Wall Street (1987)
While you are reading my Blog, you can listen this song as a background music. "Money" by Pink Floyd.
Wall Street is a classical business crime movie. The movie talks about how Wall Street really looks like. A young man just graduated from New York University named Bud Fox, he is a stock salesman. He has to repay all the loans for his studying. Although he is extremely hard working, he struggling a the bottom of Wall Street. In the movie, every successful people can find their previous lives on Bud. By chance, he uses his intelligence to talk with Gekko. Gekko is a typical capitalist, all he cares is about money. Gekko says if Bud wants to join his company, Bud should do something which can interest him. Bud gets lots of information from his father, his college friends and his associates. These information are available for Gekko to do the inside trading. Although inside trading is illegal, it can make easy money. After Bud works with Gekko, he got everything he wants, money, luxury house and beauty. But when Gekko ready to dissolve and contradict the promise to sell the Blue Star, which is company that Bud’s father works there, Bud feels full of guilt. Finally, Bud got his conscience and justice again. He fought against Gekko and saved the Blue Star. He is also arrested by police because of the inside trading.
Napoleon said that a successful man only exists in two places: on horseback and on woman. In the peace era, there is no war. People cannot ride the horse and kill the enemies. But on the stock market or the financial market, you can find the feeling. Through the computers and networks, you could be flight in an invisible battlefield. You could be a general or a commander. Dispose all the money in the stock market is like you are managing thousands of troops. This is a zero sum game. There would be people who get lots of profit, and there would be people who lost all the money.
As Gordon Gekko said, “You see that building? I bought that building ten years ago. My first real estate deal. Sold it two years later, made an $800,000 profit. It was better than sex. At the time I thought that was all the money in the world. Now it's a day's pay.”
Bud Fox: How much is enough?
Gordon Gekko: It's not a question of enough, pal. It's a zero sum game, somebody wins, somebody loses. Money itself isn't lost or made, it's simply transferred from one perception to another.
This implies how they desire for the money. People cannot earn all the money in the world. There should be a limited. But for Gekko, he is so greedy that he thought earning money should not have a limit. He said the stock market is a zero sum game. But for him, it is an unfair game. He uses his information to control the stock. Although it is illegal, and many people has chance to report Gekko, they didn’t do so. Because they are also “greedy”.
Conflicting among greedy, money and humanity happens every second in movie. In reality, it also happens. Even though people work so hard and they are full of ambitions, they are struggling on the edge of survival. Those people do not work; however, they have inside information. They make tons of money every day. At this moment, those poor people may change their beliefs and principles of justice.
This is like what Gekko said to Bud, “Hard working? I bet you stay up so late to analysis those stocks that you want me to buy, right? What’s the advantages? My dad is a salesman for electronic components. He worked so hard everyday, but died of a heart attack at 49. He also owned lots of taxes which is not paid.”
“Greed, for lack of a better word, is good. Greed is right. Greed works. Greed clarifies, cuts through, and captures, the essence of the evolutionary spirit. Greed, in all of its forms; greed for life, for money, for love, knowledge, has marked the upward surge of mankind and greed, you mark my words, will not only save Teldar Paper, but that other malfunctioning corporation called the U.S.A.”
This is what Gekko said when he was at the shareholder’s meeting. I thought it’s pretty meaningful. In the Wall Street, “greedy” is not a negative vocabulary. The greedy is a spark which can provoke people doing better.
This is about the Gekko's Speech.
I feel this movie has the common point with Glengarry Glen Ross. Both of the main characters are so greedy on money, though Bud changes his mind at last. And both of them use a cheating way to earn illegal money. I think this could be a familiar phenomenon in 1980s society. People expect the imaginary American Dream too much. In their dream, the standard American Dream should be lots of money, a nice house which is described in The Bluest Eye, and the mother takes care of her children. But all those things are based on money. If you have no money, then the dream would be collapsed. So people start to earn money in a immoral way.
This is a standard American Dream, a nice house, the gorgeous front yard and a married couple. That is what exactly described in The Bluest Eye.
In the Wall Street, Gekko wants to purchase the Blue Star, which he can make a huge profit on that. But he knows the result, if he do so, he would destroy the whole company. Thousands of works would be employed. This would create starving among the civil. Gekko doesn’t care about anything but money.
Gekko said, “It’s all about bucks, rest of the conversation.”
In the Glengarry Glen Ross, there is one part that Moss tries to ask what's the name of the Blake, because they never meet before. Blake said "F*** you" to Moss. He doesn't even refer to them by their names. All he cares is about money. The way that he provokes those people to work is brutal. He made a huge "class difference" in the office. It just like the difference between Blake's BMW and Moss's Hyundai. He doesn't care how much time and energy that salesman put in, the only thing he cares is profit. There is no sympathetic relationship between Blake and the salesmen.
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