The Dark Knight

 SPOILER ALERT! The plot will be discussed.

Before analyzing the next film, I’m following up one Christopher Nolan film, The Prestige, with a brief discussion of the characters in another movie of his, The Dark Knight (2008). This post springs from a viewing and class focusing on the second story in the Nolan trilogy recently held at the Bryn Mawr Film Institute.

Nolan explores the two sides of individuals in his films. Sort of a take on the superego and the id. He does it in Memento and The Prestige, and there is certainly a dark side in Oppenheimer. The punning title of The Dark Knight reminds us that Batman is, like the animal he has adopted as his persona, a creature of the night, but a person who wants to champion good over evil. However, as the Joker asks, is he also the catalyst that brings about dangerous side-effects? Vigilantes mimic him and are harmed, and one is killed. Batman (Christian Bale) bypasses the justice system by doing unlawful acts, as he unlawfully kidnaps the Asian banker, Lau (Chin Han), and beats up Joker in custody (even if we applaud it. What does that say about us?). He taps into everybody’s cell phone in Gotham to find out Joker’s location. He tampers with crime scenes, not sharing his technology with the police to analyze evidence. Do the ends always justify the means?

Harvey Dent (Aaron Eckhart) was called Two-Face because he worked for internal affairs at one point, investigating criminality in the police department. So, cops considered him to be a policeman but also a traitor. Bruce Wayne, Batman’s legitimate front man (is he really the disguise and Batman the true version of Wayne?) sees Harvey as a way to get out of the vigilante business. Harvey appears through most of the story as a white knight, a hero not needing a mask, whose goodness is uncompromised, who fights crime through legal channels, and has won over Rachel (Maggie Gyllenhaal), Bruce’s love. In a way, Harvey is Bruce’s legitimate surrogate, who Bruce wishes he could be, who deserves to get the girl. Bruce hopes that if he no longer must be Batman, then he can go legit, and win back Rachel. But Joker will have none of that. He wants to keep Batman in the game to expose his true identity behind the mask. Symbolically it also means revealing Batman’s darker tendencies can’t be separated from the supposedly legitimate person wearing the costume. When Harvey literally becomes two-faced after the explosion, it reveals how the dark side of his personality can take over as it can for anyone who sees the world’s rules as unjust. In his own way Harvey becomes a vigilante to avenge the corruption that led to the murder of Rachel. As our instructor pointed out, Batman and Joker wage their war over Harvey’s soul. Joker wants to show that everyone’s nature, once stripped away from the socially acceptable façade, is destructive. In the end, Joker wins when it comes to Harvey.

The most interesting character is, of course, Joker, played perfectly by the late Heath Ledger in a supporting Oscar-winning performance. Joker tells the defaced Harvey that he is a true outlaw. He is not a schemer, a planner, like the other leaders of society. He is chaos, which he sees as the natural state of humankind.  As Alfred (Michael Caine) says to Bruce, there are some people “who just want to see the world burn.” Joker crafts situations where people must act on their selfish, anti-social drives. For example, after he infiltrates a criminal organization (that criminals should organize is a joke to the Joker), he breaks a pool stick so that two of the crooks must use the splintered weapon to fight to the death to survive and join his gang. Of course, as is shown by the opening scene, survival is not guaranteed if one joins the Joker, whose associates are mostly anti-social misfits. He shows Batman that he can’t save Rachel, that his heroic efforts will not triumph.

Writer/director Nolan gives us several images that show how Joker subverts what we consider is worthwhile about society. Joker uses school buses to transport his band of criminals, which contrasts the innocence of children with the depravity of criminals. Joker and his band of outlaws dress up as policemen and use police cars, showing that those who we think can protect us can’t. Indeed, he kidnaps Rachel and Harvey with the help of corrupt cops. To divert the police caravan to the underground road, he sets on fire a fire engine to block the planned (that word again) passage. The vehicle that is meant to protect us from flames is negated by being consumed by them. (Observe how the police escort goes underground, the place where, for the Joker, we all genuinely belong, in the selfish id of our personalities). Joker masquerades as a nurse at the hospital where Harvey is a patient. Nurses are supposed to care for others, but Joker does not even leave angels of mercy unsoiled. He blows up the hospital, showing how pointless it is to seek sanctuary anywhere. Even Joker’s makeup in this film is nightmarish. He looks like a demon from hell, not the happy clown that is meant to make children laugh. When Batman captures Joker at the end, the criminal hangs upside down, showing how he is in opposition to society, But the camera rotates the shot, and he becomes right-side up. The suggestion is that, like in Stranger Things, the upside-down, the darker side of reality, can become the norm.

There is hope toward the end of the film. As one student insightfully pointed out, those individuals on the ferries do not give into selfishness and refuse to destroy passengers on the other boat to save themselves. Even the transported criminals on one craft do the right thing, indicating that redemption is possible. These are unsung heroes, who have no names, do not have fancy technology, or Ninja skills. Yet, they upstage the high-profile crimefighters, Batman, the police commissioner, and the mayor.

However, the darkened character of Harvey Dent threatens any hope of saving Gotham. Batman and Gordon (Gary Oldman) decide that Harvey’s character must remain untarnished, and that Batman must shoulder the sins of others, Christ-like, to save the soul of the city. In other words, they determine that, ironically, salvation should rely on a lie.

The next film is Europa, Europa.

The Prestige

 SPOILER ALERT! The plot will be discussed.

Director/writer Christopher Nolan has given us complex films (Memento, Inception, Interstellar). Here he uses the story of competing magicians in The Prestige (2006) to explore what defines one’s identity. He also uses the performers as a metaphorical vehicle to explore the magic of filmmaking, which is also an illusory art, and how far some may go to succeed in the creative process to achieve recognition, or “prestige.”

The story takes place in 19^th century England and begins with Cutter (Michael Caine) doing a voice-over that describes the three parts of a magic trick. The “pledge” introduces something ordinary. In Nolan’s case, where nothing is ordinary, he presents some intriguing events that will be explored later but for now sets us up for what is happening in the present. The “pledge” is followed by the “turn,” which is a special action, like making something disappear. Cutter says the audience wants to know how the magician did that exceptional move, but “You don’t really want to know. You want to be fooled.” Cutter is talking about the willing suspension of disbelief, which is necessary to buy into stories, and which the filmmaker depends upon. The third part of the trick is the “prestige,” which, through a surprising act uses the “magic” to return things to the way they were before the start of the trick.

Nolan actually subverts these parts. His opening gives us intriguing shots he will expand upon later to lead us up to the present, which is one of three timelines in the film. The first image is of something common, a top hat, but there is a field filled with them, making it unusual. As Cutter speaks he is telling the parts of a trick to a little girl, Jess (Samantha Mahurin), which we later discover is the child of magician Alfred Borden (Christian Bale), and this scene will reappear at the end of the movie. There are shots of the other magician, Robert Angier (Hugh Jackman) performing his transporter trick on stage amid electrical discharges from a machine. There is a worker there who is blind – a clue. He drops through a trapdoor into a tank of water which the astounded Borden witnesses.

