"Making movies is my way of exorcising demons, of creating an ethos, a philosophy of life. I'd go crazy without fantasy. A winner of 3 Oscar Awards speaks with Forbes India
What compelled you to go for this sequel? Was it just about leveraging the public sentiment post the credit crunch — emotions are running high — people have lost their jobs, houses and money. Or is there a message intended?
To begin with, I don’t see it as a sequel.
Ideally sequels should be done in a few years time after the first release. Then they have the natural advantage of recognition factor. Now, Money Never Sleeps is 23 years post the original movie. This is a separate story all together… a new generation, a new feeling, all new characters.
The background for Wall Street was the 1980s era….Reagan policies, era of deregulation, 1987 crash, etc.
Money Never Sleeps is set against 2008 — a bigger crash…which was almost a triple bypass. It was a warning to the regulatory system that the US and the world were living beyond their means. The 2008 crash is just a background here. The fall of Frank Langella’s bank was derived from the way Bear Sterns and Lehman Brothers were allowed to crash by the big banks on the Street.
But otherwise it is a family drama with six central characters spread across three generations. Complex relationships between a mother and her son, a father and his daughter and a boss and his subordinate. And of course the two larger than life characters Gordon Gekko and Bretton James.
This movie too like the earlier Wall Street is about money versus family and love. In the previous movie, a young man (Bud Fox) goes on to sell out his father, his father’s company for Gekko’s profits and in this movie, another young man (Jake Moore) betrays his girlfriend while pursuing his aspirations. Actually, in that respect it is very similar to Bollywood and the Indian cycles of history.
Gekko is in his 60s — reformed and just out of prison. James is in his 40s and the bad guy who is hungry for more. And Moore is in his 20s, relatively amateur and looking forward to learning the tricks of the trade. I don’t necessarily make movies to give messages to my audiences. I make movies because it is exciting to make movies and I want to entertain the movie watching audiences. However, I would like to emphasise that money doesn’t make happiness.
Considering that the original Wall Street derived heavily from the excesses of the 1980s (free market capitalist policies, insider trading, corporate raiders et al), what were the influences for Money Never Sleeps?
Like I mentioned, the 2008 crash is just the background. The resemblance to some vital financial events of 2008 cannot be ignored. But it is just a portrayal of our times….how we have been operating perilously.
Wall Street glorified greed and the financial world failed to learn its lessons. Does Money Never Sleeps expect to bring in a sense of moral deterrence?
Actually I don’t operate like that. The background may revolve around socially conscious behaviour but at the end of the day, people need to be entertained. I agree that the original Wall Street didn’t do anything to invoke any such sentiments.
The thing is that the entire system runs on greed. Gekko was an outsider in 1987. The generations after him became hedge fund managers in 1990s and bankers in the early part of this century and were insiders.
The motives of all three were pretty similar — plunder the economy. What changed was that the hedge fund managers and the banker operated within the frameworks of the law and got greedier.
We, as a reformed society, ushered in capitalism and failed by deregulating all the rules of dealing. Banks were cut loose and then bailouts from taxpayers’ money came. I am not sure if capitalism in its current form can even survive.
What differences do you see between the 1987 capitalism and what we have seen in the last two years?
(This story appears in the 08 October, 2010 issue of Forbes India. To visit our Archives, click here.)