Today, the Shattered Lens wishes a happy 81st birthday to actor and producer Michael Douglas!
For today’s scene that I love, we have a scene from Oliver Stone’s 1987 film, Wall Street. In this scene, Michael Douglas plays Gordon Gekko. Gekko is supposed to be the film’s villain but he’s actually a lot more compelling and, at times, sympathetic than the film’s heroes. He’s not a judgmental jerk like the union leader played by Martin Sheen. Nor is he a snitch like his protegee, played by Charlie Sheen. Instead, Gordon Gekko is honest about who he is.
This is the scene that won Michael Douglas an Oscar. Watching him in this scene, it’s easy to see why Douglas’s performance supposedly inspired a lot of people to get a job working on Wall Street. Douglas is so charismatic in this scene that he makes this movie, directed by a future supporter of Bernie Sanders, into one of the best advertisements for capitalism ever filmed.
Through the Shattered Lens 
Talk about a movie “of its time” but it sure captured a time when our culture changed…and what a terrific string of films he made at that time!~
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I definitely agree Gekko is the most interesting character in the film, Douglas is charisma personified here. Interesting how in Falling Down he plays the flip side to Gekko – a displaced defense worker who’s defeated by the system. I view Martin Sheen’s character as symbolic of the fading working class of the 1980s so I get his frustration and animosity towards the Wall Street ethos, Gekko would break a man like him without blinking an eye, just another day at the office. The scenes with Martin and Charlie do feel like they are talking to each other – for real.
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