Martin Scorsese Discusses THE WOLF OF WALL STREET Kerfuffle

© 2013 Paramount Pictures. All Rights Reserved

Martin Scorsese has excavated the terrain of the American crime drama from multiple angles – but with THE WOLF OF WALL STREET he goes straight to the edge with a tale from the outrageous and darkly comic realm of our most contemporary variety of criminal extortion: high finance. The result is an epic trip into intoxication — intoxication by greed, adrenaline, sex, drugs and the constant churning of all too easy money.

“This is a story about the profane as opposed to the sacred, the obscene as opposed to the decent. Yet it’s not an expose. I mean the obscenity, the profanity, it’s all right there. It’s in plain sight. It’s part of the very fabric of the culture. Yet ultimately I think it comes out that this is a lifestyle – the ‘lifestyles of the rich and famous’ as the TV show had it — that becomes about avoiding yourself, or a fear of being alone with yourself.”

It’s for that reason that the film has made viewers and critics so uncomfortable. Many have been shocked by the sheer dauntlessness of Scorsese’s leap into unexpurgated depravity.

Based on a true story, THE WOLF OF WALL STREET follows the outlandish rise and non-stop pleasure-hunting descent of Jordan Belfort (Leonardo DiCaprio), the New York stockbroker who, along with his merry band of brokers, makes a gargantuan fortune by defrauding investors out of millions.

Gold Derby editor Tom O’Neil recently spoke with the Oscar-winning director about his latest film. When it comes to accolades and reception, the veteran director is used to a less than enthusiastic response. “We got to make the pictures. I can’t complain.”

During the 15 minute conversation, O’Neil and Scorsese discussed how Oscar voters will view it, was it his intention to cause a sensation and will he ever make a movie from the female perspective.

Over the weekend, co-star Jonah Hill came to the aid of the director and film at Variety’s Annual Brunch In Palm Springs. He says the film has been “misunderstood.”

“I personally take away the message from the film that this behavior, this lifestyle, leads to a very bad ending,” the actor said. “I think the movie is not glorifying this behavior, it is showing that it leads to bad places whether their judicial punishment doesn’t reflect that is one thing. Where your life ends up, who you are as a person, is another.”

Scorsese also defended his movie in an interview with Deadline.com. “This is about human weakness. If we don’t recognize it, if we don’t say it exists, it’s not going to go away.” (Martin Scorsese On ‘Wolf Of Wall Street:’ A Happy, Moral Ending To Scandalous Stockbroker Expose Would Have Turned It Into A TV Movie)

The filmmaker has always put forth characters who are flawed and ambitious and and this one is no different.

“Jordan’s someone who led a life that wasn’t exemplary, that was pretty ignoble in a way,” says Scorsese.

“Not because he wanted to harm anybody per se but because this is what he learned from the world around him. So that’s something that I’ve always been attracted to and is interesting to me – people like Jordan or Jake LaMotta or Tommy, Joe Pesci’s character in ‘Goodfellas.’  People try to distance themselves from these kinds of characters: it’s someone else; he’s not like me. But in actuality I feel it’s not someone else. It is us. It’s you and me and if we had been born under different circumstances we maybe would have wound up making the same mistakes and choices and doing exactly the same things. I’m interested in acknowledging that part of these characters which is in our common humanity and we have to deal with it.”

Director/Producer Martin Scorsese (right) discusses a scene with Producer Leonardo DiCaprio (as Jordan Belfort, left) on the set of THE WOLF OF WALL STREET, from Paramount Pictures and Red Granite Pictures. (c) 2013 Paramount Pictures. All Rights Reserved.