
American Hustle (2013)– In the context of this film, the subject of avarice deals more with ambition and the desire to capture the “American dream” of success and wealth. But the “hard work” done by the movie’s protagonists (played by Christian Bale and Amy Adams) is conning everyone they can, in particular the also-greedy politicians they are trying to take down with the FBI.
The Wolf of Wall Street (2014)– As the trailers have shown you, Martin Scorcese’s latest is all about living in excess after amassing millions through working on Wall Street. That overindulgence leads to more than money, though, as sex and drugs also play a major role. It’s basically a crash course in Greed 101.
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