The banker mystique: Wall Street returns to screens

In Oliver Stone’s 1987 “Wall Street,” a binary examination of good and evil in Manhattan’s canopy ginned up the excesses of eighties capitalism so well that the moral hammer missed many movie-goers. Instead, aspiring brokers and bankers took Gordon Gekko as a deity of sorts. Ruthless, suave, hair combed back, Michael Douglas’s Gekko exemplified full-scale investment in the false idols and Dionysian pleasures born of wealth, fully aware they came at the expense of others. “That’s the one thing you have to remember about WASPs,” says Gekko. “They love animals and hate people.”

American cinema has long gazed inward upon itself, co-opting foreign narratological conventions and romanticizing the raw culture of a young country even as it built an ideology atop the it empire left behind. The western was built upon the Arthurian notion of heroism and conquest. The musical was a populist response to the classical music canon in Europe. Hollywood was created as a fantasy for the masses to aspire to; its stars and studios teasingly accessible in cinemas to the lower and middle classes, who bought wholesale into the meritocratic American Dream. Likewise, on Wall Street, every man is just one big trade away from fortune.

“Wall Street” fits into the fantasy genre quite neatly. Charlie Sheen stars as the ambitious ingénue, broker Bud Fox, intent on money, glamour, good-looking women, and an easier life than that of his father, Carl (Martin Sheen). The era: bear market America. Bud Fox’s moral arc is somewhat derivative, and consequently feels a little cobbled: he descends into the pits of moral depravity (insider trading!) assailed by the lion (Douglas as Gordon Gekko), leopard and she-wolf (Darryl Hannah), before emerging, soul intact, to summit Mount Purgatory and reach Paradiso. (Fourteenth century Italy has nothing on 1980s America.)

The great contradiction in the film, however, was the notion that audiences had to first buy into the construct of capitalism to follow Fox down the rabbit hole. And at the end of the film, many remain plied with the images of penthouses, gilded skyscrapers, expensive suits and that oh-so-slick ‘80s technology. (At one point Gekko shows Fox the portable television he bought for his son. “That screen is like two inches!” Fox exclaims.) The great star of the film is Manhattan,* whose social geography places characters into cubicles and offices, down on the street, or atop the urban canopy looking down, according to their status. The buildings not only serve as a means of classification, but symbolize the sheer depth of the illusion bracketing an entire society together. “It’s a zero sum game,” Gekko smirks, “somebody wins, somebody loses. Money itself isn’t lost or made, it’s simply transferred

from one perception to another.”

*The other great star of the film is, of course, Gekko’s brick-sized cell phone.

The film is a fantasy because Fox’s revelation (greed is bad!) doesn’t alter the future landscape of America: twenty years later, the bottom fell out of the financial markets again, only this time it wasn’t the savings and loan scandal did us in, rather, simple folk pursuing the American Dream – the “dog shit stocks” Gekko trashes – beyond their own means. In reality, Gekko always gets away with it.

Which brings us to the impending release of the sequel “Wall Street: Money never sleeps” on September 24. According to IMDB, the plot concerns a young Wall Street trader who teams up with paroled Gekko to save the financial markets from global economic doom. The few things I know about this film leave me with a series of questions:

1. In the original film, Gekko had sired a fat son, seen only in a gratuitous nanny cameo, and quickly retired for a nap. Where does Carey Mulligan fit in to this family picture?

2. Gekko is the preeminent antihero of modern-day America. After an entire film of quips like: “You take it right in the ass you cocksucker,” and “Greed captures the essence of the evolutionary spirit,” are we really supposed to buy Gekko as reformed? People with egg-shaped mansions and ridiculous art installations don’t regain perspective.

3. How will Stone portray the highs of Wall Street trading now we’re living in the virtual era? No pink slips to wave, no shoehorn telephones to dial, sensible hair … it’s not quite so sexy, is it?

4. It is interesting to note that bicycle messengers essentially have not changed since 1987; according to the original “Wall Street” they were satchel-toting douches then as they are now. No, that’s not technically a question.

5. What influence will globalism exert upon our fragile 21^st century financial instruments? The original featured Sir Larry Wildman, a British villain of the Bond variety, as well as nigiri sushi machines and such haute cuisine as egg yolk on meatloaf (French?). Now that the world is officially “flat,” we’re close to exhausting the exotic – Korean street tacos and jokes about Greek insolvency is about as edgy as it gets.

6. In a similar vein, how will movie sex have evolved from the Martha Graham impressionistic, blue-silk silhouette sex seen in the original? Perhaps focus is less on pointed toes and “the wheelbarrow” position, and more about yoga triceps and off-axis maneuvers today.

7. Without Sean and Madonna, what does the Upper West Side real estate market have going for it in 2010?

8. Anyone care to venture some speculations as to the stock in question? BABs, perhaps, or shoddy pension funds?

9. What is the penultimate symbol of upper class recreation? What is today’s equivalent of a) the backless dress, b) martinis, c) evil Brits, d) town cars, e) MS-DOS, f) WASPs? And tell me we can do better than Oslen-twin chic and Dubai.

10. Shia LeBouf. I just don’t get it.

“Wall Street” verdict: Before it was distasteful to flaunt wealth, we had this gem celebrating the clunkiest conspicuous spending (a handheld facsimile machine!) in the most entertaining town.

Potential “Wall Street: Money never sleeps” verdict: Provided we don’t have to hear about Ben Bernanke or the stimulus bill, this could still be fun. Though I suspect we aren’t as much fun these days. Worth it to make fun of the wealthy once more, and to see what old Gordon Gekko still has up his sleeve, “pal.”