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Wall Street (1987) 124 minutes Written by Stanley Weiser and Oliver Stone. Directed by Oliver Stone. "Greed is good."  Investment
banking, venture capital, and the stock market have emerged not only as
premium business activities but as powerful cultural symbols. Most
American Dreams now include at least a small piece of the action we call
Wall Street. The film Wall Street released originally in 1987
has taken on a new vitality with the current "Corporate America" scandals
and the resultant volatility in the stock market.
Oliver Stone, the controversial filmmaker and consummate provocateur, delivers an aesthetically accomplished and politically probing movie. Gordon Gekko (Michael Douglas) is a wealthy corporate raider who reeks of success. He is surrounded by all the accessories of the material version of the American Dream. Bud Fox (Charlie Sheen) is a young and aggressive broker for a large Wall Street firm. He greatly admires Gekko and relentlessly pursues him as a new client. In order to prove his worth to Gekko, Bud provides some insider information on a company where his father Carl Fox (Martin Sheen) is an aircraft mechanic and union leader. The film unfolds in a manner that lures our attention to the dramatics of the script while simultaneously ushering us into a larger horizon of conflicting values located within our own society and its global reach. We are captivated by this visual parade of images depicting cutthroat competition, voracious greed, and lifestyle excess. At the same time, we are seduced to meditate on the themes of betrayal, lying, and destruction of enemies so prevalent in our pervasive business culture.
essay by Scott
Young
|
Wall
Street interrupts our fast track to financial heaven and requires us
to consider alternative versions of work and wealth. It is not only
the reward system that is interrogated but the entire economic apparatus
is lifted up for inspection. American Dreams: Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit
of... Wall Street?