Nolan then transports us to a courtroom where Borden is on trial for the murder of Angier. The depiction of current events is the first timeline. Cutter, Angier’s magic trick engineer, is testifying, saying Borden placed the tank under the trapdoor to drown his competitor. Cutter is not willing to reveal the details of the “transported man” trick Angier was performing at the time of his death since it is very sought after and knowledge of the trick would render the act worthless. He reveals to the judge in private that a “wizard” invented the electrical machine which was not an illusion, but did what it appeared to do. This statement is a half-truth, as we discover, and fits in with the theme of illusion versus reality in the story. He tells the judge that magicians dress up “plain” and “sometimes brutal truths.” Like most artists, they present truth clothed in fiction. He says that the water tank joined the two men in an awful way, which we later learn.

Owens (Roger Rees), a lawyer, visits Borden in jail. He says he represents Lord Caldlow who wants to buy Borden’s version of the “transported man,” and has already purchased all of Angier’s belongings. Borden refuses, and Owens uses Jess’s fate as leverage, saying Caldlow will intervene to save her from becoming an orphan in a workhouse. He also gives Borden Angier’s diary which relates his attempt to find out about Borden’s transporting trick. Later, Fallon, Borden’s engineer, nods his confirmation that the state will put Jess in an orphan work program after Borden is hanged. Borden tells Fallon to get in touch with the lawyer, Owens, that he has reconsidered selling him his transported man trick. He hasn’t lost his skill despite the finger loss as he fools a nasty guard by securing the man in a leg chain.

The contents of the diary are the second timeline in the film. The diary tells of Angier trying to decode Borden’s notebook (we later learn how he acquired it), which needs a five-letter encrypted word reveal Borden’s illusions. Angier travels to Colorado to meet the now-renowned Tesla (David Bowie) who Angier believes helped Borden do his famous trick. (Angier is limping, and we learn of the injury further on. He also wears a hat like those in the first shot. More of Nolan’s teasers). Angier is already a known magician under the name The Great Danton. The question of what is one’s true identity enters here, as we see later that disguises are used in various ways to trick others, and of course the audience, which is part of showmanship.

As Angier reads Borden’s notebook (which is a story within a story), the movie presents the third timeline. It relates how Angier and Borden in the past worked for magician Milton (Ricky Jay), along with Cutter. Angier and Borden pretended to be members of the audience and tied the wrists and feet of Julia (Piper Parabo) in a water-escape trick (we have an echo here of Angier drowning in the water tank in the first montage). Angier kisses Julia’s leg while he puts rope around it, and Cutter divulges their relationship when he says Angier could be seen kissing his “wife.” Borden complains that Milton’s act is boring, and he thinks there should be more risky tricks like the bullet-catching bit. Cutter says that an audience member could substitute a button instead of the blank and kill someone. He also warns Borden about the type of knot that Borden uses on Julia’s wrists, which may look better but is difficult to slip off. (There is a foreshadowing here).

Cutter tests the men’s magical insight by sending them to see a Chinese magician make a large fishbowl with water and a fish appear from behind a scarf. Borden says the magician held it between his legs under his robes. He walks in a halting manner in real life to hide his deception. Again, what appears on the surface is not a true picture. Borden says the real trick is his daily performance, pretending to be handicapped. It is the Chinese magician’s devotion to his craft that Borden admires. Nolan could be saying the same about any artist committed to his work.

Angier can barely hold the fishbowl without water, and marvels as to how the Chinese magician lives his act, pretending to be a cripple. Angier has his own secret, which we get a hint of when he says he uses a fake name so his family will not know he is trying to be an entertainer. The implication is that he comes from a prestigious family who would not cherish him trying to earn a magician’s prestige. The film stresses deception in art and in life, and how they merge.

Borden reads in Angier’s diary about how Borden requires self-sacrifice in magic and comments about how Borden doesn’t understand that extreme level of sacrifice that he has undergone. We see Angier looking at a cameo of Julia when we hear these words. (Of course, Borden can’t see this fact by reading. It takes Nolan to manifest the narrative visually). The story eventually shows us why Angier speaks of personal loss.

There is a scene where Milton takes the ordinary, a bird in a cage, and slams down on it while it is covered with a drape. The cage disappears (the “turn”). He then supposedly brings back the bird from under a handkerchief (the “prestige”). A boy in the audience cries, perceiving that the original bird was killed and another took its place. His insight is confirmed by Borden disposing of the dead bird in the collapsed cage hidden in the table, while other birds in the back room await their fate. We have here a foreshadowing of Angier’s ultimate trick (which was implied by the opening scene of the film showing the numerous hats). Borden later tells the boy that “the secret impresses no one. The trick you use it for is everything.” The suggestion is the way one uses the mystery is what’s important. Again, the same can be said of filmmaking.

Borden and the boy’s aunt, Sarah (Rebecca Hill), begin a relationship (which eventually mirrors to some degree that of Angier and Julia, as the story revolves around itself). When he walks her home, she says she can’t invite him in just then. He seems to leave, but then is inside her place asking her about what she wants in her tea. Is he that good a magician, doing his transporting man trick, or is there something else going on?

At the next performance of the water tank escape, Julia gives Borden a nod and he proceeds with tying the rope around her wrists. However, she can’t slip the bonds and she drowns. The implication is that one can go too far in one’s passion and the result is collateral damage to others. The personal loss Angier noted in his diary is obvious now, and he becomes devastated and full of wrath because of Julia’s death. Borden infuriates Angier even more by saying he doesn’t know which type of knot he used. (Nolan explored the effects of guilt and revenge in this film and in Memento, and guilt in Inception and the apocalyptic guilt that weighs on Oppenheimer).

With the death of Julia, Milton’s career is over, Borden and Angier go off to establish their own careers. Sarah meets the bearded and bespectacled Fallon. Sarah informs Borden that she is going to have a baby. He says he loves her, but she says, “not today.” She explains that “maybe today you’re more in love with magic.” Sarah seems okay with sharing Borden with his other passion, at least for now.  

Angier continues to read Borden’s notebook. He relates performing in front of a disapproving crowd. Although Borden has great tricks, he is not a showman and does not wrap the magic in an intriguing way. He gains the audience’s attention by starting the bullet-catching trick. Angier shows up in disguise and volunteers to be the shooter. He adds his own round of ammunition to the pistol and demands to know what knot did Borden tie around Julia’s hands. Again, Borden says he doesn’t know. Angier fires the pistol and maims Borden, blowing off the ends of two fingers. Borden’s words reiterate that he agonizes over what knot he tied. Angier is outraged that Borden could not know, since the man was an accomplished magician. The suggestion is that Borden may be working on an unconscious level at times, not sure what is real and what is an illusion, since his magic is so real to him because he lives it, like the Chinese magician.

Angier’s diary recounts how he hooked up with Cutter who couldn’t find work after Julia’s death. They also hired an attractive assistant, Olivia (Scarlett Johansson), whose beauty Cutter said is an effective distraction, which adds to the audience not really wanting to know what is truly happening.

