Lehman Brothers’ last call

I happen to have been in New York City the weekend Lehman Brothers went bust. I remember as if it were yesterday the panic in the air, as the unelected representatives of the 1 percent tried to figure out what do to—not only about the bankruptcy of Lehman Brothers but about the impending collapse of the financial system of the United States and the entire world.

I also remember wondering what was going on within the inner sanctum of Lehman Brothers, where the 99 percent never tread. What were they thinking? What were they doing? Was it really just about wringing the last red cent out of their financial swindle? Were they just acting according to the roles assigned to them in the financial machine?

Now we know the answer to those questions. Or, at least, we now have a fascinating fictionalized account of that one 24-hour period when Lehman Brothers breathed what was to be its last greedy gasp.

That’s the subject of J. C. Chandor’s “Margin Call,” which, with superb acting and tight directorial control, represents on screen what A. O. Scott has called “the dark romance of capital: the elegance of numbers; the kinkiness of money; the deep, rotten, erotic allure of power.”

And, of course, its costs. The film begins with one round of downsizing, as entire floors of risk calculators and salespeople (including, importantly, Eric Dale, played by Stanley Tucci, who has come close to figuring out the pyramid scheme on which the unnamed firm’s entire trading strategy rests) are eviscerated, and ends with a final round of firings as the firm goes bust (but not before Zachary Quinto’s Peter Sullivan, who finishes Dale’s calculations, is rewarded for his efforts by being promoted).

Chandor does not attempt to present the other costs, outside the firm, in the wider economy and society, because, presumably, we all know what they have been. Nor does anyone in the film even attempt to justify the role of the firm, before or during the crisis—again, presumably, because we all know any such justification would ring hollow. The closest it gets is the speech by boss of bosses John Tuld (Jeremy Irons), who explains that the world has always been made up of “fat cats and stray dogs” and all he and his hired guns have been doing is playing their assigned role in that endless game.

And that’s the power of the movie. There’s no conspiracy. No breaking of the law. Not even the sense of moral degeneracy or collapse. What it shows is how capitalism works and how the decisions of the various players are scripted—“We have no choice.” “There is no choice.” “It’s not like we have a choice.”—according to the positions they occupy.

Tuld and his employees are just as enslaved by the relations in which they find themselves as the 99 percent who have been forced to pay the economic and social costs of Wall Street’s decisions—albeit in a quite different manner.