Was this meant to be inspiring?

Was this meant to be inspiring?

Because it made me WANT to get into finance

It definitely glorified the lifestyle and, for the most part, skipped over the lives that were ruined by Belfort and his crew's fraudulent dealing.

It's weird how such a sleazebag can seem totally forgiveable, even attractive, just by having charisma and extravagant surroundings. I know I'd never be able to pull it off, I'm too honest and too beta. I'd be miserable knowing what I'd done to all those innocent people and I'd break down when confronted by the FBI.

Well it's Jewish hollywood, so what did you expect by a movie about a Jewish con-man...

Scorcese is Catholic, not Jewish.

It made me want to take quaaludes

>it made me WANT to be a degenerate

>It's weird how such a sleazebag can seem totally forgiveable, even attractive, just by having charisma and extravagant surroundings.
You see through those kind of people extremely easily, people deal with them because they have to, not because they like them.

This

>skipped over the lives that were ruined by Belfort and his crew's fraudulent dealing.
That was the point
And so many critics missed it

It was supposed to show how attractive the lifestyle was, how deep-down we're all envious of them, as much as we claim to hate them. Belfort and co never considered the damage they were doing, or just ignored it, so we didn't see it either.

its not like he kills people.

just dumps idiots for their money and its their fucking fault or their parents that didnt taught them that money doesnt grow on trees.

>kid thinks 2017 is anything like the 90's

>feeling sorry for the retards he scammed
Just fucking kill yourselves.

fuckin degenerates

when will you finally grow up and realize that drugs won't make you happy

who the fuck said anything about being happy

speak for yourself

I always thought this film was degenerate glorifying the worst kind of people

no wonder suburban white cucks eat it up

we can forgive him because in vicariously living through him, we realise that we'd do the same thing as him, if we could.

i do think that wolf/goodfellas/raging bull/ even taxi driver are meant to be inspiring in the sense that accomplishing something extraordinary is in itself a valuable adventure and expression of will as long as you recognize the realistic consequences of your choices to act.

In taxi driver De Niro's final act and the claustrophobic cycle of self-talk and delusion that leads up to his final decision blends with the reality and consequences of fulfilling his design. The ambiguity and verisimilitude of the result asks the audience the question if Bickle got what he wanted or not, or even if the 'reality' that reflected back on Bickle's fantasies mattered at all.

Henry Hill, similarly, acts and bends with reality imposing itself back (action/reaction) and continues the Scorsese tradition of self delusion, rationalization, and further will-to-power action and the harsh ambiguity of consequences. In Goodfellas it's more pronounced that Hill's greatest delusion is the idea that he has any choice in any of his actions or that he understands mafia life in the slightest. He doesn't. Even in interviews with the real life Henry Hill it becomes clear the man is deluded and believes he's an expert on mob life when he was a barely involved and distrusted associate. Was it worth it? Again, it's up to the audience to decide.

Wolf is a great continuation of Scorsese's obsession with fantasy and ambition made real by any means necessary faced with a surreal delay in serious consequences which is still strongly believable. It's taken from the asshat's memoirs, though, very faithfully and the actual framing of the story is not Scorsese except in the way it's clear how deluded the narrator/protagonist is, defensive, denying his ability to make free choices while also indulging in every whim, and especially completely devoid of remorse or responsibility.

It's a fascinating biography (like raging bull) of a flawed person who's own life's journey was actually immaterial.

There is no happiness, only temporary escape

It was more about sales than finance

The films aren't supposed to be inspiring, that's missing the point. They're meant to make you empathise with deplorable human beings

Travis is a degenerate insomniac who comes "this" close to assassinating a politician out of disillusionment. And then, ironically, he ends up being praised as a hero.
Henry is an insecure idiot who joins a gang of like-minded idiots so that he can feel powerful. And then he dissolves into drug addiction, cheating on his wife, and his best friends are murderers.
Jordan is an opportunist narcissistic manipulator. He ruined people's lives, became rich and then decided that he wasn't rich enough, so he broke the law to become richer.

None of this is supposed to inspire you. It just challenges the audience to show them that these pieces of filth are still human and that it's easy to lose sight of the grand picture in the moment

> everyone doing some sort of drug is a degenerate

Cold in the cellar this time of year?