Angier doesn’t want to kill birds when doing the disappearing cage trick. Cutter lectures him, saying he is not a “wizard,” and he must get his “hands dirty,” if he wants to be successful. We again have the theme of how far an artist must go to perfect his work. However, Cutter invented a contraption that collapses the cage while sparing the bird. They get a gig working for Merrit (William Morgan Shepphard). Angier attempts to do the disappearing bird trick. But a disguised Borden seeks revenge and acts as a volunteer from the audience. By mimicking Angier’s attack on himself, he sabotages the trick, killing the dove and breaking the female volunteer’s fingers. Angier’s hands have now been dirtied. Merrit terminated their run, and Angier must come up with a show-stopping performance to redeem his reputation.

By reading Borden’s diary, Angier believes that his antagonist acquired a machine from Tesla to perform his incredible trick, and he asks Alley (Andy Serkis), Tesla’s assistant, a second time to meet Tesla. Alley shows how Tesla can turn on lights without wires. Angier sees how science is magical without tricks. He goes to an alternating current demonstration where Alley argues against Edison’s attempts to “Smear” Tesla’s works (the rivalry was real). The electrical discharges jumping from conductor to conductor frighten the audience, as if they are seeing the power of a god. Angier follows Borden who also attended the demonstration. Angier’s diary says he was envious of seeing Borden with his wife and child, but he also knew that Borden tormented his family with his obsession over his magic. In a way, Borden has a split personality according to Angier. We discover that he is not far from the truth.

By this time, Olivia and Angier have become involved romantically. In Angier’s diary we learn that, in disguise, he witnesses Borden premier his “Transported Man” trick. He goes in one door of a closet at one end of the stage and comes out another door at the other end of the stage in the time it takes to bounce a rubber ball on the raised platform. Cutter says he is using a double, but Olivia noted a gloved hand on the man occupying each closet, revealing the lost fingers. Angier says he will get even with Borden by stealing his trick.

Cutter says the only way they can duplicate Borden’s act is to find a double for Angier, which they do. He is Gerald Root (also played by Jackman). He is a drunken, out-of-work actor. He says to Angier, “Did you think you were unique, Mr. Angier? I’ve been Caesar. I’ve played Faust. How hard could it possibly be to play the Great Danton?” Root as an actor assumes other identities, false fronts, to present the illusion that he is someone else. A performance in its own way is a sham to temporarily convince the audience that what they are seeing is real. Nolan is stressing the illusion versus reality aspect of the performing arts.

Angier’s team dresses up the trick and call it “The New Transported Man.” Instead of a closet they have just two door frames. But there are trapdoors at the thresholds. Angier must be the first man as he has the ability to dramatically introduce the act. Behind the open door he falls through the trapdoor onto padding below. Root emerges at the other end. He overacts his part, and even kisses Olivia. Angier is not able to experience the adulation of the crowd, and enjoy the “prestige,” since he is below the stage. They must keep Root under wraps because if he surfaces and is recognized as working for Angier, the illusion is destroyed. Angier’s life is copying that of Borden, and the two stories begin to blur together as the story unfolds.

Angier is obsessed with learning how Borden does his trick without a double so he can be the one on the stage accepting the audience’s adoration. He sends Olivia to work for Borden as a spy, but she is to tell him the truth, that Angier sent her to discover Borden’s secret of the Transported Man. Angier assumes Borden will want her as a counterspy to access Angier’s secrets. Even though Angier has become very successful, Borden’s keen eye can tell that his double is overweight and drunk. Olivia tells Borden that she is sick of Angier’s obsession with Borden, which turns out not to be too far from the truth.

Angier reads in Borden’s diary that Borden found Root and convinced him that he had the power in the act. Root then acts to subvert the performance unless he gets more money and control. Borden sabotages the act eventually by removing the padding under the trapdoor and Angier injures his leg when he falls through during one performance (remember his limp at the beginning of the film?). Instead of Root appearing through the door, it is Borden, and he tied up Root and has him descend from the ceiling with a sign that says he is Borden’s opening act. Borden has spruced up his performance by adding some of Tesla’s electronics and has Olivia for effect.

Cutter wonders if Olivia is now working for Borden since he discovered Root. It becomes very difficult to know what is a lie and what is the truth. Angier confronts Olivia with his suspicions. She says Borden uses a double since she has seen wigs, glasses and makeup about. Angier dismisses her impression, saying it’s misdirection, because Borden lives his act, the way the Chinese magician did. But sometimes the overly suspicious can no longer accept what is obviously true. Olivia gives him Borden’s notebook, and that is how Angier was able to read it (it took a while for the audience to discover this fact). Angier shows his obsession, and his downfall, as he says he only cares about Borden’s secret, not the death of his wife anymore. Both magicians let their preoccupation with their craft interfere with their attention to others. Olivia is torn, but Angier’s manipulation of her most likely is the reason she reveals that she has fallen in love with Borden.

Angier kidnaps Fallon as leverage to get Borden to explain his Transporting Man trick. He buries the man in a wooden box and when Borden shows up, Angier says Fallon wouldn’t talk, in fact, he says, “He doesn’t talk at all.” We never hear Fallon speak – another clue. Borden writes “Tesla” as the answer to how he performs his trick, and then saves Fallon by digging him up. There are a number of references to being in boxes, or cages, losing freedom and wanting to escape.

Angier wants to see what machine Borden bought and he wants a duplicate. In his diary he writes that he finally met Tesla, who dramatically enters by walking through electrical streams, looking like a modern Prometheus (the mythological reference is used by Nolan in Oppenheimer). He confirms his view of how one can achieve anything if one has the “nerve,” the courage to apply oneself. Money is also a factor, and Angier says it is not a problem. We again get an idea about his background. But, Tesla also means there is a nonmonetary “cost” resulting from obsession. Tesla admits that he is a “slave” to his own obsessions, and “one day they’ll choose to destroy” him. Angier says Tesla knows urging caution about an obsession is pointless, basically saying that an obsession triumphs over all warnings. Perhaps Nolan is implying that the drive to fulfill one’s artistic vision sometimes will not be deterred by whatever negative outcomes surface in the pursuit of that quest. Nolan, here, and in such films as Interstellar and Oppenheimer explores the fascination and fear of science.

Angier reads in the notebook as we get a scene which reveals that Olivia says to Borden that she had loved Angier but despised him for using her to steal his competitor’s secret. Borden wrote that Olivia’s loyalty was proven by not only letting him know where Root was, but also because Borden wanted her to give Angier the notebook. He was manipulating Angier by having him read it. “Tesla” was the keyword to the notebook, but not to his trick, he writes as he directly addresses Angier in the notebook. Borden thinks he’s sent Angier on a wild goose chase with Tesla, but it becomes an ironic twist in the plot.

An angry Angier confronts Tesla, saying he made the magician think that he constructed a machine for Borden so he could take Angier’s money to fight Edison. Tesla says the machine needs further experimentation. He tries using a cat as the subject of a test, but the cat is not transported. As Angier exits Tesla’s laboratory he follows the sound of a cat. He finds two cats, the original and a duplicate, as well as many reproductions of his hat (which was the first shot of the film). Tesla’s machine does not transport, it makes copies, so the uniqueness of the individual becomes dissipated.

