With his endearing cameos in his daughter’s TikTok videos and stories about his playful scolding of Seth Rogen‘s propensity for profanity on the set of The Studio, Martin Scorsese is firmly entrenched in his “lovable grandfather of Hollywood” era. So much so, that it might be harder for younger cinephiles to picture him as the man responsible for some of the most controversy-inducing films of the last 50 years. Scorsese, now 82, has been stirring up heated discourse with his movies from the very start. Throughout his career, the visionary behind works like Goodfellas, Taxi Driver, Casino, and The Departed has been the subject of ill-conceived criticism, with some claiming his movies irresponsibly glorify violence, mob life, and criminal activity.
When it comes to the films released in the most recent stage of the legendary director’s career, the Leonardo DiCaprio-led modern classic, The Wolf of Wall Street, remains Scorsese’s most contentious offering. While the film was released to mostly positive reviews in 2013, some dissenters accused it of the very thing many of his earlier films were scrutinized for: glorifying the lifestyle of its deviant central figure too much. Of course, that central figure in question was notorious Wall Street fraudster, Jordan Belfort.
‘The Wolf of Wall Street’ Drew Criticism for How It Handled Jordan Belfort’s Story
As a film that nabbed five Oscar nominations and holds a 79% critic score on Rotten Tomatoes, The Wolf of Wall Street certainly wasn’t met with overwhelming criticism at the time of its release, but it was certainly divisive. Writing for Slate, Dana Stevens described the film as “epic in size but claustrophobically narrow in scope,” while stating that Scorsese and screenwriter Terence Winter “overestimated the audience’s ability or desire to watch Leo misbehave.” In his NPR review, Mark Jenkins called Wolf a “profitless bad-behavior romp” and accused the filmmakers of “merely mirroring Belfort’s excess, spending three hours — and a reported $100 million — chiefly to have some nasty fun.” Moreover, in the Washington Post, Ann Hornaday took issue with what she called the film’s “oddly equivocating ethical stance,” and wrote, “Belfort is such a thoroughly loathsome character that it makes The Wolf of Wall Street difficult to process as art, much less entertainment.” And, finally, famed film critic Leonard Maltin once described Scorsese’s film as “without a moral center.”
The idea that The Wolf of Wall Street was only a celebration of wealth, excess, and overindulgence that lacked any guiding morals is arguably a reductive misread of the film, seemingly born out of an anxiety about what kind of people were showing up to watch Belfort’s story and what potentially wrong lessons those people were walking away with. But, a film shouldn’t be discounted just because some ignorant finance bros find it appealing for incorrect reasons.
The beauty of art is that everyone is entitled to their opinion on how they feel about it. The particular type of backlash that Scorsese’s film was met with becomes a bit of a problem, though, when conversations start to spark about what types of films are or are not allowed to be made. It’s problematic to believe that stories should only be either complete condemnations of bad characters or celebrations of good characters that hold the viewer’s hand throughout and clearly point out who they should and shouldn’t be rooting for. Pushes for films to include more finger-wagging can actually infantilize the audience, painting them as people incapable of constructing their own moral understanding of a work of art. These moralizing efforts were especially strange when it came to The Wolf of Wall Street, because Scorsese’s ending makes his stance on people like Belfort, their actions, and their place in our society very clear.
‘The Wolf of Wall Street’s Ending Brilliantly Turns the Tables on Its Audience
In The Wolf of Wall Street‘s final moments, following Belfort’s arrest and a quick bit of voiceover that importantly points out the cushy nature of his actual time served, the real-life Jordan Belfort appears on the screen to introduce the film version of himself at a business seminar. DiCaprio comes out on stage and asks audience members to sell him a pen, calling back to a key moment earlier in the film. The people he tasks with this temporary sales job desperately try to impress him, while Scorsese’s camera pans over the crowd, showcasing how many people showed up to learn from this convicted felon. In this subtle yet powerful statement, Scorsese helps the viewer understand his feelings for the figure he chose to center on in his film, without beating them over the head with an obvious message.
With that final camera movement, the audience is forced to think about the ticket they bought in anticipation of watching this despicable man’s life story. With Scorsese proverbially turning the camera on us, we have to reckon with the fact that we were laughing and highly entertained throughout much of what we just witnessed. The film’s ending asks what it says about a society if a person like Belfort can not only rise to the top, but still be respected and sought out after his crimes are made public. This question acts less as a way to blame all of us for the existence of figures like Belfort, and instead more as a way to critique a system that prioritizes wealth over decency, and causes potentially well-meaning people to flock to the wrong teachers in hopes of learning methods to get ahead.
The critics of The Wolf of Wall Street weren’t wrong to point out the film’s relentless onslaught of absurd behavior, but they didn’t fully consider the purpose of it. Scorsese wanted us to feel enthralled to an overwhelming degree, so, in the end, we could face the fact that we got drawn in by the exact things we’re supposed to reject. It was a masterful conclusion to an outstanding film, one that could have only been constructed by a filmmaker like Scorsese.
