It's Not Always Pretty!

One of the knocks against Scorcese's new movie is that it "glorifies" low-lifes and scumbags. This is funny. Just by putting a camera on a character it somehow glorifies that character? I suppose you could say the same of just about any movie Scorcese has ever made.  Think Jake Lamotta, or Tony Spilotro, or Henry Hill, or Frank Rosenthal, or Travis Bickle.  A pretty motley, low-life crew.

Where does Jordan Belfort fit in this spectrum? Well, he ripped off a lot of people. But he didn't kill anyone. Oh yeah, he did more drugs, had more sex, and lived a lifestyle of bling that would put Caligua to shame, but compared to the mobsters in "Good Fellas" or in "Casino" Belfort's crimes fall short of the brutality of some of those thugs and murderers.

And if we took out novels and plays and movies about low-lifes and scumbags, we'd have to forget about some the great works from some of my favorites, including plays and novels from these guys: Shakespeare, Dostoyevski, Nelson Algren, Charles Bukowski, Jean Genet, Jack Kerouac, Hubert Selby Jr., Sam Shepard, etc. … and most of David Lynch's work and the best films of Francis Coppola too!

I think these guys and Scorcese tell very,very human stories, stories about humans… and it's not always pretty, not always uplifting, but most of the time very illuminating!