Entertainment: The Allure of Being an A-Hole

While contained in an otherwise solid, well-done guy movie, the Baldwin scene near the beginning of "Glengarry Glen Ross" is such a cinematic tour de force that it has become one of my favorite all-time movie scenes. (For those of you unfamiliar with the scene, please see my Entertainment link "Coffee is for closers only").

------------------------------ I am particularly mesmerized by this scene due to the intense, visceral and ultimately conflicting emotions it provokes. Initially, there is no question that Baldwin's character is a despicable guy. Who goes around putting people down or otherwise berating them by boasting about the expensive car he drives ($80,000 BMW) or how much he made last year ($970,000)? Does he really equate one's worth as a person with possession of material goods or their yearly income? Clearly yes, he does (notwithstanding the point that his speech is, at least in part, a motivational tool). ---------------------------------------------- The initial, visceral reaction to this scene is the easy part to analyze, however. More complicated is a subtle but gnawing, slightly unsettling feeling one gets upon reflection: I would kind of like to be that guy. Not only for the nice car and expensive suit, but just to be able, without a trace of emotion or empathy, to completely rip someone else apart and to be a total a-hole without thinking twice about it. Who wouldn't like to say to someone they dislike that "my watch cost more than your car?" Who wouldn't like to say that they can do the job better than anyone else in the room ("I could go out there tonight with the materials you got, make myself $15,000, tonight! In two hours! Could you?!?") and mean it?

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Underlying the whole scene is an incredible do-or-die tension, that if you don't finish with the top two sales figures then you're fired; pick up the money that's out there or you'll be shining Baldwin's shoes. There is no middle ground here, you succeed or you fail. One's livelihood and manhood are at stake; the stakes could not be higher.