One of the subtle ways in which this movie is so great is that it starts off as the story of a whip-smart junior person who discovers a shocking surprise... but as the movie goes on, it becomes clear that this was actually a risk that senior folks had already suspected and argued about, possibly for years.
By the second or third time watching it, I realized how much of the boardroom scene is kabuki theater. The CEO makes people get up and say their parts not necessarily to learn new information, but to milk the moment and bring everyone through a thought process. I think he knew what he wanted to do before he walked through the door. But he needed everyone else to understand the problem and believe in the drastic solution.
adeon · 8h ago
I feel a little stupid for asking... but what does "kabuki theater" mean in this context? Do you mean the CEO in the scene sort of "acted a rehearsed show" in a meeting to make sure everyone in the room followed through some thought process? Or maybe in other words (guessing meaning): making people get up and talk to force them to think through something (CEO's real goal), but the CEO framed it as him simply asking questions? (I have not seen the movie or the scene, apologies if the meaning is more obvious to infer if one has seen it).
I tried googling it but I get some movie theater in San Francisco and a Wikipedia page describing it as a Japanese theatre with dancing and elaborate costumes and flair. I've not seen it used in an expression before.
davkan · 8h ago
“Kabuki Theater” usually cynically implies some political posturing. That someone is putting on a show for the audience. It doesn’t imply rehearsal.
E.g. Someone might say that politicians arguing energetically about gun violence are playing it up for their constituents and don’t actually care about the issue. It’s all a performance, neither side actually cares if anything is accomplished. It’s a show for their constituents.
I’m not sure it’s the most apt phrase for the scene but it’s been a while since I’ve seen the movie.
kdmoyers · 3h ago
I think maybe the "Kabuki" modifier additionally implies the performance has a rigid structure that has been repeated identically many times before.
adeon · 7h ago
Okay, now that makes sense. I actually put your example of gun violence in google with kabuki theater and that found me some (depressing) articles that use the phrase. Thanks for educating me on a new expression :)
ksec · 35m ago
Margin Call - The traders perspective
The Big Short - Banking, investor, hedgefund perspective
Too Big to Fail - Government perspective
Most of my friends dont like any of the these. Even those who somehow got through them liked Big Short most.
For me Big Short is the last on that list. Margin Call being first by a long short and then Too Big to Fail.
xfactorial · 11h ago
Consider the plot and consider it is loosely based on real events.
Also: it’s a highly quoted movie on YouTube where copyright has not been strictly enforced.
Every part of it is a specific area of the business: the lay offs, the move forward after them, the analyst crunching the data, the gathering after his discovery, the communication, the meetings and the decision making.
All of it from the perspective of a financial institution, knowing what we know: I wonder what would have happened if that movie happened 15 years before the crash and the public perception of the content (probably dismissed as “too Hollywood”).
Rzor · 11h ago
It's also a phenomenal movie.
keiferski · 7h ago
I think Margin Call is my choice for a “perfect” movie. It isn’t the most exciting, or impressive, or dramatic, or ___ film, but - it has absolutely no filler, every line of dialogue is exactly the right combination of explanatory and realistic, and the casting is incredibly spot on, especially considering that it’s an ensemble cast of big name stars. That’s as close to perfection as it gets IMO.
Seanambers · 8h ago
Margin Call hits the spot without becoming overly pompous like The Big Short.
Its story is centered around Goldman Sachs.
And make no mistake Wall Street gambles full well knowing that the government will save them - Steve Bannon was right on the spot about that.
kristianp · 12h ago
I enjoy The Big Short more for it being a story about how dysfunctional the housing market had become.
jmcguckin · 10h ago
This is a great movie. Spacey is great but Jeremy Irons is fantastic. I really like the speech where he says "Speak to me like I was a golden retriever."
sylens · 6h ago
It's a fantastic movie and Irons puts on a masterclass. I don't think I've seen Zachary Quinto in anything recently - seemed like he was huge in the early 2010s, going from Heroes to this to Star Trek
Rastonbury · 6h ago
Wall Street is better imo, it is just relevant to the times of GFC versus the corporate raiders of the 80s
sometimes_all · 12h ago
I also enjoyed Too Big to Fail, which was the perspective from the Fed and the big bank CEOs point of view.
lapcat · 13h ago
This is no surprise, because people watched Oliver Stone's 1987 "Wall Street" and took home the message "greed is good". Michael Douglas played his part all too well.
ManuelKiessling · 12h ago
I‘m no expert in this area, but isn’t it by now an agreed-upon insight that a society of people working towards selfish interests end up unintentionally bettering circumstances for the society at large?
fatuna · 9h ago
I think greed is good for society in the same way that nuclear reactions bring lots of energy. That is to say, it does, but left unchecked it brings destruction.
chii · 9h ago
and that's why everyone should be given the same opportunity to get greedy. It's bad for society if only some people get the opportunity.
However, the outcome doesn't have to be that everybody gets rich.
Ekaros · 9h ago
Up to certain point, but underlying scenario in this movie pretty clearly proves that lot of greed ends up being just greed. Moving numbers around and not actually producing much real value. Were greed to make money from MBS products really needed? Well there was lot of extra debt to spend on consumption, but clear example of it not lasting forever.
Speculation and gambling is greed and not useful sort. Building new factory because you think you can make money is much better sort of greed.
JellyBeanThief · 11h ago
It very much is not.
southernplaces7 · 11h ago
And what's the specific alternative you propose or claim superior in a practicable sense?