Sarah is becoming more disenchanted with her marriage and is drinking alcohol more. Borden assures her that he loves her and Jess their child more than anything. Borden promised Jess he would take her to the zoo, yet he tells Fallon to do it and try and reassure Sarah that he loves her. We don’t see if Jess is disappointed his father doesn’t keep his promise. Borden sees Olivia who kisses him and he says he doesn’t want her to call him Freddie. Why? When she says she doesn’t trust Fallon, Borden says that Fallon protects all his interests. These are all clues as to Fallon’s true identity.

Edison’s henchmen have burned Tesla’s property, but he delivered the machine to Angier saying in a note that those interested in magic will accept it because they like to be “mystified.” Could that not also be said for us in the audience as we watch Nolan’s cinematic magic? Tesla also delivers a warning that although he has provided the goods for which Angier paid him, he tells him to destroy the machine since it will only be a source of grief. We have again the warning of going too far for one’s artistic passion. And, we see the overreaching danger of science (obviously a theme Nolan is interested in later in Oppenheimer). Borden receives this information by reading Angier’s diary. Angier’s writing addresses Borden directly (just as Borden did so in his notebook). Angier’s words say that he knows Borden awaits the death sentence for killing Angier. But, if the man is dead, how can he have written this closing? Borden tells Owens, the lawyer, that the diary is a fake, but Owens says it is in Angier’s handwriting. The theme of illusion versus reality continually surfaces, and it appears that here the diary is genuine. That would mean that Angier is not dead. Or, is he?

Sarah is unable to live in Borden’s world of lies, secrets, and tricks. She wants honesty, and he can’t do that because he puts his profession above all else. They go back and forth as to whether that day he loves her, and he admits that this day he does not. She can no longer continue in this state of imprisonment, which is like a life in a cage or a box, or a tank of water. Her escape is suicide as she hangs herself (a foreshadowing). Now both magicians have lost their wives, which shows them to have surrendered what they hold most dear because of their craft. Later, Borden tells Olivia he never loved Sarah, but only loves her. Is he a lying jerk, or is there something else going on? She says he is a cold man to be so dismissive of Sarah. She leaves, saying he and Angier deserve each other. In a way, they are psychological twins to her.

Angier reconnects with Cutter and says he wants to do the transported man to show Borden that he can do the trick without Root. Angier doesn’t want Cutter backstage and has hired blind stagehands (remember there was a blind worker at the very beginning of the film, which of course is now chronologically at the end of the tale). He wants total secrecy as to how his trick works. Angier turns on the machine for a patron, Ackerman (Edward Hibbert) Angier disappears and almost instantaneously appears at the back of the auditorium. Has Tesla perfected his invention? Borden shows up at Angier’s performance and although he saw that Angier disappeared through a trapdoor, he berates Fallon for not being able to figure out how Angier can show up fifty yards away almost instantaneously.

Borden sneaks under the stage and witnesses Angier falling through the trapdoor into a water tank that then locks. Borden tries to break the glass with an axe, but can’t save the drowning Angier. He has died as his wife did. Cutter shows up and Borden is found guilty of the murder of Angier, as has already been shown. Cutter meets with Owens and says although Lord Caldlow has purchased all the equipment, Cutter wants Tesla’s machine.

That same Lord Caldlow shows up with Jess at the prison since Borden struck a deal with Owens that he would deliver the prestige part of his tricks if he could see his daughter once more. Caldlow is Angier, and he says he “always has been.” We now know that Angier comes from an aristocratic family and that is why money was no object when it came to buying Tesla’s machine. Borden concedes that Angier no longer fears getting his “hands dirty.” Just like Borden, he is all in when it comes to his craft. Borden hands Angier the “prestige” parts of his tricks so that Jess will not be under Angier’s control. Angier is stealing what’s left of Borden’s family for himself. Angier says that Borden was the better magician, but Angier’s trick is better, so he rips up the papers. Borden shows Jess his rubber ball, the one he used in his transported man trick, and here symbolizes that he has a bit of magic left to get his daughter back. He screams that the man he was supposed to have killed is walking out the door, so he is innocent.

Cutter discovers Caldlow’s address and sees that Angier is still alive. Cutter wants the machine destroyed and Angier says it will never be used again, and will be placed with the rest of the show’s equipment. Meanwhile, Borden meets with Fallon, says he is sorry about Sarah, and throws him the rubber ball, telling him to live life for the both of them.

As Borden goes to the gallows he asks the guard, “Are you watching closely?” Is there one more trick to be played? Just before he is hanged (like Sarah, so poetic justice?), Borden says “Abracadabra!” There is a cut to the rubber ball bouncing toward Angier and a shot rings out as he is shot. The man with the pistol is Borden. Or is it? Just before his death Angier realizes that Fallon is Borden’s twin brother. His shooter reveals that they were both Borden and Fallon, sharing one life. They alternated who disappeared and reappeared in the transported man trick. The other brother sacrificed his fingers to make the illusion seem real. It was one who loved Sarah, and one who loved Olivia, so depending on who was with which woman, the truth was actually told.

Angier tells Borden the truth. Tesla did not perfect his machine. Angier used it to create a double of himself, shot the first duplicate, and drowned the other versions of himself so that there would only be one Great Danton remaining. His storage facilities have several water tanks with drowned versions of himself. As he said often in the film, “no one cares about the man in the box” and the film has repeatedly shown imprisonment and various, even lethal ways, of escape. There is always that risk for the sake of the magic. Angier paid the ultimate price, his own death, to come back in the prestige, to create wonder. Now that the show is over, the remaining duplicate Angier takes a figurative last bow. He drops a lantern, and the resulting fire destroys his secrets.

Jess walks away with her “father.” Is it Fallon, or was it Fallon who was hanged, and Borden reunites with his daughter? Nolan keeps his secret, as all good magicians do, but he brings the man back, to earn the prestige.

The next film is Europa, Europa.

The Big Short

 

SPOILER ALERT! The plot will be discussed.

 

Director/writer Adam McKay takes on subjects that are complicated - economics, politics (Vice) - and is able to make them entertaining. In The Big Short (2015), a seemingly contradictory title, he focuses on the factors that led to the financial collapse in 2008 in the United States. He uses a bag of tricks that includes having characters speak directly to the audience, including celebrities playing themselves, in an attempt to explain what happened during this Great Recession. He has a number of quick edits that keep one’s attention from drifting off which can happen during stale discussions about money. The movie doesn’t show anybody as a hero, because there was none. But it does show there was a range of culpability among the participants. 

 

The film opens with a quote from Mark Twain: “It ain’t what you don’t know that gets you into trouble. It’s what you know for sure that just ain’t so.” It sounds enigmatic, but it suggests that putting your trust in something that is obviously a lie creates a house of cards that will crash down on you. Twain’s first line grants a pardon for ignorance. The second line assigns blame for knowingly letting bad things happen. The image that the quote is superimposed upon is that of a man balancing a child on his shoulders. Could this imply how regular people were impacted by Wall Street’s big money scammers? Or could the balancing child also point to the precarious nature of our economic health?

 

The story begins with the movie’s narrator, the sleazy Deutsche Bank employee Jared Vennett (Ryan Gosling), talking directly to us saying that banking used to be boring and bonds were something you gave your kid and, “Maybe when he’s 30 he makes a 100 bucks.” Lewis Ranieri (Rudy Eisendopf) invented a type of investment called mortgage-backed securities which bundled large numbers of mortgages together which generated income through fees by selling what seemed like a safe investment because most people were paying their mortgages. Basically, what happened was that greed on steroids kicked in, and there was the granting of home loans to people at risk for paying mortgages back. The inevitable result was that there were defaults and the whole system crashed. 

