The evil within: The Wolf highlights the frightening
truth behind
the masks we all wear. Sol
columnist Luis Osorio on whether his
nation of Portugal can rewrite
the book on greed and selfishness.
Portugal in Turmoil: Wolf of Wall Street Unmasks Us All (Sol,
Portugal)
"The moral is amoral.
... Scorsese does the unthinkable: he makes the viewer a central actor in the
film. Every chuckle is bitter proof that like those on screen, we, too, would
like to be rich, take what's good in life for ourselves, nice cars, desirable
women and men, and wearing masks that conceal our ambitions. ... Evil is the
scariest when it assumes forms that contemplate no guilt whatsoever. ... We
need to look at this. Wash the streets of politicking. Invent new projects. New
parties. New unions. New players. New words. ... In Portugal, our PhDs and
post-docs, people atop the academic pyramid and immortalized with tenure, are
now having their pensions cut, and don't even have a right to unemployment benefits.
I return to the issue because ... this is the most shameful example of how low
the state has sunk."
German Chancellor Angela Merkel is pilloried by protesters in Portugal. German insistance on harsh austerity in return for a series of financial bailouts may have preserved the euro, but it has made Germany southern Europe's most unpopular nation.
For
The Wolf of Wall Street, Martin
Scorsese's latest work, I sat in the second row. No one in front of me and no one
behind - a full house. From beginning to end, there was laughter, popcorn, and high
spirits. At the Golden Globes, the movie was categorized as a comedy/musical,
and that's just as it should be.
Only
The Wolf is an amazing journey into
hell. A trip to a place within ourselves where everything is for sale and open
to being corrupted, bought, deceived. The moral is amoral. Of primary concern is taking pleasure in the material, bodily
sensation, the voluptuousness of the senses, always striving to go further and
deeper. Scorsese does the unthinkable: he makes the viewer a central actor in the
film. Every chuckle is bitter proof that like those on screen, we, too, would
like to be rich, take what's good in life for ourselves, nice cars, desirable
women and men, and wearing masks that conceal our ambitions.
In
the final scene, Jordan Belfort (played by Leonardo Di Caprio),
after having been convicted and serving his time, is presented to an audience
eager to hear him explain how each can fulfill their dream of one day being
like him.
Evil
is the scariest when it assumes forms that contemplate no guilt whatsoever. I,
too, laughed at the greed of Belfort and Donnie (played by the extraordinary
Jonah Hill), then the following day, in the pages of a daily newspaper, I read
several news items referring me to the film.
News
items that refer to "tips" shadow men "offer" to sell
shares that will rise in value the following day, offering a passport to a life
free of financial concern. No one gets hurt, and above all, no one goes to bed
guilty or with a "monkey on his back." It’s a matter of opportunity,
little or nothing of which collides with reality. Almost everyone knows that
everything is virtual, a game where those who don’t help themselves when they
can are nothing but nerds and geeks, which is how children who are different
are today described in our schools.
There's
no guilt, because deep down, we don't recognize those who "launder"
money, "traffic" in stock market tips or authorize the opening
up of publicly protected land as criminals.
In
fact, if we have land and cultivate it, men with calloused hands, well schooled
in the secrets of the hoe, tell me that weeds grow faster than other more
benign plants. I think the same happens in the cement of the city - evil is
unstoppable, fast and surprising, because it multiplies so invisibly.
I
left Scorsese's film anguished, silenced. Not that I'm all that different from
the others, but because I wasn’t quite sure how I’d react if a blank check were
put in front of me. If a "friend" phoned me today and said to buy
shares and sell them tomorrow because I’d get 500 percent on my investment,
would I buy them? Would I have the strength not to? There is nothing as scary
as the idea that we can do evil without it appearing malevolent.
How
many baths must we take for the water to pass through the skin and wash our
insides? It would be so much easier if we could just cover our souls with foam,
rinse it off and perfume it. How much water are we talking about? Where would
we find it? Not water that washes our bodies, but water that doesn’t get us
wet, doesn’t require a towel, and that cleanses us on the inside. Water that
leaves us as new. Reinforced. Where is it?
Posted By
Worldmeets.US
I
do not know. I know we need to look at this. Wash the streets of politicking.
Invent new projects. New parties. New unions. New players. New words, because
at this point, the old ones have lost their relevance: entrepreneurship,
innovation, growth, responsibility, excellence.
Words
that are worth as much as "love" or "passion" to a
squabbling couple. In Portugal, our PhDs and post-docs, people atop the
academic pyramid and immortalized with tenure, are now having their pensions
cut (having worked many a long year for the state regime), and don't even have
a right to unemployment benefits. There are hundreds of such cases in Portugal,
and I return to the issue because, among those who are able to speak, and I
certainly have done so, this is the most shameful example of how low the state has
sunk.
Look
at it again, tell the story in a new way, write a different kind of book. If
perhaps we can no longer read, at least it might be read by our grandchildren - who
knows? A few months ago, also in connection with finding a new story, I began a
to write a tale about an unhappy man.
He
lived in a house with no windows. He dwelled in silence and forgot words -
because he didn’t use them. One day a seller of blank books knocked on his
door. He offered to pay him to write a book, and if the book seller liked it,
he’d pay double for the next one. The man began examining the empty book that night. Slowly, up to
the end of page 800, which was as white and empty as all the rest, things
suddenly seemed different: he was no longer unhappy. There were windows again
and books that had words. And on the table was that first book, the one that
was offered him, with the 800 pages filled - with the words of a new story.
