The Wolf of Wall Street Cinema Review.

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The Wolf of Wall Street Cinema Review.
Proposal
The wolf of Wall Street cinema review analyses different aspects of the movie by Martin Scorsese. It evaluates what the movies stylistic choices. The form, content, and genre conventions of the film are highlighted in the paper. Basic cinematic techniques have been evaluated including the films experience, editing, narrative, sound, lighting, and other fundamentals of film production. I have reviewed some of the directors and his cinematographers decisions in their displays of vivid visuals and different lighting they used in making the film.
Outline:
1. Introduction
2. Film review
3. Stylistic patterns
4. Lighting and sound
5. Content and Elements of the movie
The wolf of Wall Street is a highly controversial movie about corruption and greed in new capitalism. It was released in a time when there was an array of films talking about the materialism and excessive living of American society. This new movies focus on showing the vanity, debauchery, and the hedonism of American materialism.
The protagonist, Jordan Belfort gives a narration of his story with shameless openness, celebrating and explaining out the details of his cheating and his rise and fall over the years. Belfort starts a company selling moneymaking penny stocks to rich people he fools, causing him and his colleagues tom rake in millions. The movie glorifies greed and composed of graphic language, nudity and sexual content spurring a lot of controversy.
The wolf of Wall Street may be generally classified as a narrative movie also directed by Martin Scorsese which has numerous similarities to one of his previous popular movie Good Fellas. It is a great movie based on the real life memoir of Jordan Belfort, which has the same title and similar events. In many instances during the movie, the viewers hear the main character, Jordan Belfort played by Leonardo Dicaprio, explaining out his escapades in creating and developing his ravenous investment company and his social life.
The films narration is aimed at shaping our itinerary through the movie. It is an arrangement of cues which guide us in the buildup of the film (Barsam p.159). In the first few minutes the movie we are introduced to a major theme in the movie where there are different busy brokers hurdled over their work stations in an extensive work place while a lion prowls the walkways. In a contrasting view, we then see another angle in the office where staff who seem to be partying are preparing to throw a miniature man towards a target. The little man is launched then among the men who have tossed the little man, one introduces himself to us as Jordan Belfort. The movie proceeds to draw the viewers into a series of Belfort’s lifestyle.
This beginning of the movie shown as a commercial enables the director and screenwriter to show the high contrast between the public conception of brokerage firms and the internal debauchery about to be shown in the movie. The brief scenes of the main characters lifestyle motivated by drugs, sex, and living large make up a large amount of concentrated exposition. Instead of bringing out Jordan’s debauchery bit by bit through hints, the movie tells it plainly and swiftly.
Jordan claims that by the age of twenty-six years he was making nearly fifty million dollars per year (Barsam p. 167). This provokes the viewers to wonder how. This is called a curiosity question where the narration makes us wonder what past events may have caused the present condition.
The narrative movie also incites surprise for example when the little man being launched undercuts the scene of a corporate appearance. Surprise is important to the narrative movie since certain information is not disseminated equally amongst the characters and viewers; any of the characters therefore can have a secret. For instance, the movie is designed in a way that it restricts the information viewers will receive at key points. The Wolf of Wall street at times breaks to show FBI agent Denham’s investigation on Jordan but does not show Naomi’s plan to divorce him. We only know about it when Jordan does. As shown by Barsam in Looking at Movies: An Introduction to Film, “who knows what and when” is a major element in comprehending film story.
By controlling our knowledge, the narration is able to adjust the movie’s emotional power up and down. In one instance Belfort hits his second wife, Naomi. However, the act is presented in a distant camera shot where we get a glimpse of the violence through a doorway. This approach minimizes the impact of the main characters aggression. From this scene we are able to gain some important information relating to the story although not as explicitly as the close camera views we get in the sexual and drug-motivated exploits of other scenes. This can be argued that a more unreasoned view of a close camera shot would have made it difficult to see Belfort’s bad boy antics as entertaining and thus acquire a negative perception of the character.
Suspense, a heightened eagerness of what could happen next is also used in the movie. For example, when Jordan who is too high on Quaaludes, has to save Donnie, his partner from choking on a piece of ham we are highly anticipating what is going to transpire.