 

That’s the overview. The many devils in the details were more serpentine in their devious actions. There were some people who saw the fuse that was lit on the impending explosion despite the denial that anything was wrong. Vennett says that outsiders and “weirdos” knew there was a problem. They did something others didn’t, “they looked,” which means they didn’t accept as real what “just ain’t so.” Jared hands over the narrating baton, at least temporarily, to one of these outsiders, hedge fund manager Michael Burry (Christian Bale, in another one of his terrific performances). He provides some personal background in an interview with a new analyst. Burry was a doctor who lost an eye to an illness and turned his brilliance toward making lots of money in financial investing. Burry is funny as a quirky fellow on the spectrum who says that his glass eye (which we see one time fell out playing football in school) was one factor which separated him from others. Thus, he has “always been more comfortable alone.” He quickly goes from unexplainable smiling to projecting a sad appearance. He says he can’t even compliment people without it becoming awkward, as he tells the analyst that he has a nice haircut and then asks, “Did you do it yourself?” He fiddles with drumsticks at the office, plays the drums loudly and listens to hard rock music, so he’s definitely not your typical Wall Street businessman. He tells the analyst that a sure sign that financial disaster will occur is when rates of fraud go up. That happened early in the Great Depression, and he was seeing that occur presently. So, the implication is that when there is an increase in unethical and illegal financial activity generally the chances are that everyone will suffer because they allowed illegitimate activity to happen. He hires the young man and tells him he wants the names of the multiple thousands of mortgage bond investments, quite a big request. But, it’s an example of what Vennett was saying about how these outsiders really “looked” at what was going down.

 

We then switch to outraged, loud, stressed out Mark Baum (Steve Carell, who is over-the-top hilarious and emotional in this role). He hates banks since he lost his brother to suicide. Baum believes the financial institutions destroyed him. He enters a grief counseling session late and proceeds to “hijack” the meeting, ranting about how a bank delayed telling its customers that they had overdrafts in their accounts in order to collect large amounts of penalty fees. He asked a bank executive how he could “sleep at night” for what he was doing. Baum is a character who wants to make money in the capitalist system, but doesn’t wish to “screw” over average working people. Vennett describes Baum as a man who wants proof in order to believe in something, as opposed to those who don’t want to see the writing on the wall. Vennett says the cynical Baum “never believed that any company was legit without proving it.” Humorously, there is a flashback to Baum’s childhood where his rabbi tells Baum’s mother that her son is exasperating because he is “looking for inconsistencies in the word of God.” Yes, Baum didn’t even trust the Almighty. Vennett says that Baum started his own fund on Wall Street, and had a nose for deceit, or as Vennett humorously puts it, Baum knew when the Wall Street bull “had gone number two.” After the death of his brother, he felt everything was a “lie.” His wife Cynthia (Marissa Tomei) is worried about him and says he should quit his job. Baum is torn in two, both loving his job when it’s done ethically and hating it when he sees people getting ripped off. He masochistically loves being the man angry at the way the system is run. As he later says, “I am happy when I’m unhappy.”

 

As Burry analyzes the data he sees that the mortgage loans were granted to people with poor credit ratings who either already defaulted on their loans or would do so soon as these “subprime” adjustable rate mortgages were scheduled to shoot up their interest rates in 2007. As he looks at the information, there are cuts to people who are thrilled about owning the dream houses they can’t afford, and then there are sale signs posted on lawns to drive home that theme of denial about what’s really happening. Burry calls his boss, Lawrence Fields (Tracy Letts) about “shorting” the housing market, that is, betting against the housing market prospering. (“Shorting” is a gamble. It means to borrow, not purchase, a stock or bond from a lender, quickly selling it, and if it’s value declines, buying the item at a cheaper price, while pocketing the difference at the specified time of return to the lender. If the value of what is borrowed goes up, the borrower loses money by paying for a more expensive investment that must be returned to the lender. Hey, I’m not an economist, I just looked it up). Fields perpetuates not wanting to see the truth when he says to Burry, “bubbles are regional, defaults are rare.” Bale is funny, showing Burry’s quirks as he repeats strings of words, cleans the blinds in his office, and brushes and rinses his teeth while trying to speak on the phone. 

 Vennett continues to narrate saying that Wall Street loves to invent jargon like “mortgage backed securities, subprime loans. Tranches.” He says they are meant to confuse people, make them feel “bored” and “stupid,” and present the appearance that only the investment workers “can do what they do.” To entertain conveying this information, McKay gives us actress Margot Robbie, playing herself, in a bubble bath to comically explain some of the economic terms. She drinks champagne as she relaxes in her bathroom, which mirrors the greed of the wealthy. She says Ranieri’s idea was a good one, making billions for banks by getting 2 percent fees selling the bundled mortgage bonds. But then the lenders ran out of mortgages, since there are only so many homes to sell to qualified borrowers. So, the banks filled the securities they sold with very risky mortgages called “subprimes,” which Robbie says are “shit.” 

 

Burry contacts large investment banks, including Goldman Sachs, to create “credit default swap” products which bet against the mortgage loan business. The banks, only wanting to believe what they want to believe, see Burry’s willingness to buy these “swaps” (and pay premiums on insurance to make sure his investment will be forthcoming if the banks go belly-up), as easy money for them. The song that plays with the line “Shake your money maker” mirrors how these myopic banks believed they received 1.3 billion dollars from a foolish investor. Eventually Fields, Burry’s boss, severely questions Burry’s action and wants “his money back.” But Burry insists when the variable rate mortgage interest rates skyrocket in 2007, homeowners, whose incomes have flattened, will default on their mortgages in massive numbers.

 

Vennett gets wind of Burry’s actions at a club where the bankers celebrate their windfall from the “crazy” investor. Baum has a group of investors: Danny Moses (Rafe Spall); Porter Collins (Hamish Linklater); and Vinnie Daniel (Jeremy Strong). Baum’s fund is sort of a subsidiary under Morgan Stanley that allows his business to keep its autonomy. When Daniel was young his father was killed in a violent crime, and Vennett narrates that he doesn’t talk about his loss, just like Baum. McKay then has Daniel address the audience, confirming he doesn’t talk about it. These breaking of the fourth wall moments add to jarring us out of getting bogged down in financial stuff, as do the comical exchanges about the incongruity of the irritable Baum possibly leaving Wall Street and trying to act civil to customers at his own Bed and Breakfast. Vennett’s assistant accidentally calls Baum’s number and that is how Baum’s group finds out about Burry’s idea. They, too, don’t dismiss the belief of eventual collapse, but instead discover that the mortgage bonds are not doing well.

