Whereas Streep's Violet Weston's path of destruction is watched from the outside - we are her dinner guests, get close to her children, understand her husband's inkling for committing suicide - Scorsese handcuffs us to DiCaprio's Belfort. The perspectives the films' directors chose are at opposite ends of the spectrum. The two most jaw-dropping pill addicts this holiday season are played by DiCaprio here and Meryl Streep in John Wells's August: Osage County. All is blurred because the pursuit of more wealth and more drugs and more women to degrade does not go with a clear head. Without mercy he piles shouting on top of shouting.
Nothing changes, Scorsese does not budge. They target the pleasures of immediate gratification. The lion that walks through a busy Wall Street office, and the sidewalks below, passing bulls and bears, in a commercial for Belfort's company that promises integrity and pride, takes these qualities with him in the first minutes of the film and leaves us in the company of wolves. The excesses with drugs and sex are fueled by the urge to humiliate - others and the self. In the course of the film, based on the real (convicted felon) Belfort's memoir, nothing is going to be considered worth saving, least of all wildlife. "You can save the goddamned Spotted Owl," he continues, which could be read as a sly aside about DiCaprio's important work in the protection of wildlife. "Money makes you a better person," proffers Leonardo DiCaprio as Jordan Belfort into the camera right at the start. No Katharine Hepburn descendant in spirit gets a foot in Martin Scorsese's spectacular morality play The Wolf Of Wall Street. More Casino than The Aviator, the women are given their strength through trickery.
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