The notion of people working for their selfish interests in a way that fosters cooperation and improvement on a larger scale gets treated to caricature interpretation often, but under that, there is a lot of evidence for it. Go ahead and describe a contrary viewpoint.
StopDisinfo910 · 10h ago
If I set aside the unnecessarily confrontational tone of your message, modern China is a pretty good exemple than semi-planned economy with controlled competition can work to raise the standard of living of a population and is an alternative to free market capitalism.
The inability of free market capitalism to regulate its own externalities doesn’t really plead in its favour either but I can’t say other systems have fared better there.
Anyway, I would hazard that most people in the world don’t work strictly for their selfish interests anyway but rather for a mix of their family, community while trying to apply their own moral to the best of their ability to foster a better world. Therefore reducing free market economies to selfishness on an individual level seems misguided.
While somehow trendy amongst part of the American population nowadays, the Randian idea of selfishness being for the best is not actually supported by much.
lazide · 10h ago
Modern China is the epitome of ‘greed is good’. The entire housing market is a speculative bubble of never seen before proportions.
Seriously, what are you talking about?
StopDisinfo910 · 9h ago
It's pretty clear what I'm talking about: just what I wrote.
What is it with this topic that makes people needlessly agressive? I understand you disagree but I'm open to discussion.
To get back to my original point, I think modern China is actually pretty far from 'greed is good'.
It's an autocratic country where the central party has a tight leash on the economy and which doesn't hesitate to make CEOs disappear when they get too rich and powerful. Population movement is strictly controlled and central planning is very much alive and kicking in the more rural part of the country.
Even the housing market bubble was propped by state owned companies with state owned banks money which is why it's not exploding spectacularly.
Viewing China has a free market economy is a mistake. It's a mixed socialist market economy and under Xi that means a lot of socialism with a dash of free market.
lazide · 8h ago
The folks in the CCP are the ones getting rich. That doesn’t make it any less ‘greed is good’. It just adds the extra frosting of ‘government corruption’ on top.
That said gov’t can throw billionaires under the bus and use elements of the state to prop the system up may look nicer - but the average person still ends up losing/paying. We’ll see in a decade what that really looks like eh?
davkan · 8h ago
No? Agreed upon by who? Only libertarians idolize self interest to such a degree as to treat it as some type of natural law.
By the second or third time watching it, I realized how much of the boardroom scene is kabuki theater. The CEO makes people get up and say their parts not necessarily to learn new information, but to milk the moment and bring everyone through a thought process. I think he knew what he wanted to do before he walked through the door. But he needed everyone else to understand the problem and believe in the drastic solution.
I tried googling it but I get some movie theater in San Francisco and a Wikipedia page describing it as a Japanese theatre with dancing and elaborate costumes and flair. I've not seen it used in an expression before.
E.g. Someone might say that politicians arguing energetically about gun violence are playing it up for their constituents and don’t actually care about the issue. It’s all a performance, neither side actually cares if anything is accomplished. It’s a show for their constituents.
I’m not sure it’s the most apt phrase for the scene but it’s been a while since I’ve seen the movie.
The Big Short - Banking, investor, hedgefund perspective
Too Big to Fail - Government perspective
Most of my friends dont like any of the these. Even those who somehow got through them liked Big Short most.
For me Big Short is the last on that list. Margin Call being first by a long short and then Too Big to Fail.
Also: it’s a highly quoted movie on YouTube where copyright has not been strictly enforced.
Every part of it is a specific area of the business: the lay offs, the move forward after them, the analyst crunching the data, the gathering after his discovery, the communication, the meetings and the decision making.
All of it from the perspective of a financial institution, knowing what we know: I wonder what would have happened if that movie happened 15 years before the crash and the public perception of the content (probably dismissed as “too Hollywood”).
And make no mistake Wall Street gambles full well knowing that the government will save them - Steve Bannon was right on the spot about that.
However, the outcome doesn't have to be that everybody gets rich.
Speculation and gambling is greed and not useful sort. Building new factory because you think you can make money is much better sort of greed.
The notion of people working for their selfish interests in a way that fosters cooperation and improvement on a larger scale gets treated to caricature interpretation often, but under that, there is a lot of evidence for it. Go ahead and describe a contrary viewpoint.
The inability of free market capitalism to regulate its own externalities doesn’t really plead in its favour either but I can’t say other systems have fared better there.
Anyway, I would hazard that most people in the world don’t work strictly for their selfish interests anyway but rather for a mix of their family, community while trying to apply their own moral to the best of their ability to foster a better world. Therefore reducing free market economies to selfishness on an individual level seems misguided.
While somehow trendy amongst part of the American population nowadays, the Randian idea of selfishness being for the best is not actually supported by much.
Seriously, what are you talking about?
To get back to my original point, I think modern China is actually pretty far from 'greed is good'.
It's an autocratic country where the central party has a tight leash on the economy and which doesn't hesitate to make CEOs disappear when they get too rich and powerful. Population movement is strictly controlled and central planning is very much alive and kicking in the more rural part of the country.
Even the housing market bubble was propped by state owned companies with state owned banks money which is why it's not exploding spectacularly.
Viewing China has a free market economy is a mistake. It's a mixed socialist market economy and under Xi that means a lot of socialism with a dash of free market.
That said gov’t can throw billionaires under the bus and use elements of the state to prop the system up may look nicer - but the average person still ends up losing/paying. We’ll see in a decade what that really looks like eh?