Imagining Wall Street -- and The Aviator

Speaking of having fun with my scholarly writing, I have just posted on SSRN my paper, Imagining Wall Street. Here's the abstract:

The 1987 film Wall Street is one of the most popular films dealing with business, and for many people provides an enduring image of capitalism. The film is therefore a good illustration of filmmakers’ portrayal of business, and how this portrayal can influence public perceptions and misconceptions. This is important as public misconceptions of business, in turn, can contribute to the regulatory environment. This article discusses the view of business presented in the film, contrasts this view with an alternative, and more realistic, narrative, and shows how the film may have influenced subsequent regulation.

This paper is obviously an offshoot of my bigger paper on how business is portrayed in film, Wall Street and Vine. In the most recent paper, I muse about the possibility of an alternative “narrative” in the film Wall Street in which the Mike Milken character, Gordon Gekko, is seen as a visionary entrepreneur who was taken down by competitors and the politicians they controlled.  This ties in with musing in my bigger paper about why government, rather than business, isn’t more often the villain.

As I discussed last December, Martin Scorcese’s film, The Aviator, seemed to be a rare example of a film presenting this alternative narrative.  The point is blurred a bit by the fact that Howard Hughes is a special kind of businessman who not only doesn’t seem to be constrained by trivial bottom line concerns, but engages in the most sacred business of all (to filmmakers) – the movie business.

Well, I hadn’t seen The Aviator when I wrote those comments, but I have now. Nothing in the film undercuts my earlier observations, but I can now say that this is a truly great film about business, about as close as we’re likely to get to my ideal “narrative.”

It’s true that Hughes is portrayed right at the start as a director’s ideal film studio – one who doesn’t care about the budget in order to get it right.  But the film is redeemed by the confrontation near the end between Hughes and Senator Brewster (well played by Alan Alda at his smarmiest). When people told me about the film I feared that Pan Am's Juan Trippe (Alec Baldwin) would be the heavy.  But the film took it right to the creepy Senator, and let its climax be Hughes (Leo Di Caprio) explaining himself, his business and the benefits of competition to Brewster, the Senate, and the country.

My favorite line in the movie comes a bit before the Senate scene when Hughes asks Brewster if he wants to go to war with him, and Brewster says: "It's not me Howard. It's the United States government.  We just beat Germany and Japan.  Who the hell are you." I don't plan to ever forget that line when people tell me how much we should worry about business and how much power the government should have in dealing with it.

This has given me a taste for the real Enron movie, in which Ken Lay builds a business, is taken down by arrogant politically driven prosecutors, and then vindicated at trial.  Fat chance.

Interestingly, it seems to me that Hughes in this film was modeled after Orson Welles in Citizen Kane -- there's at least a striking physical resemblance.  That film, too, is an example of the heroic businessman genre, with a little of bad government (the crooked politician) thrown in.   

Incidentally, although The Aviator is the better business movie, it’s no Citizen Kane as a movie, though Scorcese did a good job with the bankable mediocrity he had to cast in the leading role, Cate Blanchett deserved her Oscar as Katherine Hepburn, and Baldwin and Alda were creditable.

So, anyway, people have often asked, what's your favorite business movie.  I've always been at a bit of a loss. Now I can say, it's The Aviator. But as I explain in my paper described above, Wall Street is, unfortunately, a better illustration of the business movie genre. 

 

Comments

[Henry Riffe]

Just wondering if you have ever seen the 80's film Other People's Money?

It's obviously not a serious movie at all (e.g., note the simplistic way that it portrays greenmail, without ever discussing the possible benefits of the practice) but I got a few chills when Devito's character made his speech to the shareholders. Also I thought it did a good job of making both sides of the argument.

I couldn't help thinking that if a few more Republican politicians could make their case that well . . .

On the other hand, I could just be confused about this movie. After all, someone did have to tell me that Gecko was supposed to be the bad guy in Wall Street.

[Nate Oman]

The ulimate evil regulator movie, of course, is another vintage 80's artifact: Ghostbusters. Remember, it is the arrogant EPA regulator who shuts down the containment system set up by the entrepreneur heros, and thus unleashes Aramageddon upon the world (or at least New York City).