Right on the heels of the two decade anniversary of The Bonfire of the Vanities comes the 20th anniversary of Oliver Stone's ode to 1980s New York capitalist excess, Wall Street.
Wall Street's plot has become legendary, both on Wall Street and in the American capitalist system in general: young trader Bud Fox comes under the wing of money titan Gordon Gekko. Together they annex the competition and make more money than anyone would ever dare dream. Of course it turns out that Gordon is crook, in fact - GASP!!!! - the whole Wall Street/American capitalist thing is a giant con game where the rich get richer, the poor get screwed, and lots of people end up in jail. Throw in a woman, a hot designer Darien, and you gots yourself lots of excitement while learning deep values. In fact, in that regard, Wall Street is - pun totally intended - quite a deal.
This movie was the cause celebre of 1987 for it was in many ways the ultimate indictment of its time. "Greed is good" seemed the perfect motto of the era, a time some people look back on today with odd nostalgia. But in many ways Wall Street now is a bit quaint. The go-go 1980s was more than super-seeded by the go-go-go 1990s. Also, the real-life corporate scandals of Ivan Boesky and Michael Milken were just warm up acts for Ken Lay and Bernie Ebbers, et al. Plus ca change, I guess.
And while NYC would go on to thrive in the 1990s and 21st century more than it had in the 1980s, Wall Street itself, at least its image as the ultimate financial powerhouse, has diminished. Today, places like Silicon Valley, China, India, not to mention the dorm rooms of college students inventing things like YouTube and Facebook, are the new frontiers of money. Most of all, New York has changed a lot since 1987. In one scene, Bud is embarrassed to admit he lives on the Upper West Side, insisting he plans to move to the Upper East Side as soon as his ship comes in. Today, the old East Side/West Side rivalry is gone: you have to big rich to live in either of those neighborhoods so that class tension just doesn't exist anymore. Also, the East Side today has lost of a lot of its snobby, elitist cache. Today's new wealth wants to live in Soho or Tribeca, in big hipster lofts, not snotty high rises.
Wall Street was a petty big hit when it came out and Michael Douglas won the 1987 Oscar for Best Actor. This was Stone's follow up from Platoon and it cemented his reputation as an important director. It was also one of his last conventional-type movies. He would go on to make make hyper kinetic visual ballasts like Natural Born Killers.
But as a movie and social commentary Wall Street still holds up after 20 years. And in many ways, quaint though it may be in the aforementioned ways, its lesson are more timely than ever.
Wall Street's plot has become legendary, both on Wall Street and in the American capitalist system in general: young trader Bud Fox comes under the wing of money titan Gordon Gekko. Together they annex the competition and make more money than anyone would ever dare dream. Of course it turns out that Gordon is crook, in fact - GASP!!!! - the whole Wall Street/American capitalist thing is a giant con game where the rich get richer, the poor get screwed, and lots of people end up in jail. Throw in a woman, a hot designer Darien, and you gots yourself lots of excitement while learning deep values. In fact, in that regard, Wall Street is - pun totally intended - quite a deal.
This movie was the cause celebre of 1987 for it was in many ways the ultimate indictment of its time. "Greed is good" seemed the perfect motto of the era, a time some people look back on today with odd nostalgia. But in many ways Wall Street now is a bit quaint. The go-go 1980s was more than super-seeded by the go-go-go 1990s. Also, the real-life corporate scandals of Ivan Boesky and Michael Milken were just warm up acts for Ken Lay and Bernie Ebbers, et al. Plus ca change, I guess.
And while NYC would go on to thrive in the 1990s and 21st century more than it had in the 1980s, Wall Street itself, at least its image as the ultimate financial powerhouse, has diminished. Today, places like Silicon Valley, China, India, not to mention the dorm rooms of college students inventing things like YouTube and Facebook, are the new frontiers of money. Most of all, New York has changed a lot since 1987. In one scene, Bud is embarrassed to admit he lives on the Upper West Side, insisting he plans to move to the Upper East Side as soon as his ship comes in. Today, the old East Side/West Side rivalry is gone: you have to big rich to live in either of those neighborhoods so that class tension just doesn't exist anymore. Also, the East Side today has lost of a lot of its snobby, elitist cache. Today's new wealth wants to live in Soho or Tribeca, in big hipster lofts, not snotty high rises.
Wall Street was a petty big hit when it came out and Michael Douglas won the 1987 Oscar for Best Actor. This was Stone's follow up from Platoon and it cemented his reputation as an important director. It was also one of his last conventional-type movies. He would go on to make make hyper kinetic visual ballasts like Natural Born Killers.
But as a movie and social commentary Wall Street still holds up after 20 years. And in many ways, quaint though it may be in the aforementioned ways, its lesson are more timely than ever.
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