Wolf Of Wall Street Psychoanalysis

The lack
Satisfaction with life in general
Drugs - lots of em "how the fuck else would you do this job?"
We don't really want what we think we desire - desires money to buy things that will deliver them immediate desire instead of long-term happiness.
Fantasies have to be unrealistic, because the moment, the second you get what you seek, you don't, you cant want it anymore. In order to continue to exist, desire must have its objects perpetually absent.

Jordon is free from the chains of the Oedipus complex - why we feel for him. We kind of root for him because he is our reflection of our Id.

Jordan is the Id. He does precisely what he needs to do to get what he thinks he really wants.

In the scene with Mathew's character (the boss) and Jordan at the table, theres irony in the way Mathew talks about the clients. He says: "they're fucking addicted", the exact same could be said about these two characters and others on Wall Street. They enjoy the thrill of achieving their goal; making money.

"I was hooked in seconds" says Jordan over narration as he he's the sound of money: "You wanna know what money sounds like? Go to a trading floor on Wall Street"

At the end of the film Jordan doesn't learn from his mistakes. "Its all about revolutions". He claims to have cleaned up after he crashes his car, yet still chases money.


"The point of Lacan, and what makes Lacan's reading of desire, different from Brooks' and indeed what makes his reading of desire different from that of anyone who thinks of these structuralist issues in psychoanalytic terms, is that Lacan really doesn't believe that we can ever have what we desire. He has no doubt that we can have what we need. He makes the fundamental distinction, between having what we desire and having what we need. The distinction is often put between the distinction of the big "Other" (which one can never appropriate as an object of desire, it is perpetually and always elusive) and the little object of desire (which is not really an object at all, but is available to satisfy need).
Socio-biologically you can get what you need.
Psychoanalytically you can not get what you desire. (The big "Other")
To care is to be anxious - Jordan doesn't care throughout his schemes.

"be careful what you wish for you just might get it"

Notes from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=57RhO4ByhcA:
According to french philosopher Gilles Deleuze and militant Felix Guattari the desire for oppression comes from the belief that people should repress their desires. Through this technique of repression, the masses are primed to accept fascism. Fascism is the fascination with and love of power. People yearn to be ruled, humiliated and dominated. They're aroused by their unconscious desires to submit to strength.

Notes from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IehFdgKPJB0:
"Sam Polk, a former Wall Street trader, decided to leave his job at the age of 30 because he realised he'd developed a severe addiction to money and he hated the culture that existed on Wall Street.
In a piece in The New York Times, he was extremely honest and candid about his experiences, he talked about how government officials were like buddy's and the members of wall street were treated like royalty" - Anna Kasparian

Polk stated:
 "One of the things I came to realize was I had been using money as this thing that would quell all my fears. So I had this belief that maybe some day I would get enough money that I would no longer be scared ... I would feel successful. And one of the things I learned on Wall Street was no matter how much money I made, the money was never going to do it."

There is no end to greed
you feel like a victim when the guy next to you has gotten a bigger bonus.
Happiness has been taken and twisted by American culture - happiness always has to do with money or career success. You should focus on the things that money cant buy like your health, your family your love, you cant directly get that from money. in this environment people don't get that.

appreciation can be tough when the grass is always green on the other side.
Jordan Belfort seemed to have a desire to become happier. When it went bad he just indulged in more.

Cenk Uyger - "The paradox of the successful man is what drives him to be successful is that he's never satisfied, but that's precisely what makes his success irrelevant."

From commenter Helghastl33t: "It confirms my suspicions, they don't even know what they are doing. No massive conspiracy, no evil master plan. Pure base vices running wild in a system that not only allows it but encourages it. Active money management should become illegal, institutions trading money for moneys sake or speculating on goods purely for financial gain is a form of parasitism and no good can ever come from it."

Belfort seemed to have little patience when he had little and little gratitude and respect when he had everything.

From https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l3fzFUs-hYM:

If we're all greedy we can win together - this is the essence of Wall Street character Gordon Gekko
Greed only works at the expense of others in a connected capitalist society
Belfort unlike Gekko makes no moral argument on screen - he knows what he is doing is wrong yet he does it anyway.
Theres no tragedy haunting his steps like the downfall of Gordon Gekko or the extreme paranoia and eventual disappearance of Henry Hill from Goodfellas.
When Belfort eventually goes to prison in the film he narrates: "see for a brief fleeting moment, I'd forgotten I was rich, and I lived in a place where everything was for sale" he says this as we see him play tennis in jail.
Belforts crimes are met with minimal physical and psychological punishment. The real Jordon even introduces his character as: "the single badest motherfucker I have ever met" - its no surprise the film was deemed to have glorified, unapologetically and endorsing capitalist excess. The film doesn't offer the negative critique like Goodfellas, it doesn't even offer a satirical critique such as in American psycho.
The joke is never on Jordon, its on everyone else.
Like Spring Breakers, the film explores excess and is constructed of excess e.g the three hour runtime, the endless montages.
However refusing to critique doesn't mean by extension Scorsese is endorsing.
His extensive use of close-up reveals his vulgarity of this way of living. The montages exorst instead of glamourize. Pretty is less distracting than disorienting, less desirable than overwhelming.
The excesses of Jordon Belfort are OUR excesses; like him we're too enlightened to know the expensive of which our gazillion products are made, like him we don't make any attempt to moralise our way through the system, like him, we just don't care. The disgust we feel for Belfort is hypocritical. The indignation we inflict on him is less a righteous act than a self-righteous delusion.

The film is so unapologetically excessive that the audience might finally realise that the screen they thought they were watching was in fact a camera.