The narrations in the movie also help shape our experience through the films style. The calm shot along the working stations in the Stratton Oakmont investment company advert, where the company’s trademark lion is lurking the aisles differs with the sudden edited freeze-frame where Belfort appears. The actors’ performance, especially Dicaprio’s (Jordan) confidence is also a part of the narration. The movies stylistically textured soundtrack contributes to the nature of the movie too, where for instance Jordan’s commentary, the music and the sound effects create a stimulating and exciting experience (Bordwell & Kristin p. 307). The film technique use in the Narration probably is aimed to bring out a surprising but fascinating and amusing side of the degenerate universe that Jordan runs.
All through The Wolf of Wall Street, the director, -Scorsese has stylistic choices that serve narration purposes . There are swift montage series, dialogue hooks, and commenting music tunes that are relevant to the scene on display (Bordwell p. 117). Scorsese has the tendency to show psychological states e.g. druggy ones are presented using classic “impressionist” techniques. He thinks about how the film will look and sound and tries to give each scene a vivid visual that is as clear as possible. In the movie, Scorsese, the director is not afraid of throwing the audience into the actors’ thoughts and feelings.
In an interview about The Wolf of Wall Street, the directors’ major challenge was to identify how to visually present the various stages of Belfort’s escapades. Scorsese and his cinematographer have distinguished the scenes where Jordan is unsure from the scenes he has some clarity and some sense of direction. They accomplished this with the use of different optics, lighting, and color schemes. With Jordan’s state of mind as a guide the cinematographer used various lenses in an attempt to attain different perspectives and clarity (Barsam &Dave
P. 238). To enhance Jordan’s contrasts in his states of mind the movie mixed in some diffusion filters at times adding ambient smoke. For example, when LF Rothschild is closed down in the crash of 1987, Jordan finds himself unemployed. After some time he finds employment at an investment center, a job he dislikes a lot. The cinematographer lit that scene with light from one side only, through big windows to bring out a feeling similar to being in a cave, where Jordan sort of fell into darkness (Barsam &Dave P. 236)
. Stylistic patterning also helps in bringing out the films tone of outrageous humor, not only through the conversations, rhythm, and music but also from the editing. The almost intense moment where Jordan almost rescues Donny using CPR is interrupted with a Popeye animation, and Jordan’s energy booster is coke similar to the cartoons spinach.
The story-telling movie, through the narrations compels its viewers to draw conclusions at certain stages. The pictures and sounds are turned into characters, actions, and causes among others as we follow the movie story (Bordwell & Kristin p. 308). We assume or make conclusions at specific instances we have understood. The commercial makes us see the company as trustworthy. Jordan’s bragging assortment of sequences makes us view him as being powerful, materialistic, and arrogant. The inferences viewers make are not from deep thinking about the movies events but are commonsensical.
However, not all conclusions arrived at are right. For instance, viewers are misled to see that Jordan drives his Lamborghini without harm to his home. However, the impression is changed in the morning. During Denham’s, (the FBI agent) visit to Jordan, there’s a long and edgy scene that may lead spectators to think there is the likelihood that the Agent may be vulnerable to being paid off. His facial expressions as well as the type of questions rather suggest that he is thinking about Jordan’s suggestion. This exchange is shown through some constricted angles but when the agent tells Belfort to recap his proposal, the director cuts to a shot that shows the FBI’S agent’s colleague, in the off-screen, move closer enough to hear Jordan’s suggestion. Some information is hidden in order to cause surprise that will rectify the impression viewers might have had.
Content and Elements of the Film
Spiritual content
In a conversation in the movie the characters are heard wondering whether Buddhists and the Amish are motivated by greed.
In another scene, when it seems as if Belfort’s yacht is almost swamped and everyone might die, Danny cries out that he does not want to go to hell. Later on Jordan realizes that maybe God spared them, claiming that he will reform, and make an effort to live honestly.
We hear a Simon and Garfunkel’s “Mrs. Robinson” version which contains the lyrics, “Heaven holds a place for those who pray” and “Jesus loves you more than you know”.
