production

 

Essay draft

"How does Leonardo dicaprio use narrative in the wolf of wall street to make it feel real"

In the wolf of wall street Leonardo dicaprios character Jordan Belfort introduces the characters to us by using narrative to make us get a good understanding of who the characters are individually. In film actors are not usually supposed to talk and engage the audience but in this film his character does and here's why... because this is based on a “true” story the audience needs to be made to believe it has happened which is why Leonardo dicaprios character talks to the audience and also narrates because we want to believe that Leonardo dicaprio is Jordan Belfort. 

"Leonardo Dicaprio, who plays Belfort, even let in on that, pretty openly in his voiceovers. He's selling stocks, sure, but he's shoveling  BS too, because he's selling himself." (Scott, 2019), that was a quote from Hugh Scott and what he is saying is that even Leonardo Dicaprio doesn't think everything he is saying in the movie is true, but that doesn't matter, we as an audience still need to be made to believe that its true to make it more engaging for us as a viewer. Leonardo Dicaprio even spent "countless hours together" (Belfort, 2014) with Jordan Belfort to get a good understanding of his character and how he was going to try and portray that to his audience which he decides to do through narrative so communicating to the audience the life of Jordan Belfort. 

“he's the epitome of an unreliable narrator. It makes for an amazing read, but it’s also obvious that you can’t trust everything.” (Scott, 2019), So what this is portraying is that the real Jordan Belfort story is too good to be true and even Leonardo Dicaprio himself thinks that but by using narrative Leonardo is able to make the audience believe that it’s all true that’s why he narrates over the movie as if it was real and already happened, “after all, Belfort was a scam artist- he made a living by lying.” (Dockterman, 2013). Leonardo Dicaprio also narrates over fictional characters lives to make us believe it’s true, when he talks about a character called Ben he says “he got depressed and killed himself 3 years later, anyway” portraying that Jordan Belfort is not a real caring person since he changes the subject without a care in the world, so by Leonardo Dicaprio narrating as Jordan Belfort the audience would see him as a inconsiderate, vein person which isn’t good for Belfort’s reputation, so it’s very strange that Jordan Belfort would wright a book and even let it be made into a movie. Although saying that Jordan Belfort did say he was “shocked” (Belfort, 2014) when he had seen the movie, which could indicate that some parts of the movie must have been overly exaggerated, maybe all of the movie was exaggerated, only Belfort himself knows.

“Dicaprio, playing Belfort, gives the first fully satisfying, elbows-out, uninhibited screen performance that I’ve seen from him.” (Nast, 2014), this is implying that Leonardo Dicaprio was the perfect part for the role which I can agree with since he spent a lot of time with Jordan Belfort to get a clear understanding of his character.

The movie lasted for a total of three hours, giving Leonardo Dicaprio’s character a lot of time to narrate and communicate Jordan Belfort’s life to the audience which he does. In the movie we are told lots of exciting and dangerous times in Jordan Belfort’s life, “The Wolf of Wall Street, was a wild and crazy book filled insane stories of debauchery, sex, drug use and criminal activates.” (Scott, 2019), these are just a few of the extreme things Jordan has claimed he has done! So Leonardo Dicaprio tells these stories in the movie to the audience, I noticed in the movie that Leonardo Dicaprio narrates what the character is actually thinking which is usually all the bad illegal stuff that he keeps to himself in movie.

The FBI who were on Jordan Belfort’s case have claimed that everything in the movie is near enough true, “Here’s the thing though- a lot of it is true. A lot of was proven by the FBI and in court.” (Scott, 2019) so this makes it a lot harder to believe what happened in the movie is not true. The FBI were on Jordan Belfort’s case for ten years, “One FBI agent famously said I tracked this guy for ten years, and everything he wrote is true”, which could imply that because they were on his tale for so long it angered them so they are trying bad mouth Jordan to ruin his reputation even more or it could mean that it is all true, after all most of it was proven in court. “This guy Belfort is making millions of dollars a year and he has tremendous amount of power because of his money and so he is very arrogant” (Bonham, 2014), this was said by the man who caught Jordan Belfort, special agent Gregory Coleman implying that he didn’t like Jordan Belfort which could mean they are jealous which in the movie they do imply that the FBI are jealous because they have to take the “subway”, which they did.

