《華爾街之狼》揭露人性荒唐
摘錄自：天下雜誌 經濟學人電子報 2013/12/27
2013-12-26 Web only 作者：經濟學人
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| 圖片來源：flickr.com/photos/goksanozman/ |
現在正值辨公室派對的季節，但《華爾街之狼》裡那種縱情聲色的聖誕節大概不多見。在史柯西斯（Martin Scorsese）執導的電影中，星期五便服日都可看到高雅的侍者、成群妓女、半裸樂隊等。
這些狂歡宴會的主人，就是電影的主角和口述者貝爾福（Jordan Belfort，由李奧納多．迪卡皮歐飾演）；這部電影正是改編自貝爾福的自傳。貝爾福在20歲出頭時進入大型證券公司，但很快就碰上黑色星期一，並遭到解雇。他在華爾街找不到工作，只好在長島靠電話，推銷問題水餃股。隨後，他設立了Stratton Oakmont，很快就賺進數百萬美元，也引來了調查局探員的注意。
史柯西斯本人並沒有像那位探員一樣，反對貝爾福的作為。或許他在拍完兒童電影《雨果的冒險》之後，想要拍部狂妄、充滿陽剛氣、給成人看的娛樂片。無論原因為何，《華爾街之狼》是他最有生氣、最充滿歡笑的電影，這並不只是一部滿是瘋狂派對的電影，這部電影本身就是個瘋狂派對。
然而，最喧鬧的派對也最讓人感到厭倦。基本上，《華爾街之狼》是一連串令人寒毛直豎的軼聞，雖然它們全都十分好笑、可恥，訴說手段亦十分高明，但只有極少部分有助於劇情的推展或角色的深度。
看過《蠻牛》或《四海好傢伙》的人，都會期待這部電影可以深入反英雄的表象之下，曝露他對自我的憎恨。但劇本實在太著迷於不良的狂歡行為，無暇顧及貝爾福的心理狀態。反之，它以貝爾福呈現自己的方式呈現貝爾福，將說教留給了觀眾。
為何《華爾街之狼》對貝爾福那麼和善？那或許是因為，史柯西斯本身也是個出身平凡、靠自信闖上大舞台、曾重度古柯鹼成癮的紐約客。在電影中，當貝爾福將推銷腳本交給員工，用激勵話語帶動士氣時，他說不定就是導演本人：有時，狄卡皮歐演的角色就像是年輕的史柯西斯。但無論史柯西斯和貝爾福有何相似之處，後者仍舊只是個放縱的騙子──在這方面，這部電影只要表達此事就夠了。（黃維德譯）
©The Economist Newspaper Limited 2013
The Economist
New film: "Wolf of Wall Street"
A wild party
By The Economist
From The Economist
Published: December 26, 2013
Dec 20th 2013, 12:49 by N.B.
'TIS the season of office parties, but there won't be many this
Christmas which are as elaborately debauched as those in "The Wolf of Wall
Street". In Martin Scorsese's riotous new biopic, no dress-down Friday is
complete without black-tied waiters serving champagne, crowds of prostitutes,
near-naked marching bands, games of dwarf-tossing and white powder by the
barrel-load.
The master of the revels is the film's protagonist and unrepentant
narrator, Jordan Belfort (Leonardo DiCaprio), upon whose self-aggrandising
memoir the film is based. In his early 20s he joins a major stockbroking firm,
but his coked-up mentor (Matthew McConaughey) has barely finished his
introductory pep-talk—"Move your money from your client's pocket into your
pocket"—before Black Monday comes around and Belfort is laid off. When he
can't find another job on Wall Street, he resorts to selling penny stock from a
boiler room in Long Island. He develops such a taste for aggressive and
disingenuous cold-calling that he sets up his own company, Stratton Oakmont.
His staff consists of a crack-smoking furniture salesman (Jonah Hill) and the
various drop-outs he knows from school. Everyone is willing to follow the
scripts he gives them, and they are just as willing to ignore his various illegal
practices. Soon Stratton Oakmont is raking in millions—as well as attracting
the attention of a doggedly disapproving FBI agent (Kyle Chandler).
Mr Scorsese is less disapproving. Having last made a children's film,
"Hugo", perhaps he was in the mood for some swaggering,
testosterone-drenched, adult-oriented entertainment. Whatever the reason,
"The Wolf of Wall Street" is his most exuberant and overtly comic
film: a frequently hilarious, manically energetic cavalcade of drug cocktails,
naked blondes, helicopter crash-landings, and obscene spending sprees. It isn't
just studded with wild parties; the whole film is a wild party.
Still, the rowdiest parties are also the most tiring. "The Wolf of
Wall Street" is, essentially, a string of hair-raising anecdotes, and
while all of them are funny, outrageous and masterfully told, very few of them
advance the plot or deepen the characterisation, so they become exhausting. It
takes about half an hour for the hard-working Dr Jekyll to mutate into a
hedonistic Mr Hyde, and from then on the film just keeps charging from one orgy
to the next until the inevitable day when the FBI agent makes his move. It's a
wisp of a narrative, given the three-hour running time—Mr Scorsese's longest
ever.
Anyone who's seen "Raging Bull" or "Goodfellas"
will be waiting for the film to dig beneath the surface of the alpha-male
anti-hero, and expose the self-loathing that makes him so reliant on drugs,
prostitutes and designer suits. But the screenplay (by Terence Winter) is too
carried away by the bacchanalian bad behaviour to concern itself with Belfort's
psyche. Instead, it presents him much as he'd present himself, and leaves the
moralising to the viewer.
Why is "The Wolf of Wall Street" so soft on Belfort? Maybe
it's because Mr Scorsese, too, was a New Yorker from an unglamorous background
who barged into the big time with motormouthed assurance before developing a
severe cocaine addiction. When Belfort is shown handing out scripts to his
employees, and pumping them up with inspirational speeches, he could be a film
director himself: the uninhibited, live-wire Mr DiCaprio sometimes even looks
and sounds like a younger Mr Scorsese. But whatever the similarities between Mr
Scorsese and Belfort, the latter was still nothing more than a dissolute
swindler—and that's about all the film has to say on the matter. Still, it is
possible to enjoy the rip-roaring party Mr Scorsese has thrown him without
feeling that he is interesting enough to deserve it.
©The Economist Newspaper Limited 2013
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