True Stories 26: 10s—The Wolf of Wall Street

From last week’s look at bringing down the terrorist Osama bin Laden, to this week’s look at bringing down Jordan Belfort.

I know, I know—I hadn’t heard of him either.

A stockbroker who used shady methods to make piles of money, Belfort wrote a book about his exploits that was made into a film of the same name, The Wolf of Wall Street [2013], screenplay by Terence Winter.

Take a look at the trailer for the film: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GNGCav9fRhc

You’ll note from the trailer that you don’t see exactly what Belfort did to make his money. You know it was sneaky—and eventually even illegal—but you don’t know how he did it. You see the wild antics, the girls, the parties, etc., but you don’t know what he did to get him to the point of being that successful.

This is like a lot of films about criminals—we know going in that they were brought down, that they had to answer for their crimes… eventually—but we get to know the guy behind the crimes and that becomes the interesting part.

So the film works on two levels—we want to see how he managed to manipulate the system to have this incredible success and we also want to see exactly how he was brought down.

It’s common for agents in LA to drum up interest in a writer’s script be saying “It’s a wild ride.” Seems a simple enough selling point, but it’s one that can get a producer or studio exec to read the script—because who doesn’t like a wild ride?

But what does that mean for the writer? How do you make your script into a wild ride?

I think it’s a combination of three things:

[1] You have to choose a fun venue. You can’t set a wild ride in the middle of a war—the two things just don’t fit.

[2] You have to have a main character who is appealing—which isn’t easy. I mean, think about it. You want that character to have an appeal to the audience and yet he/she has done a despicable thing. Practically speaking, this means you have to have someone who’s charming but has a bit of a nefarious streak. Or you have someone who’s despicable on the surface but underneath we discover that his/her childhood or something caused them to be the way they are.

[3] You have to see the character get his just rewards. In other words, you have to see him brought down. I almost don’t like that this is a given—but audiences, though they love watching a scoundrel, they generally don’t want him to get away with it.

So it’s hard work telling the story of a criminal—but it can be just as much fun to write as it is to watch!

Next week, a film that also came out in 2012, but is about as far from a wild ride as you can get: 12 Years a Slave.

Copyright © Diane Lake

04Dec22

Email Diane a question to Diane@DianeLake.com