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国庆长假可看这几部电影,读懂金融危机

国庆长假可看这几部电影,读懂金融危机

Tom Huddleston. Jr 2017-10-04
2008年金融危机到底怎么回事?看完这七部电影就知道了。

电影《华尔街2:金钱永不眠》剧照 | 图片来源:视觉中国

1.《大空头》

电影《大空头》于2015年12月23日在全美上映,成为好莱坞影片将2008年金融危机直接归咎于华尔街的最新力作。

本片改变自迈克尔·刘易斯2010年出版的同名小说,由维亚康姆公司旗下的派拉蒙影业制作,讲的是几位流氓投资人预见到了楼市和信贷泡沫,并在美国经济崩溃前通过做空这些泡沫赚了钱。

到目前为止,影评人一直在称赞这部电影,理由是它多变而浮华的风格激活了这个笨拙的主题。《大空头》甚至成了奥斯卡热门,这要得益于它聪明地处理了一个困难题材而且拥有星光闪耀的卡司,比如布拉德·皮特、克里斯蒂安·贝尔、瑞恩·高斯林和史蒂夫·卡瑞尔(只是《财富》杂志专栏作家克里斯·马修斯指出,该片以及原著小说的可改进之处在于将焦点放大到美国金融系统以外)。

本片由亚当·麦凯(《王牌播音员》、《非亲兄弟》)执导,对于谁应该为美国经济崩溃负责的问题,创作团队同样非常直白。娱乐新闻网站Vulture把《大空头》称为“关于华尔街的终极愤怒影片”,而且和原著小说一样,影片显然把金融危机怪罪于贪婪的投行人士。当然,它并不是第一部这样做的电影,只是有些影片采用了更平衡的处理方式,另一些则从独特的角度展示了这场危机。以下六部影片(故事片和纪录片)就对2008年金融危机进行了不同的处理。

2.《大而不倒》

在描绘金融危机背后投行人士和监管者群像的好莱坞电影中,2011年的《大而不倒》可能是最平衡的一部。时代华纳子公司HBO拍摄的这部影片改编自安德鲁·罗斯·索尔金的小说,它展现了2008年金融危机中的情景,并讲述了华尔街大佬和监管者秘密会面,商讨联邦政府援救金融行业的故事。HBO邀请了一批明星来扮演投行和投资界大腕,比如沃伦·巴菲特、摩根大通CEO吉米·戴蒙以及时任财政部长的亨利·保尔森和美联储主席本·伯南克。影片相当出色,《财富》杂志高级自由编辑帕蒂·塞勒斯在影片首映时指出,演员保罗·吉亚玛提“漂亮地扮演了伯南克”,而马修·莫迪恩饰演的美林前CEO约翰·塞恩“恰如其分地展现了人物的顽固和自私”。

3.《监守自盗》

这部2010年上映的纪录片被誉为首批触及2008年金融危机这个沉重主题并将其提炼得易于消化的纪录影片之一。本片由马特·达蒙担任旁白,它向观众展示的内容包括华尔街极度集权局面的发展,投行可疑操作的演化及其在房地产泡沫形成过程中的作用,所有这些最终导致联邦监管机构斥资7000亿美元来援助那些最大的银行,以便它们生存下去。毫无疑问,《监守自盗》是对美国金融行业的无情控诉。它赢得了影评人的支持,也让导演查尔斯·弗格森拿下了当年的奥斯卡最佳纪录长片奖。在获奖感言中(以及随后接受《财富》杂志采访时),弗格森还惋惜地说,金融危机过后一个进监狱的金融公司高管也没有。

4.《资本主义:一个爱情故事》

先于《监守自盗》斩获奥斯卡奖的纪录片是《资本主义:一个爱情故事》,由自由主义倡导者迈克尔·摩尔执导。本片2009年上映,并没有像摩尔的其他影片那样广受影评人称赞,甚至有影评人抱怨说,为了更好地服务于娱乐性,这部影片有时过于简化了美国金融体系以及市场崩溃的某些方面。不过,本片的娱乐性必然有其合理之处,原因是其全球票房收入超过1700万美元,这对任何政治性记录片来说都是一个很高的水平,也是一年多以后《监守自盗》票房的两倍以上。