Although Jordan Belfort’s past makes him seem like an awful greedy person, when he “first attempted to establish himself on Wall Street, he did so in a more traditional and honest matter” (Hoffman, 2014), it was only because of Jordan Belfort’s twisted boss that he is convinced that the only way to succeed in Wall street is to do drugs, have sex and be greedy, this is also shown in the movie although in the movie his boss seems more chilled than twisted but that could be because he’s always on drugs.

 

Martin Scorsese who directed the film defends the movie after allegations saying if “Scorsese is celebrating or exposing him” (Feinberg, 2013), Scorsese then goes on to say that “this is something that isn’t going to go away if you don’t talk about it” (Scorsese, 2013) which is implying that what Jordan Belfort did in his past was so extreme that it will not be forgotten which we can clearly see Leonardo Dicaprio’s character of Jordan Belfort do in the movie, the extreme.

Jordan Belfort was served to go to prison for 4 years and ended up doing 22 months in jail, he owed approximately 200 million to the investors he scammed, this is also shown in the movie and Leonardo Dicaprio’s character is seen selling out his friends to try and serve a less of a sentence, unfortunately he was caught slipping his best friend Donnie Azoff who is played by Jonah Hill in the movie, Donnie ends up selling Jordan to the FBI so he serves a shorter sentence, so the movie is very similar to what has actually been “proven” by the FBI or the court.

Leonardo dicaprio also received criticism of taking on the role of Jordan Belfort because people felt that he was encouraging that sort of behaviour from Jordan Belfort and that it was cool to be a rich scam artist. “Dicaprio and Scorsese both faced backlash from critics for not doing a better job of telling the stories of those who lost their livelihood at Belfort’s expense.” (Mullaney, 2020), So they also received backlash for not involving the people who were most affected the investors who were scammed by Jorden Belfort. Leonardo Dicaprio even “defended Scorsese’s decision” (Mullaney, 2020) and basically just said that people know they can lose money when investing. Leonardo Dicaprio also said that he “spoke with the real Jordan Belfort, and he said he truly believes that Belfort is sorry for the way he lived his life and continues to try and pay it forward – in part, by sharing his story” (Mullaney, 2020) which we can see at the end of the movie Leonardo Dicaprio’s character Jordan Belfort is trying to teach people how to sell a pen which was one of his marketing strategies in the film. Jordan Belfort would actually convince people that the penny stocks were higher than they actually were by using a method called “pump and dump” (Mullaney, 2020) which we see Leonardo Dicaprio do in the movie.

 Jordan Belfort himself was actually in the movie, he introduces Leonardo dicaprio who plays him onto the stage to teach people about Wall Street so Jordan Belfort himself must have known a great deal about what the movie was going to be like even though he said he was “shocked” when he sore the movie, as I mentioned before. Leonardo Dicaprio really wanted to learn in depth of Jordan Belfort since he was the character he was gonna playing in the movie, according to Jordan Belfort, Leonardo Dicaprio “strived hard” to get every possible detail from Jordan Belfort from his mannerisms and his characteristic’s. I feel that Jordan Belfort really liked Leonardo Dicaprio from looking at his interviews about him and that he really liked the fact that Leonardo Dicaprio took the role really seriously.

In the movie we learn a great amount about Jordan Belfort because of Leonardo Dicaprio’s communication towards the audience and engaging us by putting every detail into the stories and characters in the movie. We learn about Jordan’s drug addictions, his greed and his recovery, I feel if he was not caught he would still be living his dream and still scamming investors for their money, but that is just my opinion, but I’m sure other people agree. Jordan Belfort himself claims he has put all of that behind him in many interviews about his past, “The mistakes I made in the past” (Belfort, 2014), so by the looks of things he knows what he has done is wrong, or so he says. Leonardo Dicaprio actually said in an interview that he couldn’t believe that Jordan Belfort survived because of the crazy and extreme things he had done such as drugs and nearly dying at sea when his yacht sank. When you listen to the interviews of Leonardo Dicaprio its almost as if he feels sorry for Jordan Belfort, apparently according to Leonadro Dicaprio, Jordan Belfort said it was “ten times worse” (Dicaprio, 2014) , so that is probably why he was so extreme with his acting of Jordan Belfort.    