 

Baum and his crew meet with Vennett, who is a pushy salesman as he says he “smells money.” This guy is not an idealistic fellow. He just looks for places to acquire wealth. (As Baum says later he wouldn’t buy a used car from him). Vennett tried to sell Burry’s idea to the banks themselves, but they laughed him out of the office because they felt that Burry’s idea was nutty. So, Vennett tries to get Baum’s outfit to buy those “swaps.” He uses a Jenga tower with segments labeled with the credit ratings assigned to the mortgages, with the “shit” loans on the bottom, propping up the tower. “Tranches” (a portion of something - McKay spells out the definition for us) comprise layers of these various-rated non-government backed loans supporting a large portion of the market. These loans were given to people with bad credit ratings and no verifiable income. The default rate on mortgages has risen to four percent and the prediction is that it will rise to eight percent, which will cause, according to Baum, “Armageddon.” 

 

More humorous diverting entertainment is inserted when Vennett says he is certain about the math as he points to his numbers guy, Jiang (Stanley Wong). He says the man is so Chinese, he can't speak English. Of course, arguing someone is great at mathematics just because he’s Asian is racist, as Baum points out. Jiang then addresses the audience in English and says Vennett likes to add authenticity to the smartness claim, and he really finished second and not first in a Chinese math competition, as Vennett claimed. There is dishonesty it seems, in every Wall Street transaction. 

 

Vennett says inviting them to invest in these swaps is like he’s, “standing in front of a burning house, and I’m offering you fire insurance on it.” A good metaphor as he’s making the argument that it’s a sure thing that the housing market will disintegrate into ashes. The banks, even his own, are getting large fees selling the bundled bad mortgage loans. So, greed has blinded them from seeing anything going wrong. The bonds are getting great credit ratings and thus are erroneously propping up this aspect of the economy even though they are based on nothing. Vennett says when the banks discover a bond is “too risky to buy,” they “repackage it with a bunch of other shit that didn’t sell and put it into a CDO, or Collateralized Debt Obligation.” McKay has Vennett interrupt the film again, telling the audience the late chef, Anthony Bourdain, will explain CDO’s. This sequence mirrors the Margot Robbie bit of getting a celebrity to humorously explain a complex investment term. Of course, our humor comes from outrage as Bourdain demonstrates in a kitchen that CDO’s are similar to making a new stew out of old fish that didn’t sell. The exterior is different, but what’s underneath is the same rotten product. And, they get AAA ratings. Fraud anyone?

 

After Vennett leaves, Baum says he wants him to be right because he is angry about his brother and wants to profit off of the bank’s “stupidity.” He justifies betting against the banks as a sort of revenge for the institutions charging 25 percent interest on credit cards and burying young people with student debt. But is this the ethical way of getting back at the banks, making money from the greed of others? Doesn’t that compound the problem? Why not just expose it? These guys are not as unscrupulous as those at the top of the financial food chain, but they are still in the capitalistic game to make money. Baum says to find out if what Vennett said was true they actually must go out into the field and check to see if there is a problem with the housing market. They are willing to do that, as opposed to others who fiddle while the economy burns.

 

The focus shifts to Charlie Geller (Johns Magaro) and Jamie Shipley (Finn Wittrock) as they hope to pitch to JPMorgan Chase. (By the way, except for Burry, all of the names here are fictitious although based on real people). Geller and Shipley are young and have just arrived in New York from Colorado. But they have grown their investment company from working out of a garage and starting with $110,000 to the point of handling about 30 million dollars in investments. Not good enough, though. They need an ISDA Agreement, which McKay spells out as an authorization to sit at the “big boy table” and its’s not “available to stupid amateurs.” The film implies that considering how dumb the “big boys” were handling the mortgage loans, it is ironic that these young men can’t even have a real meeting with a large institution. There are notes on the screen that say comically that trying to do high level trading without an ISDA “is like trying to win the Indy 500 riding a llama.” The condescending attitude of the company is shown as a low-level employee basically dismisses them in the lobby and they are told by security they must leave. 

 

The two could not get anywhere with any other banks. There are proposals on the lobby coffee table by other people who did not sell their proposals to the bank. They pick one up and it’s Vennett’s pitch. Geller’s character talks to the audience here saying how they didn’t really discover Vennett’s housing bubble analysis in the lobby. It was more a word of mouth thing and they read it in a publication. Director McKay is transparent about how film distorts some of the facts for brevity and dramatic purposes. It’s funny and unusual to have a filmmaker own up to this fact right in the middle of the story. There is more speaking to the camera to help move the story along and draw in the audience to what is being said. Shipley says in a flashback to their early business days, “People hate to think about bad things happening so they always underestimate their likelihood.” Vennett narrates that “the markets will sell options very cheaply on things they think will never happen.” There is a little cartoon of a slot machine on the screen in the lower left corner to stress the gambling aspect of investment work. Since these two men invest little money on long-shot failures, if they are wrong, they don't lose much. If they're right, it pays off big. So, the products that Burry first noticed and Vennett promulgated about worst-case scenarios that people don’t think will occur is right up their financial alley. 

 

They contact Ben Rickert (Brad Pitt, looking nerdy and older with scruffy long hair and a beard) to help work the credit default swap angle. Vennett narrates that Rickert was a trader in Singapore for Chase, but “quit the whole game in disgust.” We get a flashback of Rickert and Geller as neighbors in Colorado walking their dogs. The movie suggests that sometimes sheer coincidence can change one’s world. Rickert thought “the whole world was going down.” He sort of went off the grid, growing his own vegetables, and is so paranoid he has multiple phone lines to weed out the government listening in on his conversations, even though he is no longer in the brokerage business. We see a flashback shot of Geller and Shipley eating at his table as Rickert says one ingredient to getting the soil ready is to add “urine.” There is a funny shot of Geller hesitating before putting a forkful of salad into his mouth. If it wasn’t for these amusing, quirky aspects of the movie, a story about mortgages would make breathing exciting. 

So, it’s the outsiders, those who hate the system for what it has become (like Baum and Rickert), are rejected by the big shots (Vennett, Geller and Shipley), or are unorthodox (Burry, who says he doesn’t know how to be “funny,” or “sarcastic” or “to work people”) that are willing to look behind the curtain and see what is really playing out. As Groucho Marx once said, he didn’t want to be part of a club that would have him as a member. Being on the outside can bring objectivity and clarity.

 

Moses and Collins investigate what’s happening with the housing market by actually going on the ground per Baum’s instructions. The images presented make the case for the widening economic disaster. What they discover in a housing development near Miami are rows of “for sale” signs, and homes with newspapers piled up outside, showing that the residents left in a hurry without even canceling their subscriptions so they could avoid dealing with foreclosures. There is a renter who has been paying his rent but who doesn’t know he could be evicted soon because the house owner is defaulting. There is another house with past due notices, and the inhabitants only took the TV without even cleaning out the cat litter in their quick getaway. One house that has been abandoned has an alligator in the pool. Scary and funny, a hard combination to make work, but McKay pulls it off here. 

