"Do you think I am anti-social"? !
In the end, the footage of the film "The Deceptive Hand" stayed on Madoff's face, and ended abruptly after a close-up of 5 seconds.
"The Deceptive Hand" is a TV movie broadcast by HBO. Adapted from the novel of the same name by "New York Times" reporter Diane Henriques.
The story revolves around Bernard Madoff, the trader of the biggest "Ponzi scheme" to date.
Bernard Madoff is a Wall Street financial giant and former Nasdaq chairman... He is the founder of the modern American financial system, a Wall Street giant, a mythical legend, and an idol of countless people.
This perfect image, which was enough to go down in history after his death, fell apart overnight.
It took him 8 years to create a high-return fund that did not exist at all, and finally trapped a huge amount of US$65 billion.
Until 2008, when the US financial bubble burst, the subprime mortgage crisis broke out, and there was a run, he was unable to raise more than 7 billion US dollars to redeem it for customers. In the end, he had to admit to his two sons that this has never existed. fund.
His two sons, the closest disciples who had always regarded him as an idol, reported him the next day.
The entire "game" collapsed instantly.
A year later, Madoff was sentenced to 150 years in prison by the court.
A year later, through the sale of Madoff’s property, including his wife’s underwear, only $1.5 billion was recovered.
From business tycoons to the average middle class, the life savings of countless people are wiped out.
This so-called the largest financial fraud case in American history has come to an end. Countless people have lingering fears about it, but they can only sprinkle their grievances, sins, and saliva on Madoff.
They are powerless and unwilling to reflect.
"The Deceptive Hand" is directed by Barry Levinson, the director of the Rain Man, who is a frequent visitor to the Oscars. Facing the novel and reality, he chose to refine the story. From the portrayal of the characters he is good at, the relationship between the characters creates emotional concentration and drama. tension.
The film begins with a reporter's interview with Madoff in prison. The reporter wants to know a few key events.
The ins and outs of this scam.
Why this scam can be successful.
The impact of this scam on Madoff.
And Madoff's own views on this scam.
Barry Levinson needs to solve the most ingenious pyramid scheme in history in a two-hour film, and it is indeed stretched in terms of time.
So he adopted a cinematic narrative method, coupled with a disciplinary film reproduction method, starting with the family, with Madoff as the character center, around his family members, two sons and his wife, and continuously enriching Madoff’s own personalities from the side. Character and image, while borrowing the mouth of his family, to show us a Madoff in the eyes of others.
At the beginning of the film, Madoff was pulled from the altar by his sons.
His sons, Mark and Andrew, directly chose to report him the next day after hearing his "confession".
The whole family was thrown directly into the abyss that was beyond resuscitation.
The society cannot forgive Madoff, and it is also unwilling to forgive his family. They think that as long as they are related to Madoff, they must be involved.
Two of Madoff’s sons who hold important positions in the company bear the brunt.
They were harassed by the media, and some reporters even stopped their youngest son Mark and his wife who was holding the child on the street.
After the fraud broke out, the family was disbanded immediately. In order to protect themselves, under the arrangement of the lawyer, the two sons first chose to ignore their mother.
Mark is more sensitive in his heart. He cannot tolerate society pulling him and his father together, and cannot tolerate someone saying that he is a participant in this case.
At this time, the film used several passages to construct the father-son relationship between Madoff himself and Mark.
Mark very much wanted to take over the company and showdown with his father several times, but Madoff refused again and again. He even told Mark directly why he was not capable enough, and her brother Andrew was more capable.
This made the fragile Mark quite a blow. At the same time, we also saw Madoff's arbitrariness and irritability.
Mark is the most tragic character in the incident. He regarded his father Madoff as a god, idol, spiritual sustenance, and example, but in an instant, the example became a sinner and a villain.
At the same time, the family could not give him support and encouragement. Public opinion would not let him go. He was isolated and helpless, and finally chose to hang himself.
Madoff's other son, Andrew, also uses deep pen in the film. He is capable and ambitious. He wants to build his own company. He wants to get rid of his father's control and brilliance.