In conclusion, I feel that Leonardo Dicaprio uses narrative very well when playing Jordan Belfort and gives us a good in depth overview of his personality and his past which he does well by communicating it to us as an audience.

 

 Belfort, J., 2014. [online] youtube. Available at: <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zRqWcDIZjsU> [Accessed 27 February 2021].

Bonham, S., 2014. FBI agent has tales of ‘Wolf of Wall Street’ - Cayman Compass. [online] Cayman Compass. Available at: <https://www.caymancompass.com/2014/10/28/fbi-agent-has-tales-of-wolf-of-wall-street/> [Accessed 28 February 2021].

Dockterman, E., 2013. ‘The Wolf of Wall Street’: The True Story | TIME.com. [online] TIME.com. Available at: <https://entertainment.time.com/2013/12/26/wolf-wall-street-true-story/> [Accessed 28 February 2021].

Feinberg, S., 2013. Martin Scorsese Defends 'The Wolf of Wall Street': 'The Devil Comes With a Smile' (Q&A). [online] The Hollywood Reporter. Available at: <https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/race/martin-scorsese-defends-wolf-wall-667851> [Accessed 28 February 2021].

Hoffman, M., 2014. More is Never Enough: A Review on The Wolf of Wall Street. [online] Cinemablography. Available at: <http://www.cinemablography.org/blog/more-is-never-enough-a-review-on-the-wolf-of-wall-street> [Accessed 28 February 2021].

Mullaney, J., 2020. Leonardo DiCaprio Dealt With Major Criticism After Filming 'The Wolf of Wall Street'. [online] Showbiz Cheat Sheet. Available at: <https://www.cheatsheet.com/entertainment/leonardo-dicaprio-dealt-with-major-criticism-after-filming-the-wolf-of-wall-street.html/> [Accessed 28 February 2021].

Nast, C., 2013. The Wild, Brilliant “Wolf of Wall Street”. [online] The New Yorker. Available at: <https://www.newyorker.com/culture/richard-brody/the-wild-brilliant-wolf-of-wall-street> [Accessed 28 February 2021].

Scott, H., 2019. The Wolf Of Wall Street: How Accurate Was The Film's Depiction Of Jordan Belfort's Life?. [online] CINEMABLEND. Available at: <https://www.cinemablend.com/news/2475773/the-wolf-of-wall-street-how-accurate-was-the-films-depiction-of-jordan-belforts-life> [Accessed 27 February 2021].

Feedback:

you have attempted to answer an investigation question which is very problematic as in it does not lend itself to an investigation, it is merely an assessment of realism on screen. There is no way of knowing 100% if what you watched even happened, regardless of the sources used. The whole essay is is written in quotes and is very unclear where you are heading. The quotes are placed in the essay and not acted on at all, they should be there to back up what you are saying. But that is the problem, you are not really saying anything, the whole essay is led by quotes.

This investigation is not the right one for you. It cannot be answered properly and would be easier to look at narrative elements in the film and how they are used to keep the audience engaged. 

My response: 

I have decided to change the question to how does Martin Scorsese use narrative to engage the audience since my last question could not be answered properly, I am also going to make sure my quotes are acted on and that I mention interview dates.  

Final essay:

“How does martin Scorsese use narrative to engage the audience in the wolf of wall street”

 

Engaging the audience is very important in film and how Martin Scorsese does it in the wolf of Wall Street is through narrative. Throughout the film Leonardo Dicaprio’s character Jordan Belfort narrates over the movie as well as being in it. We are introduced to the characters individually by narrative to get a good understanding of who the characters are and to also give us a good in-depth idea of their personalities and this is because the audience need to be engaged in the characters. The movie is three hours long so Martin Scorsese has to keep the momentum going in the film in order to keep the audience engaged.

