Its origins may be difficult to trace, but if Martin Scorsese did not invent popular subjective cinema, at the very least he pioneered and perfected it. Beginning most notably with Taxi Driver and continuing through Raging Bull and The King of Comedy, the subjective experience Scorsese popularized was the type of film that felt as though it could have been made by its own subject himself; the story is told through their eyes, or maybe more accurately, through their frame of mind.
This is a bit of a difficult concept to grasp, or at least it was for me. Any time a movie itself—its feel, its tone, its atmosphere, and other descriptors that are frustratingly unclear—adopts the identity of its character, it has a tendency to alienate because its viewpoint is usually so alien to us in the audience. But if accepted on its own terms, it can be one of the most illuminating experiences uniquely suited for movies.
So all that being said, the importance of Jordan Belfort’s idiosyncratic narration is to remind us that we’re seeing this all from his perspective, and the similar perspective of his peers, which is why, like in Goodfellas, this has to be expressed through the act of making the lifestyle appealing on some level. Jordan’s parties are crazy, and at times can seem like fun, the way music videos seem like fun for a moment or two before you think of how phony they are. It’s that moment of pause, of witnessing yet another out-of-control party and another drug-induced meltdown, that gives us the distance necessary to step outside ourselves, outside of Jordan, and recognize the whole scene is deeply messed up.
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