Martin Scorsese explains why The Wolf of Wall Street goes to extremes
Director Martin Scorsese tells Richard James Havis why his latest film knows no boundaries
Are people born bad, or is it their environments that make them that way? That question has underpinned the work of director Martin Scorsese as far back as 1976's Taxi Driver.
With a little help from his frequent collaborator and friend Leonardo DiCaprio, the filmmaker explores the question once again in The Wolf of Wall Street, a loud, brash and often outrageous film set in the New York financial district during the late-1980s.
I was fascinated by their ignorance, and I wanted to know why they were acting that way
Based on a true story, the film follows the rise of Jordan Belfort (DiCaprio), an immoral beast of a man who abandons a career as a legitimate stockbroker to play on the gullibility and greed of humble investors who can ill afford to lose their cash.
He and his cohorts amass millions of dollars with their underhand "pump and dump" schemes, which involve hyping up a stock until the price rises, then selling it quickly to make a profit at the expense of the other investors.
Belfort used his vast wealth to fund an excessive lifestyle: yachts, McMansions, prostitutes, and endless supplies of cocaine and Quaaludes, his drug of choice. Although the FBI and Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) zeroed in on his company, lax government regulation during the period meant they had difficulty making any charges stick. Cue, as DiCaprio calls it, the story of "a modern day Caligula".
Speaking from his native New York, the 71-year-old Scorsese still seems fascinated by the depths to which the now 51-year-old Belfort would stoop in the pursuit of ever more cash. Belfort, from whose 1998 memoir the film is adapted, consulted on the movie and has a cameo in it.