8367. pseudoerasmus - 4/16/00 4:30:10
PM
I have yet to see a movie which takes place in Wall Street (or
any other financial market environment) where the depiction of
bankers and banking has much realism or plausibility. American
Psycho had none -- none of the characters is ever seen doing
anything remotely resembling banking.
Oliver Stone's "Wall Street" had a smidgen of realism,
but the core story was so stupid and unbelievable (a cold-calling
broker, i.e., a nobody, manages to insinuate himself into the
graces of a corporate raider) that it failed as satire before it
began.
8368. PincherMartin - 4/16/00 5:04:44
PM
The basis of Sheen's relationship with Douglas in Wall Street
was built on insider information that the young man passed on
during a two-minute meeting Sheen had arranged after months of
begging Douglas' personal secretary for some face time. During
the short meeting, Douglas all but ignores Sheen, accepting his
gift of contraband Cuban cigars and working deals with several
assistants in the room. At the end of the meeting, after several
of his pet research projects are perfunctorily shot down by
Douglas, Sheen in desperation refers to insider information he
has acquired through his father. He doesn't tell Douglas where he
got it, but Douglas recognizes the information as significant and
makes a bundle out of it.
Given Stone's capacity for fantasy, this seems about as realistic
a premise for establishing a relationship between a low-level
broker and a famous corporate-raider as any you'll find in his
movies. Douglas simply takes advantage of a young guy whose
ambition exceeds his ethics. Yeah, I know. That could be just
about anybody on Wall Street. But Sheen has shown himself to be
persistent, practically in love in Douglas, and very useful.
Douglas recognizes he can takes advantage of this and the story
begins.
8369. pseudoerasmus - 4/16/00 6:07:32
PM
It's not so much the circumstances of the meeting between Sheen
and Douglas, but all the goings-on. First of all, brokers are
nobody (they're retail) and what anybody with ambition in Wall
Street would be doing working as a broker is unfathomable.
Second, no corporate raider would go near a broker. Why would he?
Third, the way "insider information" was collected in
that movie was just silly. Insider information in the financial
markets has always come from people with an insider's access to
business deals. There was some of that in the movie Wall Street,
but most of it was skullduggery with Sheen posing as a janitor
and snooping around in corporate offices, or some such nonsense.
8370. PincherMartin - 4/16/00 8:34:50
PM
I agree that almost all of the plot of Wall Street is
unrealistic, but the circumstances of the first meeting between
Douglas and Sheen strikes me as reasonable. An older, egotistical
man is flattered by a young go-getter's attention; he also is
satisfied he can make use of the young man in just one meeting to
make a good bundle of money. There was nothing in Wall Street
to suggest Douglas needed Sheen at that time. Perhaps he saw
something of Sheen in his younger self. Perhaps -- as Cellar
might say -- Douglas was a latent homosexual. In any case, the
circumstances of that first meeting were believable, if not
typical. After that, there was much silliness.
But Wall Street is an allegory so some of that silliness
was just plot contrivances to keep the audience entertained as
the moral was being pounded into it.
This is an interesting subject. What films do give an informative
-- as opposed to entertaining -- look at business -- any area of
business, not just finance?
I can think of a couple that are pretty good at describing the
culture of business (In the Company of Men and Glengary
Glen Ross). But the mechanics of business -- as opposed to
its culture -- are pretty dull, not really worth the trouble of
accurately transcribing on film.
8371. CalGal - 4/16/00 8:43:34 PM
One of the better portrayals of corporate culture I've seen in a
while was the otherwise useless Disclosure, with Douglas (again)
and Demi Moore. It captured technology company politics better
than I would have expected.
The only other movie that deal with corporate finance that I can
think of right now was Working Girl, and I would be surprised to
learn that it was accurate. But you never know.
8372. PincherMartin - 4/16/00 8:44:00
PM
I'm having a hard time thinking of movies that deal with business
in a generic sense. If you wanted to, you could include movies
like The Player or The Godfather under a liberal
definition of business movies, but that seems so wide a
definition as to be meaningless.
The Hudsucker Proxy is a business movie. Anything else?
8373. PincherMartin - 4/16/00 8:45:13
PM
Those are two pretty good examples.
8374. PincherMartin - 4/16/00 8:49:00
PM
A damn good movie based on a pretty good book about a corporate
takeover was Barbarians at the Gate. It's a factual
account of the takeover of RJR Nabisco. Its plot would seem
fantastical if the elements and names in it were transferred to
another movie title and mixed around a bit.
8375. CalGal - 4/16/00 8:52:09 PM
The Boiler Room just came out--haven't heard much one way or
another on its accuracy.
A movie that I thoroughly enjoyed was Barbarians at the Gate (technically
an HBO movie). I don't think it captured enough of the specifics
of LBOs, but James Garner was a hell of a lot of fun.
8380. JudithAtHome - 4/17/00 6:55:16
AM
Wasn't Putney Swope a business movie? I guess its satire
was too broad to qualify it as a serious look at business, though.
8381. Cellar Door - 4/17/00 7:13:20
AM
Actually "Putney Swope" is an excellent business movie.
"Executive Suite" was on TCM the other night, and it's
top-notch. But as a whole I'd say that the world of big business
remains largely unexamined. To a large extent this has to do with
the middle-class bias of the mass media. Plenty of stuff about
Willie Loman, but nothing about the boss of his company. "Glengarry
Glenn Ross" and "The Boiler Room" are about teams
of proto-Willies in competition with one another. "Wall
Strett" is, needless to say, a crock.
Hey, it's an Oliver Stone movie.
8382. theDiva - 4/17/00 7:16:00
AM
The Desk Set. Now there's a bidness movie.
8383. Cellar Door - 4/17/00 7:18:35
AM
True.
8385. pseudoerasmus - 4/17/00 7:35:21
AM
To a large extent this has to do with the middle-class bias of
the mass media.
Cellar oozes with wisdom!
I wager it has more to do with the fact that script writers in
Hollywood lack experience in the corporate world. They're more
likely to have been clerks in a video store.
8387. Dusty - 4/17/00 7:44:33 AM
How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying was my
first introduction to the business world.
8390. Raskolnikov - 4/17/00 7:54:59
AM
...
One Wall Street movie which *struck* me as having a more
realistic take, was "Other People's Money". Not having
worked on Wall Street, I can't vouch for the realism, but a lot
of it had a ring of truth. "Wall Street" lacked that
ring of truth. Sheen's detective work in looking for inside
information was damned silly.
8392. pseudoerasmus - 4/17/00 8:01:47
AM
# 8390
Raskolnikov, a single line does not a theme make. The plot had
nothing whatsoever to do with investment banking and there was
not even an attempt to connect the culture of investment bankers
with serial killing.