 

Baum joins Moses and Collins and they hit the bricks and see for themselves how over-invested people are in mortgages on high-priced real estate. They meet two young, smirking, swaggering real estate mortgage brokers who say that in one year the number of mortgages they granted went from ten to sixty. One boasts that he was a bartender and now owns a boat. Ninety percent of the mortgages have adjustable interest rates. They laugh when they are asked if any loan applications are rejected, saying that would mean that they weren’t doing their jobs. They call the mortgages “No income, No Job” loans, since “Corporate doesn’t care” about the viability of the mortgages. They target immigrants who don’t even understand what they are signing but are happy to get a home. One broker says that he can make five times as much signing up a subprime (remember that means “shit”) adjustable rate mortgage on secondary markets. Aside, Baum says he doesn’t understand why these two guys are “confessing.” He has a professional ethical standard he follows. Moses and Collins explain to Baum that the two brokers are really “bragging.” The thrust here is that making money in the moment is all that matters, and there is no thought about consequences for the individual home owners or the economy at large. 

 

The brokers say they sell properties to strippers. A very funny scene follows with Baum buying time with a stripper who writhes around him, but all he wants to know is her mortgage situation. She says that people where she lives have multiple loans on their houses and only had to put down five percent. Baum tells her that when the “teaser” interest rate balloons she will be paying 200 to 300 percent more each month. She says her broker said she could refinance. Baum calls the guy “a liar.” She is stunned by Baum’s comments, and even worse, admits to owning five houses and a condominium. She didn’t want to believe the proverbial warning, “If it’s too good to be true, it probably is.” Baum is convinced that there is a housing bubble that is ready to burst. He calls Daniel to contact Vennett and buy the swaps.

 

Geller and Shipley talk to Rickert, who verifies that what the men sent him was frighteningly accurate about the housing market. They want Rickert to get them the ISDA so they can get at the “big boy table” to trade on a large scale. The disenchanted Rickert says that “It’s a pretty ugly table, guys.” What we have learned about the unscrupulous dealings going on, Rickert’s description is spot on. Rickert agrees to help them. (There is a shot of the paranoid Rickert on an escalator at an airport wearing a N-95 mask, which is like an eerie prescient image of the current pandemic). 

 

We get several shots of people going about their daily mundane activities as an overheard quote at a Washington, D.C. bar appears on the screen: “Truth is like poetry. And most people fucking hate poetry.” (IMDb notes that McKay wrote the lines). These words tie in nicely with the opening reference to Mark Twain which stresses the central theme that people don’t want to know what’s real if it’s not what they want to hear. So, despite the fact that, as Burry predicted, mortgage delinquencies are soaring, the subprime bond prices are rising and Moody and Standard and Poor are still giving the “shit” loans AAA ratings because big finance doesn’t want to acknowledge the collapse of the house of cards they are living in. In fact, pressure is applied to sell the swaps as they still (erroneously) appear to be high risk investments.

 Baum and Daniel confront Georgia Hale (Melissa Leo) of Standard and Poor about still giving high ratings to bonds that make up the risky mortgage packages. Hale, at first,  is wearing these large, dark tinted glasses because of an eye condition. Be alerted that anytime eyes and vision are noted in a film, it is a metaphor, usually for characters being morally blind (Chinatown, Bonnie and Clyde, Blade Runner). When Baum asks if the S&P ever gave poor ratings for the bond applications, she says that if they did, companies will go to competitors, like Moody, and pay them fees to get what they want. Greed in the driver’s seat again. Baum and Daniel are outraged. However, Hale questions their motives since she knows that they own substantial swaps and they will profit by the collapse of the mortgage market. She rightly accuses their attacks on her agency’s desire for profits as evidence of Baum’s group’s moral hypocrisy. 

 

Burry’s fund, Baum’s group and Shipley and Geller have invested heavily in the swaps, and are being told to put up more collateral to back up their investments because, as Shipley says, the banks either are “clueless” of the true value of these crappy mortgage instruments or are covering up their culpability in disastrous investments. It could be they are both, as Rickert on the phone says that he talked to someone at Bear Stearns who didn’t know what a CDO was. (In this enigmatic discussion we get humor, as Rickert says he’s late for his yearly “colonic” which suggests he needs to flush out the poisonous elements invading him physically and mentally). Despite the lack of a payoff, Vennett and Shipley say that they should buy more swaps, which is greeted by dissension from the partners. Vennett and Rickert tell their partners to go to Las Vegas to attend the American Securitization Forum. In order to keep Baum’s outfit committed, Vennett says there will be in attendance “every bond and CDO salesman, subprime lender and swap trader.” He says if they are betting “against the dumb money” then they should learn “how dumb that money really is.” 

 

The first shot of Las Vegas is accompanied by the ominous organ music from The Phantom of the Opera which adds a satiric sound and feeling of hidden horror lurking behind the fake mask of economic prosperity. Here all of the principles (except for the seclusive Burry) assemble. Vennett tells Baum to try to zip it and not “spook” people there by loudly talking about their swaps, since they don’t want everyone to start buying them, diluting their profits. The opening statement at the forum is “Business is good,” and is built on the strong foundation of the mortgage business, which sums up the phony Kool-Aid these people have been drinking. The speaker admits that there will only be a 5 percent setback in the subprime area. Baum can’t contain himself and tells the speaker there is a “zero” percent chance of the subprime losses stopping at 5 percent. 

 

Geller meets with a woman who works for the Federal Government's Securities and Exchange Commission which is supposed to police the financial sector and prosecute illegal activity. At a Caesar’s Palace pool, to emphasize the affluent bubble the deniers live in, she says that they don’t investigate mortgage bonds, and since there was a budget cut, “we don’t investigate much.” More being asleep at the wheel going on. She isn’t even there officially and is actually looking for a job with one of the big banks. Geller questions the legality of her “working for a financial institution right after you’ve been working in financial regulation.” She says there's no law against it, and runs off to network with someone who works for Goldman Sachs, which shows how vulnerable to exploitation the economic system is. 

 

Even Burry has doubts about his mathematical logic paying off. He admits that he may have underestimated how fraudulent the system had become. At dinner, Shipley says they should “short” AA rated bonds, knowing that they will go down. Rickert says they can pull it off because the adoption of that “clueless” attitude that Vennett noted would cause the banks to go along with the deal because they would see the bond prices going up and would think Shipley and Geller were suckers. As the two men celebrate what they think will be a killing in investments, Rickert brings outraged perspective by saying how many millions will suffer from what is coming because people will lose jobs, homes, and pensions. Since they like numbers, he tosses out a lethal statistic that says for every 1 percent unemployment goes up, 40,000 people die. They are making a fortune by “betting against the American economy,” which, when one thinks about it, shouldn’t even be allowed, because then one has a vested interest in failure. So, Rickert says, “just stop fuckin’ dancing.”

 

To add to the unbelievable selfishness of investment managers, we have Baum talking to a man named Chau (Byron Mann) who sells CDOs for Merrill Lynch. He claims to represent the customers and says that the CDOs he sells are of the highest quality. But, he states that he personally assumes “no risk for these products.” Basically, no matter what happens to the people taking out these loans, which they don’t realize they can’t afford, or those investing in these worthless mortgages, he will get his fees and not be hurt. In other words, I’ve got mine, who cares about you. Baum can’t believe his ears as Chau starts talking about CDOs derived from other CDO’s, some of which are called “synthetic CDOs,” which contain more investing in bad loans. This stuff is so unbelievable it gets funny just hearing about how convoluted all of these crazy monetary terms are. From another table, Vennett adds more humor by saying that Baum’s face looks like it’s boiling like the villain in Dune.