In the wolf of Wall Street Leonardo Dicaprio’s character Jordan Belfort is first convinced by his boss Mark Hanna that cocaine and hookers is the only way to stay sane while on Wall Street which he tries to ignore but when he comes across his soon to be best friend Donnie Azoff, he is peer pressured into taking drugs which then leads to his obsession with drugs and hookers. The movie is always accelerating in order to keep the audience engaged. They are also going of a true story “of the unreliable narrator, Jordan Belfort” (Hugh Scott, 2019) so some of the stuff we see in the film is most likely exaggerated in order to keep the audience engaged.

The whole movie consists around drugs, smuggling money and hookers, so how do they manage to make it into a three hour movie without it getting boring? Well in the movie it tells us the most exciting parts of Jordan Belfort’s life because if it told us the boring parts it won’t be very engaging to the audience. In one scene in the wolf of Wall Street where Leonardo Dicaprio’s character Jordan Belfort takes ludes with Jonah hills character Donnie Azoff, Leonardo Dicaprio is unable to move or speak because the ludes make you paralysed for a short amount of time so he narrates over what’s happening because without him narrating we would be lost of what he was going to do next so narrating in the wolf of wall street is really important if the audience want to know what’s going on so they are engaged. Even when we are introduced to the smaller characters by Leonardo Dicaprio narrating and telling us the truth about that person we as an audience can decide if we like that character or not. Leonardo Dicaprio’s character Jordan Belfort tells the truth even about himself, he may exaggerate the stories a bit but everything he is saying is true and has been proven by the court, but in the movie he narrates at the time of the scene so it doesn’t spoil the movie for the audience.

Jonah hills character is actually the least accurate in the film, apart from the fact he married his first cousin which is true, the real life Donnie Azoff is actually called Danny Porush and Jordan Belfort actually meets him through his first wife who takes the bus with him, so you can see why they changed it so they met at a diner and two seconds later they’re doing drugs in the toilets and that’s because its more engaging for the audience to watch instead of getting introduced to a guy who your wife spoke to on the bus, so yes it’s based on a true story but not everything will be true, “This is an innocent example of artistic licence, though it is true that Porush married his first cousin!” (Hugh Scott, 2019).

The very funny dwarf tossing scene actually didn’t happen although there were dwarfs at the party’s, Danny Porush claimed that they weren’t tossed and actually made to do even worse “inhumane and nasty actions” (Hugh Scott, 2019) which they thought was too much for the movie and wasn’t funny or engaging at all.

In film people refer to Jordan Belfort as the wolf of Wall Street which was never the case in real life he just decided to call his book which he wrote in 2007 about his life and trouble on Wall Street, but Martin Scorsese felt it would be a good name for him in the movie. Jordan Belfort himself was actually in the movie, he introduces himself Leonardo dicaprio’s character of Jordan Belfort on the stage to give a lesson on how to sell a pen.

 In a 2013 interview with Martin Scorsese he mentions that the actual Jordan Belfort is rather different than Leonardo Dicaprio’s character of Jordan Belfort because in the movie Jordan Belfort has been exaggerated and made to be very energetic and high paced because of the drugs he takes, when in real life from the interviews you can see of him, he seems like a rather chill person who can communicate well. In a 2014 interview with the actual Jordan Belfort we gather that he spent “countless hours” (Belfort, 2014) with Leonardo Dicaprio, because Leonardo Dicaprio wanted to suck out every bit of information that he could out of Jordan Belfort in order to play his character in the movie, the only problem is that he is getting all the information and mannerisms of Jordan Belfort after his glorious days of being a stock broker but now he is a changed man so Leonardo won’t be able to see that enthusiastic, drug-fuelled attitude of Jordan Belfort. So because of this, Martin Scorsese can only go off what he thinks he would be like and he portrays him in the movie has a wealthy, drug-fuelled man who loves hookers in order to keep the audience engaged.

Throughout the wolf of Wall Street Leonardo Dicaprio’s character Jordan Belfort has a lot of problems with the FBI which the FBI have even said that everything that Jordan Belfort has claimed he has done is true and has been proven in court, “one FBI agent famously said I tracked this guy for ten years, and everything he wrote is true” (Hugh Scott, 2019) So for the audience it’s really hard to tell if what he has done hasn’t actually happened or the FBI just like bad mouthing Jordan Belfort because of the trouble he gave them in the past which we can see in the wolf of wall street movie which actually disrespects the FBI when in one scene Leonardo Dicaprio’s character Jordan Belfort tells the FBI to enjoy taking the subway implying that they are poor and unhappy which is digging at the actual FBI, but saying that the movie doesn’t do the real Jordan Belfort any favours, He himself said in a 2014 interview that he was “shocked” (Belfort, 2014) when he watched the movie because the movie showed him as a greedy, drug addict snitch, so Martin Scorsese does have a lot to go off in order to engage the audience whether it’s true or not, which he does and the problems with the FBI in the movie are a really engaging part in the storyline because it shows all the troubles he has to go through to avoid the FBI.