Sexual content
There are nearly 22 sex scenes in the film. The movie contains numerous graphic sexual scenes some even in public settings and in the confines of a moving vehicle. When Jordan and his friend Donny are on an airplane, there are sexual scenes.
There are also scenes that include female nudity; an orgy with gay male couples, an S&M sequence in which there are explicit sexual movements
There is a reference to incest where Danny says that he is married to his first cousin, there is a scene where masturbation is said to be important in relieving stress, many references about using prostitutes, among many more.

Violence
Jordan cruelly hits his wife about three times after she tells she wants to divorce him. He then takes their young daughter and tries to run off with the girl but accidentally rams his car into a wall. Jordan’s head is bloodied but the preschool aged girl is unhurt.
When Jordan is driving his Lamborghini home, extremely impaired by Quaaludes, he hits many obstacles. Similarly high on drugs, he roughly lands his helicopter. Jordan orders the captain of his yacht into a dreadful storm which almost capsizes the boat.
Two men affiliated to Jordan, beat up his house keeper for having a gay orgy in their apartment. The housekeepers face is bloodied before he is suspended over a tall sky scrapper railing.
There is a picture of an employee in a bathtub who was employed by Belfort who reportedly committed suicide by cutting his wrists.
Obscene language
The movie is full of vulgar words, profanities and obscene crowds in many of scenes of the Wolf of Wall Street. There are also many conversations where characters have been heard making profane references to male anatomy, a variety of uses of degenerating words to women such as “cunt”. The movie also contains numerous slurs and vulgarities, and we see a number of obscene hand gestures.
Positive Elements
Jordan’s father acts a role of a voice of reason in all the carnage and debauchery. He is brought into the firm to try and make things do not go too out of hand. Of course he completely fails but does tell his son that in the end “the chicken will still come home to roost.” And it does happen as Jordan’s second wife Naomi divorces him and Denham the FBI agent finally nabs Jordan and he goes to prison for twenty two months
Way before his arrest, Belfort in his lengthy conversation with Denham does try to bribe the Agent. However, Denham being principled resists the temptation and tries to convince the broker to come clean. Jordan depicting his arrogance, demeans the conscientious FBI agent for earning so little money. In the end after Jordan is sent to prison, Denham is seen as he is about to board the Subway, with a gleeful expression on his face somehow suggesting that integrity is much better than living a corrupt and luxurious life.
Drugs and Alcohol
Jordan and his friends are seen in many scenes snorting cocaine, and getting high on Quaaludes which we are given a long history lesson about. Various types of alcohol are also all over the movie.
Jordan is in many instances impaired by all those substances. At one scene he is too high to walk and tries to crawl to his Lamborghini, a path that painfully takes him down a flight of stairs. He appears to be so dedicated to getting himself extremely high, that one night before a planned escapade on “vintage” Quaaludes he gives himself an enema to ensure he won’t soil himself.
There is are instances where Jordan talks about all the drugs he is addicted to and other drugs he takes to ensure he is functional o awake during the day. There are also references made to marijuana, morphine and Xanax. In the movie there is also talk of drug dealers.
In the film Jordan tells his partner Danny, “being sober sucks. I want to kill myself.”
Other Negative features
A surprising scene involves the staff at Stratton Oakmont Investment Company launching little people towards a Velcro target. In another long scene, later, Jordan and his friends are analyzing how they can and cannot treat or exploit the little people they have hired as entertainment.
A large portion of the film also shows how Jordan and his friends travel to Switzerland where the set up a smuggling scheme to launder their money.
In modern movies, the most common structural mode is a three-act form. Kristin suggests that in Hollywood, film making majorly uses a multiple-part standard that is centered on the characters’ objectives. The film can thus have about two to four or more parts subject to the cinematic time and how the director manipulates it to show the characters goals created, changed, delayed, and fulfilled or not.

Works cited:
Bordwell, David, and Kristin Thompson. Film Art: An Introduction. Boston: McGraw Hill, 2008. Print
Barsam, Richard M, and Dave Monahan. Looking at Movies: An Introduction to Film. New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 2013. Print.
The Way Hollywood Tells It: Story and Style in Modern Movies. Bordwell, David. 2006. http://www.davidbordwell.net/books/wayhollywoodtellsit_intro.pdf