‘The Wizard of Lies’ and the Abstraction of a Life

The internet has a way of turning people into abstracted icons of the things which it hates. There are few examples of this happening within America’s financial system more extreme than with Bernie Madoff — and in his case, it is perhaps earned.

For those unaware of Madoff, a quick trip to Wikipedia will fill you in:

“Bernie” Madoff is an American fraudster and a former stockbroker, investment advisor, and financier. He is the former non-executive chairman of the NASDAQ stock market, and the admitted operator of a Ponzi scheme that is considered the largest financial fraud in U.S. history. Prosecutors estimated the size of the fraud to be $64.8 billion, based on the amounts in the accounts of Madoff’s 4,800 clients as of November 30, 2008.

Robbing thousands of people of billions of dollars is an act of extreme capitalistic greed, and his descent from wealthy investor to prison inmate was applauded by many.

This story is told in ‘The Wizard of Lies’, an HBO film starring Robert De Niro as Madoff. Yet the film, which could have easily been a true crime thriller, is not interested in answering questions like ‘how could this have happened’ or ‘why would someone do this’. These questions hang in the air with every scene that passes, and no motive can be easily discerned. Instead, the film asks a question which I think is both more important and more universal:

What happens to the human beings who are reduced into headlines when they’re rocked by scandal?

Bernie Madoff’s investment firm was a family affair, with his two sons and his brother all having senior positions within the company. When Madoff was arrested, the entire family fell under scrutiny. The family patriarch repeatedly told the public that he acted alone, and that his family had no idea about the crimes being committed. Yet the world was (perhaps understandably) kind to none of them.

There’s a scene in the film where Bernie’s son, Mark, is alone in his home and obsessively reading stories about himself and his brother. Each article questions what he knew, if the sons were in on the Ponzi scheme, if they now had a hidden stash of stolen money squirreled away, and if they are guilty of the same crimes as their father.

Then Mark would read the comments.

It is in the comment sections of news websites that human beings are fully turned into the abstract icons which they are to so many. With so many layers placed in between people like Mark and people like the commenters, the writers are able to quickly pronounce those who they find guilty, guilty — and they have little reasons to reconsider their position. “Put them in jail NOW” a comment might say, or “They were in on it at and deserve to be PUNISHED.”

The comments may go even further, like one that Mark reads in the film: “EXECUTE THEM!”

Over the course of time, it became clear that the life that Mark Madoff once had was now gone. Instead of being a wealthy investor and a person of privilege, he was now a social pariah. Tragically, two years to the day after his father was arrested, Mark took his own life.

Whether or not Mark was guilty can’t be said. The fact that he was the one who turned his father in (alongside his brother) would seem to state that he was not, but no one can truly say. What we can say is that he was a victim of circumstance, born to a father who in a way sealed his fate, and part of a time period that compressed his life into a cautionary tale of greed.

There’s a moment halfway through the film where Bernie Madoff experiences his own personal version Ebenezer Scrooge’s haunting. Hearing a child’s footsteps outside of his bedroom, he wanders through the house trying to find his granddaughter. Instead, he finds the faces of all those he has robbed confronting him, asking him how he could do such a thing. The dream sequence ends with the lead spirit pulling out a gun, and shooting him in the heart.

Where Jacob Marley offered redemption for Scrooge, Madoff’s tormentors had no room for such a concept; either in this dream or in reality. Our ability to pass judgement, to condemn, and to harass, is powerful indeed.