Jordan Belfort served a 22 months sentence of a 4 year sentence for tax fraud and money laundering which we see in the movie, if he hadn’t of ratted out his friends and co-workers then he would have served 20 years in jail. Jordan Belfort said in a 2014 interview that it was really hard for the FBI to catch them out on stuff because the government kept creating loop holes which they then took advantage off which we see in the movie all the ways he slips out of almost going to jail until he is finally caught at the end of the movie and forced to rat everyone out to receive a less harsh sentence. Martin Scorsese does a great job of showing this on screen, Leonardo Dicaprio’s character Jordan Belfort has hit rock bottom and we can see how tired he is without drugs. In the interview in 2014 with the real Jordan Belfort he always asks himself questions to answer which Leonardo Dicaprio’s character also does in the movie, “ was all of this legal? Absolutely not” so Leonardo Dicaprio was able to pick up the way he communicates for the role of the movie. Jordan Belfort claims in the 2014 interview that the drugs didn’t cause him to act the way he did and con people out of millions and that he would have done it anyway, and we see this in the movie but only right at the start before he starts taking drugs, he is still only in it for the money he has no care for the people he is coning and we even see him make fun of a client while coning him on the phone.

 In a 2013 interview with both Martin Scorsese and Leonardo Dicaprio we learn that they went of the book that Jordan Belfort had written in 2007 about his audacious risk-taking, drug addiction and problems with the FBI. As well as the FBI, Jordan Belfort himself has said everything he has written is true and when we learn in the 2014 interview with Jordan Belfort that Leonardo Dicaprio spent “countless hours” with Leonardo Dicaprio, Leonardo Dicaprio actually said everything he was saying was truthful in a 2013 interview with Martin Scorsese. So because of this, the audience are going to be more engaged into the movie if they believe it’s all a true story because it’s unbelievable that Jordan Belfort is still alive because of everything he has been through “Jordan Belfort crashing his helicopter while wasted, or crashing his Lambo… while wasted, or having to get rescued by the Italian navy for forcing his captain to navigate rough seas… while wasted, are all, incredibly, verified true events.” (Hugh Scott, 2019).

 In conclusion Martin Scorsese has put together a brilliant masterpiece using narrative to engage the audience whether most of it isn’t true or not we will never know the actual story, the only person who knows the actual story is the real Jordan Belfort who has been labelled an “unreliable narrator” (Hugh Scott, 2019), but even then we don’t need to know the actual story because Martin Scorsese didn’t put on the screen and go off everything that happened in the book because it wouldn’t of been as engaging as the movie was and for a three hour long movie you need to keep the audience engaged whether it’s an accurate story or not. The movie solely focuses on the rise and fall of Jordan Belfort as well as telling us little story’s about his friends and family.  

 

 

Youtube.com. 2013. [online] Available at: <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BuE8LQ85wv4> [Accessed 21 March 2021].

Belfort, J., 2014. [online] Youtube.com. Available at: <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zRqWcDIZjsU> [Accessed 21 March 2021].

Belfort, J., 2014. [online] Youtube.com. Available at: <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lssxyiCwh_8> [Accessed 22 March 2021].

Scorsese, M., 2013. [online] Youtube.com. Available at: <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x9KQ9y4siwM> [Accessed 21 March 2021].

CINEMABLEND. 2019. The Wolf Of Wall Street: How Accurate Was The Film's Depiction Of Jordan Belfort's Life?. [online] Available at: <https://www.cinemablend.com/news/2475773/the-wolf-of-wall-street-how-accurate-was-the-films-depiction-of-jordan-belforts-life> [Accessed 21 March 2021].