Margin Call : Do We Fear The Fall Or The Jump?

If one were to look at American consumerism from a cultural standpoint, then there would be no denying the self-destructive component behind its addictive qualities. In fact, the character of Will Emerson (Paul Bettany) sums it up best in one of Margin Call’s most underrated scenes. It’s not a long scene. But it involves Emerson putting his fellow traders on the edge as he leans over the ledge of a railing. It’s never specified just how many stories he faces should he make the jump. But the idea certainly works to strengthen the philosophical introspection he gives when saying, “You know, the feeling that people experience when they stand on the edge like this isn't the fear of falling; it's the fear that they might jump.”

Only seconds after Paul Bettany’s character utters this quasi existentialist line, he jumps right back onto the platform and lets out a big “Whoo. Not today!” On the surface of such a humorous remark, anyone will merely giggle at the English charm an actor as charismatic as Paul Bettany can convey, even in the face of something truly horrific to come. And make no mistake, Margin Call is the story of a storm that was always on its way. It was just a matter of who was going to duck the fuck out of the way, and who didn’t even bother looking as the winds picked up.

Since the 2008 financial crisis, the world has seemed like a totally different place. It isn’t just the economic disparity that has settled in, so much as the gradual shift in the way the job culture has not only become much more hostile and far more hyper-competitive to the point where lines like “There are three ways to make a living in this business: be first, be smarter, or cheat” resonate to an even deeper extent than what anyone of us would’ve anticipated prior to the 2008 crises.

It’s quite an amazing phenomenon to look at our modern world and see just how much corruption holds it together while creating the means for the same disparity that leads others to judge and even condemn the very people who made it much worse as opposed to the total collapse that would’ve happened in the face of inaction. Make no mistake, Margin Call is in no way a sympathetic tale of an investment firm performing an immoral fire sale. It’s a story about people, simply people coming face to face with a storm that was well on its way, and simply making the winds less vicious. The multiple characters in this film knew it was coming, and prior to it, they acted as if it wasn’t. In a way, that is a perfect summation of human nature in a nutshell.

Human beings are more complex than they like to give themselves credit for. In fact, this claim to complexity can be argued to an easier degree when that focus is made from one person to another individual. But when focusing from the viewpoint of a displaced majority towards a select few, it becomes clear that they are not interested in looking at themselves. A majority of people can say that all investment bankers are scum. A majority of the working class, tragic as the outcome of the financial crises was for them, knew of the dealings wall street had partaken in. But, it wasn’t till they had their livelihoods destroyed, or even made to confront the destructive nature of their consumerist indulgences for it to be enough to illustrate the omnipotent focus J.C. Chandor’s directorial debut displays through its vast array of morally neutral characters. Some are more moral, or simply less heartless. In the end, upon discovering the utter worthlessness of their firm’s assets, instead of warning their buyers, they perform a fire sale as the only means of survival, which is pretty much the main law of American capitalism aside from competition.

For those unfamiliar, and I certainly was among that bunch, the definition of a fire sale is “The sale of goods at extremely discounted prices.” Now, naturally, this would feel like the opportunity any eager buyer would want. However, the tone, the anxiety, and the moral contemplation displayed by the characters are enough to demonstrate the moral conundrum the film presents. Having only a basic understanding of Wall Street, I could never go into detail about the various kinds of trades, stocks, or types of investment procedures that can help anyone understand when something is unethical or a shit storm from the get-go. Thankfully, the tone and the sheer anxiety of the characters upon discovering what is a massive avalanche of shit to come is enough to make Margin Call one of the best wall street films I’ve seen in recent years. Yes, we have Adam McKays’ The Big Short. But at the same time, instead of witnessing the 2007-2008 financial crises, Margin Call feels like a film that takes place just moments before a major bomb goes off. In a sense, if a filmmaker was to make a film focusing on the moments prior to the dropping of the atomic bomb on Nagasaki and Hiroshima, then Margin Call would serve as the perfect narrative template.