 

McKay once more uses a celebrity, Selena Gomez, along with “the father of behavioral economics,” Dr. Richard Thaler, to help decode synthetic CEOs. They sit at a card table, appropriately in Vegas, because all of this investing is speculation and gambling. Gomez has been winning and is holding a good hand right now. She thinks she can’t lose, and everyone wants to get in on the action. It is fallacious reasoning, says Thaler, to think past winnings translate into continuous future success. That’s what happened with the housing market. Two people now want to make side bets on Gomez’s future hands. That would be the “first synthetic CDO.” Then another couple bet on whether the first two people will win or lose, which comprises the “second synthetic CDO.” And so on, until an original investment mushrooms into a great deal of money in several pots. However, if the initial investment is a bad one at the outset, you are talking about a whole lot of losers. 

 After talking with Chau, Baum feels ill from the unscrupulous machinations that are going on. Chau wants to compare how much he is worth with how much money Baum has, as if that is the only measure to show how worthy one is. Baum tells his team to short all of Chau’s investments, betting against him, and says he will try to find a little redemption playing roulette. Small time gambling seems virtuous in comparison to what he just heard. Baum back home tells his wife that things are so much worse than he ever could have imagined. He feels guilty that the first thing he did concerning his brother when he was depressed was to offer him money, which probably he realizes was like rubbing salt into a psychological wound. 

 

Burry bangs out his frustration and anger at how broken the system has become on his drums. He has special prerogatives in his authority over his fund, and takes the extraordinary and daring move of writing to his investors preventing them from withdrawing their money. If he is wrong about his projection, many would suffer financially.

 

We get another quote, this time from the novel IQ84 by Haruki Murakami: “Everyone, deep in their hearts, is waiting for the end of the world to come.” If one is honest, the film suggests, all of us have apocalyptic thoughts. If not, why are there so many books and films on the subject? Here it is the economic “Dark Ages” coming, as Shipley puts it. The financial news broadcasts how the housing market is crashing and lenders are going bankrupt. In order not to deal with the situation, the large investment banks fake power outages or computer problems so they will not have to deal with Burry’s claims. Shipley and Geller realize that the banks are trying to dump their lousy CDOs on unsuspecting buyers as they try to recoup some money before the prices on those investments tumble. Shipley calls his mother to warn her about the coming crash, and the two want to warn everyone by way of the press. But their contact at the Wall Street Journal won’t touch the story because he doesn’t want to burn the bridges he built with investment banks based on what he calls Shipley and Geller’s “hunch.” The problem about a “Big Lie” is that if voiced loud enough and by those in authority, it tends to become believed. 

 

Baum’s group now learns that the swaps that nobody thought were worth anything are now the hot item to purchase. Baum finds out from Kathy (Adepero Oduye) who works for his umbrella company, Morgan Stanley, that the company sold a ton of swaps which means Morgan Stanley owes a tremendous amount of money on these bets that mortgages would fail. So, Baum realizes he was betting against Morgan Stanley which means he was betting against himself. Because Morgan Stanley is $15 billion in the hole, all of Baum’s company’s “accounts go on their balance sheet,” according to Daniel. The point here is if you bet against the whole economy, one gets sucked into the black hole that results. Baum says he doesn’t want to sell the swaps yet because he wants to see the banks “bleed” before selling them life rafts. But he is putting his own company at risk if he waits too long and Morgan Stanley goes bankrupt.

 

Shipley and Geller are in a similar predicament since they bought 80 percent of their swaps from the tanking Bear Stearns. Unlike Burry, who protected himself in case the banks went out of business, these two are at risk. They need Rickert’s help to unload their investments. There is more humor as Rickert is in a pub in England that he says smells like “sheep” with hardly any wi-fi service and is trying to sell 200 million dollars in securities on his laptop. The customer in the bar says Rickert is either a drug dealer or a banker, and he has more respect for the former, which we can understand, given what’s happening. Rickert is able to net them 80 million just in time before the economies of many countries froze assets and were on the brink of failure, so expansive is the economic meltdown.

 

Vennett, addressing the audience, holds a bonus check for $40 million dollars. He says he never said he “was the hero of this story.” He was the narrator because, besides tying the plot together, he is the right selfish person to show how there are no heroes here. Mark Baum is the only “Big Short” (thus the film’s title) who delayed selling. (As IMDb points out there is also a visual pun in the film as there is a large billboard shown with comedian Martin Short’s face - thus a “big Short). Baum speaks at a financial summit meeting and says people in America reside in a world of “fraud in banking, government, education, religion, food, even baseball.” He says this time deception flourished, and he thought we were better than that to let it happen. And, “average people will have to pay for all of this,” since they always do, he says. The eventual bailout of the banks proved him to be right. Even as he speaks, the false optimism previously voiced by a Bear Stearns executive rings false as the stock of the company drops 38 percent in the short time they spoke. Everyone starts to bail out of the auditorium, most likely to try to salvage what’s left of their wealth. 

 

Investment giant Lehman Brothers’ stock went to zero and was not rescued by the government. People who lost their jobs there leave in droves. Shipley and Geller walk through the decimated headquarters of the institution, stressing the catastrophic results of greed and the denial of truth. Burry says that his work wasn’t what he expected. He narrates, “This business kills the part of life that is essential.” As we see those strutting Florida real estate brokers now looking for jobs, Burry says that unfortunately people don’t choose who to listen to based on facts, but upon what “seems authoritative and familiar.” In other words, it’s easier and more comforting to listen to the well-known person with the big microphone who is in power than to question what is being said. 

 

After Burry’s fund gained 48 percent, with a profit of $2.69 billion, he closed it down and retired. The bailout is coming, and Daniel believes that as part of that action the government will have to break up the banks and send people to jail. Baum says no, the banks always knew they would get rescued and in the end they’ll find a way just to blame immigrants and poor people for our economic problems, implying that those marginal groups will be portrayed as the leeches that drained the economy because they couldn’t pay their mortgages.

 

McKay has Vennett be satiric as he says hundreds went to jail, the SEC was overhauled, and Congress broke up the big banks and regulated the mortgage industry. He follows that with, “Just kidding.” With the bailout, Vennett says, the banks took the money, paid themselves bonuses, and lobbied against any major reforms. “And then then they blamed immigrants and poor people,” he adds. As it turns out only one guy went to jail. Baum finally sells the firm’s assets, but he felt like he was one of the bad guys. Daniel says they were kicking the real bad guys in the teeth for selling people out of the American Dream. But, Baum’s group contributed to the depletion of funds that added to many employees losing their jobs and possessions.

 

The notes at the end of the movie sum up the economic fallout: five trillion dollars was lost in real estate values, pension funds, 401k accounts, and bonds; eight million people lost jobs; six million lost their homes. Burry contacted the government several times to show how he predicted the collapse, most likely to prevent another one. Nobody responded to him, again emphasizing the desire not to want to hear the truth, no matter how disturbing it is. And, to show how pointing out flaws in the system is a threat to that mindset, Burry was audited four times. At the time the film was made, banks were selling a new form of CDO.

 

The thrust of this movie is that every human system is subject to corruption, and to protect the powerless, there must be vigilant policing to protect a country’s citizenry.

The next film is Picnic.