>That was the point
It wasn't.

It really was you ultimate pleb
You want to acknowledge the effect of their actions and feign sympathy? Go watch Boiler Room

This is some thought-provoking insight right here. You've changed how I view Goodfellas, a film I must've seen half a dozen times.

I think you could add Mean Streets to that list of Scorcese films with the delusional protag/anti-hero thread - Charlie (Keitel) sees himself as almost saintlike, and while he generally acts virtuously, his misplaced faith in himself leads him to believe he can change Johnny Boy (De Niro). Maybe I'm reaching, but now that I look at it from your perspective, his irrational friendship with Johnny turns out to be self-destructive and possibly motivated more by Charlie's misguided belief in himself as a good example and moral guide for Johnny, who is content to lie to and steal from everyone, right in front of Charlie.

You can't deny that Goodfellas and Wolf of Wall Street glamorise these villainous lifestyles. While acknowledging that there are victims, they portray those victims as they are seen by the criminals themselves, ie. an insignificant afterthought, no more than a footnote.

I don't know if the films are meant to be inspiring but they certainly succeed in showing the heinous behaviour from the perpetrator's one-sided POV, making us rationalise the behaviour the same way the character does, revealing a part of the audience that is not easy to come to terms with. Are we any better than these people, or do we just have a different perspective?

Of course they glamorise the lifestyle, that's the point. But your conclusion that this is supposed to inspire the audience is misguided.
The point isn't that we're supposed to think "oh these are good people afterall", it's supposed to show the audience's hypocrisy for judging them when most would have probably done the same in the same situation

And like I said, once you're there, it's easy to lose sight of the impact of your actions when you're just having fun

I should've mentioned, I'm not that original user (). I think that user is mostly right (about the delusional characters and their rationalisations), but I agree with you 100% here: .

I think what Scorcese finds fascinating about these flawed protagonists - ambitious, without self reflection, reactionary, creatively delusional - is the speed and agility they have, the advantage they have in orienting themselves and getting inside other people's heads (especially Henry Hill and Jordan Belfort) while staying firmly outside their own heads (drug use, avoiding all sense of even emotional and internal consequences for their actions - having no guilt is a skill you practice with self delusions and substance abuse or generally abusing the pleasure principal)

As a filmmaker Scorsese is one of the few that consistently focuses on showing and never telling (which is odd because he loves narration - the narration itself is usually not believable or material to the story, though, only a delusional excuse for the protagonist) and I think a major element of his movies is how easy it is for charismatic thugs to run over a normal, self aware, constrained individual with their sheer agility in getting what they want and their seemingly magical ability to get so far ahead of the inevitable consequences of their action that they themselves don't worry about it until it's too late (and by then, does it matter or was it worth it?). I especially love how Henry Hill was so seduced by the thug lifestyle and convinced that this agility was the secret weapon of getting what he wants and how Belfort convinced whole companies of stockbrokers to follow his example.

It's a revelation of why 'evil' (or moral degeneracy, I suppose) exists: people are too slow to react and too wrapped up in immediate consequences for mistakes or worried about their status if they act repulsively when the actual people who do those things are so quick to move on to the next expression of their admittedly fucked up desires that they're not there when the noose is dangled.

The thing with finance is that it's 50% counting numbers and then 50% looking at numbers change on screen. Not exciting at all if you're not a gambler. If you are a gambler, it's very exciting, but you will be horrible at your job.

>it's supposed to show the audience's hypocrisy for judging them when most would have probably done the same in the same situation
Stop with that bullshit.

It made me want to do cocaine

Finance is a career that take risk. You may lose a lot of money if you're not experienced or some Black Swans happen

>As a filmmaker Scorsese is one of the few that consistently focuses on showing and never telling (which is odd because he loves narration - the narration itself is usually not believable or material to the story, though, only a delusional excuse for the protagonist)
I've never really thought about it before, but you're completely right
Scorsese probably does narration better than any other contemporary filmmaker I can think of purely because he doesn't use it as an excuse to gloss over the story and imply more character development than we've seen
Interesting