Margin Call isn’t a story made to absolve the many investment firms involved in the 2008 financial crisis. If anything, it’s about the people working in those firms. It’s understandable that in the knowledge of the actions of these firms and the consequences they brought to many working-class families and homeowners across the United States, the first instinctive inclination would be to label them as soulless monsters. Margin Call could easily have done that, especially with a character as ruthless as Jeremy Irons’ John Tuld, who like any cutthroat Gordon Gekko archetype, sees an opportunity to destroy something that is destroyable whilst making a profit as a means of survival. Instead, the film tells a multi-layered narrative about very flawed people who although are not good, they are still aren’t as bad as many would think. If anything, they are simply human beings trying to survive while watching the countdown to a bomb that was always set to go off, rewind, and then go off again in the foreseeable future.

Going back to the character of John Tuld, which to me, next to Paul Bettany’s Will Emerson, remains one of the more self-conscious characters of the film. It would be easy to say that Kevin Spacey’s Sam Rogers is the moral hero of the story. But, Tuld being the self-conscious cynic that he is, does everything he can to unravel not only the moral contradictions of Rogers’ moral posturing. He also deconstructs the nature of money and how “it's made up. Pieces of paper with pictures on it so we don't have to kill each other just to get something to eat. It's not wrong. And it's certainly no different today than it’s ever been. 1637, 1797, 1819, 37, 57, 84, 1901, 07, 29, 1937, 1974, 1987 - Jesus, didn't that ****er **** me up good - 92, 97, 2000 and whatever we want to call this. It's all just the same thing over and over; we can't help ourselves. And you and I can't control it or stop it, or even slow it, or even ever-so-slightly alter it. We just react. And we make a lot of money if we get it right. And we get left by the side of the road if we get it wrong. And there have always been and there always will be the same percentage of winners and losers, happy ****ers and sad suckers, fat cats and starving dogs in this world. Yeah, there may be more of us today than there's ever been. But the percentages-they stay exactly the same.”

It would be easy to look at a man like Sam Rogers and call him a victim of a catastrophe he had to participate in. It would also be even easier to judge a man like John Tuld and call him a soulless opportunist, which wouldn’t be totally inaccurate. But then again, we can’t make the case that he is self-deluded, unlike Sam, who had worked in a firm that had seen one financial shenanigan after another, saw people lose their jobs, which he most likely participated in. This ultimately shows that despite his good heart, his ideals are merely measures of a man looking to excuse his own moral failings in a system that feeds off a form of corruption that has become commonplace behavior.

One of the most terrifying things about a film as prolific and as intense as Margin Call is that in addition to being a financial thriller about one of the worst financial crises of recent years, it also serves as a mirror of human nature. I never saw the film in theaters. But there can be no denying that anyone watching the film in at the time automatically judged John Tuld with the most scathing of moral critiques whilst hoping that Spacey’s Sam Rogers would either stop him in some Hollywoodish act of courageous noble exposure or at least leave him defeated with some moralistic speech followed by his resignation. Sadly, Margin Call, although a film filled with fictional characters, is a film about something that not only happened, but was also set to happen because of one simple fact we still haven’t been able to come to terms with as a species, and that is human nature.

John Tuld’s speech about the cycle of market chaos, although hard to swallow, still bears a great level of truth. As common and even as unfortunate as some people will suffer in the wake of a crisis, those who see a chance to keep surviving will most likely take it. There will always be those who suffer but are around enough to make their moral judgment, which they are entitled to. However, Tuld’s honesty serves as a reminder of how if the same victims of the financial crises were on the other side of the spectrum, then there can be no denying that they too would have been tempted and even seized the same opportunity he did.

It’s only human nature, and Margin Call pretty much illustrates that with the final scene when Sam Rogers buries his beloved dog, which he alluded to earlier in the film. It may seem like a random gesture given that the dying dog Sam mentioned in his melancholic introduction didn’t really affect the plot of the film. However, it did give further insight into the degree of moral integrity Sam has, or at least wishes he could hold onto in the wake of a crisis that required him to sacrifice others just to ensure his own survival.

The dog was more than just a dog. It was Sam’s conscience, and burying it only signifies his fall into the very darkness men like John Tuld live, breathe, and make peace within the wake of knowing much like the spirit of the film does that survival is the primary rule in a society as hyper-competitive as well as hyper-consumerist as the United States. In the end, and sadly, that is what the end says, there is no middle between winners and losers. There are simply those who want to keep eating as opposed to those who acted too late to avoid being eaten.

Bonus Announcement

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Disclaimer:

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Sincerely,

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