5.《华尔街:金钱永不眠》

2010年,导演奥利弗·斯通推出了他1987年拍摄的《华尔街》的续集。前作让迈克尔·道格拉斯扮演的戈登·盖柯成为20世纪80年代过剩环境下“烦人精”的标准形象,他那句声名狼藉(而且经常被错误引用)的台词“贪婪……是好的”在这里也起了作用。在20世纪福斯的《华尔街:金钱永不眠》中,回归了的戈登·盖柯多了一些同情心,他想在经济崩溃前向前同事们发出警告,然后又在影片中花了很长一段时间来设法跟关系疏远的女儿重聚。本片用金融危机,特别是虚构的顶尖投行的倒闭来推动情节。人们对这部续集评价不一。但Box Office Mojo的数据显示,它在全球斩获了1.43亿美元票房,而前作剔除通胀因素后的票房约为9000万美元。

6.《商海通牒》

又一部描述金融危机的剧情片,2011年的《商海通牒》是罕见的“金融惊悚片”,它跨越了疯狂的36个小时,讲的是一些华尔街投行人士在楼市崩盘前竭力保护无名雇主的故事。本片导演J·C·查多尔曾获奥斯卡提名,他对投行肆无忌惮地高估抵押贷款支持证券的主题进行了深入挖掘,在影片中这些资产显然有了问题,虚构的投行人士则想方设法要将其迅速脱手。《商海通牒》受到了影评人的欢迎,烂番茄新鲜度为88%,只是这部低成本影片只为母公司狮门影业创造了大约1950万美元全球票房(美国国内票房堪堪突破500万美元。)

7.《凡尔赛宫的女王》

表面上,这是一场有着故事片长度的真人秀,讲的是一个富裕的佛罗里达家庭一次灾难式的(而且俗气的)尝试——他们想按凡尔赛宫的模样造一座9万平方英尺的宫殿。但这部斥责房地产过剩问题的影片也是一幅独特画卷,描述了这个曾经富裕的家庭在经济崩溃时奋力挣扎的过程。房地产泡沫破裂后,西格尔夫妇的分时度假公司Westgate Resorts近年来一直不景气。市场暴跌迫使这家人想方设法为自己的奢侈生活找钱。这部纪录片从西格尔的巨大住宅停工后开始,追踪了这家人被迫裁员和压缩多余开支的过程,目的则是避免丧失这栋巨大而丑陋的烂尾楼的赎回权。(财富中文网)

译者:Charlie

审稿:夏林

1.The Big Short

The movie The Big Short opened in theaters nationwide Dec. 23, and it is the latest example of a Hollywood production laying the blame for the 2008 financial crisis squarely at the feet of Wall Street.

Adapted from the 2010 Michael Lewis book of the same name, the film from Viacom's (via, -1.45%) Paramount Pictures follows a group of rogue investors who predicted the housing and credit bubble and made money betting against the bubble ahead of the nation's economic collapse.

So far, the movie has been praised by critics for its ability to infuse its unwieldy subject matter with levity and flash. The Big Short is even picking up Oscar buzz, thanks to its clever handling of a tough subject and a star-studded cast that includes Brad Pitt, Christian Bale, Ryan Gosling, and Steve Carell. (Though Fortune's Chris Matthews argued the film, and the book it is based on, could improve by expanding their focus beyond just the U.S. financial system.)

The film, from director Adam McKay (Anchorman, Step Brothers), also does not pull punches when it comes to whom its creators feel should be held responsible for the economic collapse. Vulture called The Big Short "The Ultimate Feel-Furious Movie About Wall Street" and, like the book it's based on, the movie clearly pins the blame for the financial crisis on greedy bankers. And, it's certainly not the first film to do just that, though some took a more balanced approach while others covered the collapse from unique angles. Here are six more films (features and documentaries) that have tackled the 2008 financial crisis to varying results:

