About "The Great Gatsby" and "The Wolf of Wall Street"

This year I watched two films starring Leonardo DiCaprio, "The Great Gatsby" and "The Wolf of Wall Street". Both films are extremely luxurious and outline the American upper class. I'm a big fan, but I still tell the same story: the disillusionment of the American dream. The former embodies it as a woman, while the latter describes it as a personal struggle history suffering from money chasing addiction; the former is a dance party, a band, a good wine, and a feast, and the latter is foul language, drugs, promiscuity, and madness. Even if the two movies are not released in the same year, the protagonist is not the same actor, and the content background is not on the same Long Island, New York, there is still an inevitable connection between them: the greedy materialism, moral fall, soul anxiety and immersion in American society The mists in money gathered together, exploded, and then withered.
On the other hand, this is the story of two Gatsby or two Wall Street wolves. On the surface, they are full of stars holding the moon, but in fact they are empty and lonely and insecure. It’s just that the storyline directed by Martin Scorsese is much more exciting than Gatsby’s blind romanticism-the vision is full of luxury yachts, beach villas, and nude beauty, until everything collapses... It is rare to watch movies. After that, what I can remember is still Gatsby’s fantasy on the opposite side of the pier, the beautiful Daisy, and Leonardo when he picked up the wine glass, mixed with happiness, expectation, and helplessness, but looked at the smile that made people very comfortable. .
In Scorsese’s film, wealth is obtained through Belfort’s own hard work, even if he does not have much professional knowledge, but only with a three-inch tongue and a gang of brothers, the so-called love, women , Brothers are all his entertainment or use in order to get money; Belfort’s victims are not shown in the film, because the film only asks questions to the public rather than answers. Of course, you can also understand it as entertainment and The public watching movies doesn't care about people who are persecuted and suffer injustice.
Similarly, there are no victims in Gatsby. The only victim is Gatsby himself-who believes too much in true love and is murdered by this cold and hypocritical high society. I think in Fitzgerald's mind, even if Gatsby died because of the sins of others, his soul is still noble and sacred. This is even indisputable. This must be in line with the original author’s social understanding. It's not unrelated. In Belfort's world, there is only money, and the degeneration that is inevitable in order to get more money. Fitzgerald's more thinking is focused on the price paid for the realization of the American dream.
There are only three possibilities to become a rich man-either inherit a large amount of property, which is the easiest but also the most difficult to achieve; the second is to fill a certain social gap, of course, it is still difficult to achieve by personal efforts; the third is relative Relatively easy: breaking existing rules, corruption or deception.
It is always easier to live in a lie than to live in reality, but in exchange for this is the never-ending uneasiness in the heart. In any case, "The Wolf of Wall Street" is only a characteristic product of a specific era and does not have any guiding significance to reality. Perhaps Martin Scorsese's original intention is to let us see the falsehood, greed, madness and coldness behind the wealth in the movie, and let the audience leave the cinema with boredom and disgust, and then satirize the ugly faces of those who manipulate money. . But if the audience still applauds Belfort and yearn for his life after watching the film, then the instructions given by this film are still empty and full of negative energy. It will become another kind of psychological hint, a As long as you have money, you will not be charged with impunity even if you trample on the order and conscience of the whole society.
Whether it’s in the 1920s when the bustling and whistling through, or the 90s filled with speculative bubbles, is to bury oneself in sensual dogs for money, or to love someone in a quietly passing time, I believe that everyone has their own different choose. Perhaps "The Wolf of Wall Street" and "The Great Gatsby" finally showed a unified theme: money is not everything, and the value of a person's existence in the world cannot be judged by bank accounts alone. No matter how rich they are, they will end up alone.
Looking back, Belfort and Gatsby are both the roles that Xiao Li is best at: the energetic and suave rich man. In any case, when we go back to taste the two films contributed by DiCaprio in 2013, we can cheer for the "Wolf of Wall Street" that won the second Golden Globe Award, and we should also applaud him in "The Great Gatsby praises the steadfast and infatuated Gatsby that "Gatsby" has portrayed. It is necessary to know that what reaches the hearts of the people in the end is still a constant belief in love.

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