2023-10-04 18:00:55
BarcelonaAt the beginning of 2021, an online community of small hobby investors turned the chain of video game stores GameStop into one of the most highly valued companies on the stock market of Wall Street. This popular insurrection led by youtubers and trolls and fueled by internet memes put the big financial funds on the ropes and forced them to pay attention to the rampoines of small investors. Craig Gillespie (Cruella i Joe, Tonya) brings a true David vs. Goliath story to the big screen that hits theaters this Friday with a powerful cast: Paul Dano, Pete Davidson, Seth Rogen, Shailene Woodley and America Ferrera.
How did you discover this story?
— Thanks to my 24-year-old son, who during the confinement became attached to the story and didn’t talk about anything else. He bought GameStop stock for a few hundred dollars and did well – he sold it the day before the buy and sell app went down and the stock price plummeted causing great distress and frustration in the networks
Is that when you saw that there was a movie there?
— I should have noticed, right? But no, I was busy with another project with some screenwriters and it didn’t even cross my mind. But at the same time, I talked to them about the subject every day. And when that project fell through, they wrote a script on the subject that had everything: an emotional arc, interesting characters, and the point of view of Reddit users.
Did they talk to Keith Gill, the youtuber who does paul dano play in the movie?
— We started from the book The antisocial network by Ben Mezrich, the author of the book about Facebook on which the film was based The social network by David Fincher. Mezrich tried to talk to Gill, but was unsuccessful. We tried that too, before and during the shoot, and nothing. After the uproar he completely disappeared from public life and we must respect his wish for privacy.
The film reveals at the end the GameStop shares that each character has, but not Gill’s.
— Yes, no one knows exactly. The last information we have is from April 2021. He could have sold them. But that only made us stick even more to the verified information we did have and the only interview he gave at the time, that of Wall Street Journal.
How does the movement culture emerging around Game Stop differ from that of cryptocurrency investors?
— We are talking about internet culture centered on the stock market. What sets GameStop’s movement apart, I think, is the impact of covid and the frustration it generated over the loss of jobs and lives and the lack of government aid. All this and the great disparity of wealth in society directed people’s fury towards the Wall Street capital funds, which had always considered small investors as a peripheral and irrelevant factor. Now, instead, they have the power to move the market, and Wall Street needs to pay attention to them.
The small investors in GameStop have an anti-establishment speech and present themselves as disruptive activists, but in the end, isn’t getting rich what they want? Isn’t capitalism and the American dream behind their actions?
– It is complicated. There are users who were only interested in making money and inflating the value of the stock, but many people got involved to be part of a social movement and express a stance. The problem is that they found themselves in a conflicting situation when the stock went up a lot. For them, making money from stocks went against their beliefs, but at some point they had to make a decision to think about themselves or the movement. In the film, we represent these contradictory feelings through the character of America Ferrera.
The camera movement and editing style evoke the energy of Martin Scorsese’s cinema. Is it a referral?
— I really like Scorsese and, definitely, he was a reference to Joe, Tonya, especially the aggressive camera movements of his early work, and also the contrast between the song we hear and what we see on screen: aggressive music for sad moments, or violent for a beautiful scene. But Golpe a Wall Street is more traditional than Joe, Tonya o Cruella, which had about fifty songs each. There are maybe eight or ten here, just.
A Golpe a Wall Street there is a comment on the idea of success and failure in the United States that also resonates in other films of his like Joe, Tonya i Cruellaor even in series he has directed as Physical o Pam & Tommy.
— I am definitely interested in the figures that are outside the system. I don’t know exactly why, I guess I’ll find out in therapy. A Joe, Tonya i Pam & Tommy I wanted to hold a mirror up to us as a society and talk about our relationship with the media and how we judge and consume people. A Golpe a Wall Street I’m talking more about how networks connect us and allow us to create a great community, and the role it can play in society. I always try to make some social comment.
A Pam & Tommy featured a hilarious conversation between Tommy Lee and his penis. How did he get them to let him do it?
— Honestly, I wouldn’t have considered it if it weren’t for Sebastian Stan, the actor who plays Tommy Lee. Sebastian approaches the character with complete sincerity, without winking at the viewer. And that’s the only way you can get out of such a scene alive, with a brutal honesty that challenges you to laugh.
By the way, what do you think the world has discovered with Barbie Ryan Gosling as a crazed comedy actor? You directed it in 2007 Lars and a real girl where, in fact, he already played a man in love with a plastic doll.
— [Riu] I love it. In person, Ryan has a very goofy and comedic side and I love that he gets to show it more now. He has a great sense of comedic rhythm and has the ability to walk the line between gag and latent emotion. A Barbie it was hilarious and the musical scenes are the best.
Trailer for ‘Wall Street Blow’
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