He and his father had a showdown, hoping to leave the company, but Madoff directly accused him of being selfish and resolute.
Andrew also suffered from the "sit-and-tear" punishment from the society. Some customers and employees vent their dissatisfaction to him directly on the road.
Andrew is stronger than Mark and has withstood the pressure of society, but he is plagued by illness.
In the end, he died of cancer. Before his death, someone asked him what he thought of Madoff and why he didn't go to prison to visit his father. Andrew calmly said,
"In my heart, he is dead."
His wife Ruth , who had been with Madoff for 50 years, was also caught. It pulled into the abyss that was beyond undeniable.
Ruth has been to the barbershop for 15 years and refused to cut her hair.
The two sons were unwilling to talk to her because she didn't want to abandon Madoff.
But in the end, after Mark died, this complaint broke out completely. She finally chose not to contact Madoff.
Through the three closest people, the film presents us from the side the image of Madoff, this patriarchal and arbitrary person, who has completed this "scam" in the name of love.
Madoff kept stating that he did this for his family.
After being exposed, he continued to emphasize that he would properly arrange his family and loyal employees.
But the result is that the two sons died one after another, all the family properties were taken into custody, and the wife could only go to live with her sister.
Many employees are blacklisted, and many investment banking and securities companies are unwilling to use people who have worked with Madoff. They didn't even get the promised bonus in the end.
The home he tried to consolidate with love, but in the end it collapsed instantly, and he also ended up lonely and died in prison.
In fact, Madoff didn't care about his 150-year prison life. It was his son who was heartbroken. He and his wife broke off relations with him. It was loneliness and abandon that finally crushed him.
The film uses several very exciting dramatic scenes to explain why Madoff has been able to get many rich people and many Wall Street elites' life savings in 8 years.
When the subprime mortgage crisis broke out, the hearts of the people were unstable, everyone wanted to protect their assets, and even said that they hoped to make huge profits in troubled times.
At a reception, Madoff was struggling to find funds to fill the funding loopholes that appeared in the run.
A strange moment happened when many people took the initiative to find Madoff, hoping to put his money into his banner.
A strange man, at first hoped to invest 100 million US dollars into Madoff's fund.
Madoff didn't care, but with a few tentative words, in the end, the man was actually willing to spend 400 million dollars.
Madoff himself was very surprised.
The conversation between the two gradually escalated under the mutual text of the live band, the rhythm of the drummer's beating accelerated, and the desires of the people's hearts were expanding.
In fact, don't those elites on Wall Street really know that there is a problem with Madoff's fund!
They just don't want to get too much into the real inside story that can get high returns.
Under the control of their greedy desire, they just hope that they are not the last person in this game of "beating the drum to pass flowers".
Madoff said bluntly that Wall Street was turbulent. At this time, he needed a scapegoat and a backer. But he was unlucky and didn't make it through the run, so in the end all the dirty water broke into him.
If he raises enough money, or the cash run is not that much, he has survived the cold winter, maybe he is still the hero of Wall Street now.
In this concentrated manifestation of the original sin of mankind, the regulators were also full of loopholes, and the securities inspection agency proposed to review Madoff's fund more than once.
The most ironic scene of the film is that Madoff directly told the inspector about their account. As long as they made a phone call, they would know that there was no money in the fund.
But after a few years, no one really made this call.
They are selective forgetting, selective trust, in fact, there is only one reason after all, that is their greed!
At the end of the film, the question asked by Madoff is actually worth pondering, "Do you think I am anti-social"?
In fact, on the contrary, Madoff is a society. He understands the operating rules of society and understands the characteristics of human nature in today's small society.
He used the most social way to control this group of people living in society.
At the same time, Madoff was swallowed up by society. He, including his family, has been squandering other people's money. This indisputable fact also made him unable to shirk his sins.
In fact, the Pyramid Ponzi scheme is everywhere. Once the run exceeds its capacity, this seemingly strong pagoda will instantly collapse.
But let us not forget that everyone involved has contributed to this pyramid.
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