2. Too Big to Fail

Perhaps the most balanced Hollywood portrayal of the bankers and regulators behind the scenes of the financial crisis is 2011's Too Big to Fail. Time Warner’s (twx, +0.19%) HBO produced this adaptation of the Andrew Ross Sorkin book, which covers the events of the 2008 financial crisis and follows the Wall Street titans who met behind closed doors with regulators to negotiate the federal bailout of the financial industry. HBO enlisted a parade of stars to inhabit the roles of banking and investment bigwigs such as Warren Buffett and JPMorgan (jpm, +1.43%) CEO Jamie Dimon as well as then-Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson and Fed chair Ben Bernanke. And, the results were pretty decent, with Fortune’s Pattie Sellers noting at the time of the movie’s debut that actor Paul Giamatti “plays Bernanke beautifully” while Matthew Modine imbued his portrayal of former Merrill Lynch CEO John Thain “with just the right dose of stiffness and selfishness.”

3. Inside Job

This 2010 documentary has been lauded as one of the first in its form to tackle the cumbersome subject of the 2008 financial collapse and distill it into something easily digested. The result is a Matt Damon-narrated doc that walks viewers through topics such as the development of extreme consolidated power on Wall Street and the evolution of questionable banking practices that helped create the housing bubble, all leading up to federal regulators’ $700 billion bailout that helped keep most big banks afloat. Make no mistake, Inside Job is a scathing indictment of the U.S. financial industry that won over critics, earning director Charles Ferguson an Academy Award for the year’s best documentary. In his acceptance speech (and, later, in an interview with Fortune) Ferguson lamented that no financial executives had gone to jail in the wake of the financial crisis.

4. Capitalism: A Love Story

Before Inside Job, though, there was this entry from Academy Award-winning documentarian, and liberal firebrand, Michael Moore. Released in 2009, Capitalism: A Love Story did not receive quite as much critical acclaim as other Moore films, with some critics complaining that the movie at times over-simplified aspects of the U.S. financial system and the market collapse to better serve the purpose of entertainment. Regardless, the movie must have been reasonably entertaining as it collected more than $17 million in global box office receipts—a solid haul for any political documentary and more than double what Inside Job would earn a year later.

5. Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps

In 2010, director Oliver Stone delivered a follow-up to Wall Street, his 1987 film that spawned Gordon Gekko, the Michael Douglas character who became the standard for slimy caricatures of 1980s excess, helped by his infamous (and often misquoted) line “Greed … is good.” 2oth Century Fox's (fox, -49.53%) Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps brings back Gekko as a somewhat more sympathetic character who attempts to warn his former peers about the economic collapse before it hits and then spends much of the movie trying to reunite with his estranged daughter. The movie uses the financial crisis as a plot device, particularly the collapse of a fictional white-shoe investment bank. The follow-up earned mixed reviews but went on to earn $134 million globally, compared to an inflation-adjusted haul of roughly $90 million for the original, according to Box Office Mojo.

6. Margin Call

Another fictional take on the financial crisis, 2011’s Margin Call is the rare “financial thriller” that takes place over a frenzied 36-hour window in which a group of Wall Street investment bankers scramble to protect their nameless employer on the eve of the housing market’s collapse. The film from Oscar-nominated director J.C. Chandor delves deeply into the subject of banks’ reckless overvaluation of mortgage-back securities, with the film’s fictional bankers looking to quickly dump those assets once it became clear that they were toxic. Margin Call was well-received by critics, receiving an 88% rating on Rotten Tomatoes, though the low-budget film made only about $19.5 million at the worldwide box office (including just over $5 million domestically) for parent company Lionsgate (lgf).

7. The Queen of Versailles

This is ostensibly a feature-length reality show about a wealthy Florida family’s disastrous (and tacky) attempt to build a 90,000-square-foot palace modeled after the onetime home of France’s monarchy. But, this rebuke of real estate excess is also a unique portrait of a once wealthy family struggling to navigate the economic collapse. The Siegels’ timeshare company, Westgate Resorts, had soared on the back of the housing bubble for years and the market’s collapse left the family scrambling to fund their lavish lifestyle. The documentary follows them as construction on the giant home is halted and the family is forced to lay off staff and slash their excessive spending in order to avoid foreclosure on the unfinished monstrosity.

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