Symbolism with the Dog?
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adam-pruzan — 11 years ago(June 13, 2014 07:06 PM)
This reply is excellent. I would offer 2 additions:
- "If you need a friend, get a dog," was for decades a standard line among traders on Wall Street. Michael Douglas's character, Gordon Gekko, uses the line with Charlie Sheen's character, Bud Fox, in the film
Wall Street
. Clearly, the dog is Sam Rogers' only friend (although Will Emerson is at least a loyal subordinate, which is something). - In the second-to-last scene, John Tuld tries to cheer Sam up by suggesting that securities trading is at least better than some things Sam could have done, such as spending his life ditch digging; Sam replies, "If I had, at least there would be some holes in the ground to show for it." The film cuts directly from that scene to the shot of Sam digging a hole.
- "If you need a friend, get a dog," was for decades a standard line among traders on Wall Street. Michael Douglas's character, Gordon Gekko, uses the line with Charlie Sheen's character, Bud Fox, in the film
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mikeyflatley — 14 years ago(November 01, 2011 03:23 AM)
da job is basically punishin sam's soul like da illness is punishin his dog so he begz 2 be let go much da dog is prolly beggin 2 be put down 2 end his sufferin. in da end, sam is denied resignation so he decides 2 bury his soul (dog) be4 in con't his job for at least another 2 yrz.
I live, I love, I slay, and I'm content -
legnadibrom — 14 years ago(December 29, 2011 08:13 PM)
you're still posting on the IMDB?
http://www.last.fm/music/Disuse -
CuriousGrl — 14 years ago(November 08, 2011 12:11 PM)
I think the dog represents Sam Roger himself. He basically lost everything that was alive in him. At the end he is digging the grave for himself, he is continuing digging the same grave he has been digging for the past 34 years at the firm.
My 2 cents -
chuck-526 — 14 years ago(December 17, 2011 05:24 PM)
Paul Bettany's scene shaving in the bathroom
Huh?
Please help me out here. Was that really Will and I didn't recognize him?
I thought that was some nameless trader who had just arrived, doing his normal early morning routine not any of the principal characters who had been up most of the night. (I've seen employees who wanted to "save time" or "get in early" or "not create a mess in their apartment" or "not wake their S.O." or "go to the gym first" or "ride a bicycle to work" do their whole morning routine including not just shaving but showering and dressing etc. at the office. So my understanding of what the movie showed seemed normal to me.) -
mic7440 — 14 years ago(December 31, 2011 01:55 AM)
I think it was his emotional escape. I think he truly cared about the dog, we see this in the way he hugged it at the vet. However I also think it was his way of letting his emotions out.
In the early part of the movie he mentions his dog while another character is talking about the layoffs. It makes him appear insensitive because here are people with families who are getting laid off while he's upset about his dog. However as we learn more about him it becomes obvious that his dog is his escape from the reality around him. He even mentions that he doesn't wanna be part of his bosses conversations because not knowing everything that goes on is what allowed him to stay there for soo long. So it's his safe haven or coping mechanismfrom work, his estranged family, stress, etc
Also his sorrow for his dog is what allows him to express sorrow for what is going on around him. It's safe to say that in his position he has had to show himself to his subordinates as being tough, stoic, merciless, and strong. So is he crying because his dog is dying? Yes. But is he also crying because of his sadness in his personal life and the goings on of his career? Yes. Now if a subordinate walked in and found him crying, would he say he's crying because his family life is trash, and he just had to fire 80% of his staff? Or is he going to tell the subordinate who has to have a significant level of fear and respect for him that he's crying about his dog? It looks more ruthless and cutthroat to let people believe that you could care less about your ex-wife and your employees. So in the end it gives him that look of a cold blooded killer who has a soft spot for kittensyou're not a kitten so you're a potential target at any given time. And lets face it, that career he is in depends on appearing ruthless and cutthroat -
PoppyTransfusion — 14 years ago(January 22, 2012 03:25 AM)
I can go along with the symbolism that people have written about here but I saw it as concrete and not symbolic. People lose pets everyday, why not a company bigwig. Also the people losing their jobs around him as his dog dies: which event was more common in his life? People losing their jobs. He'd been with the company 34 years and lived through this many times. In his position it doesn't pay to get attached to staff and indeed we see how detached his character is from lots of people around him including his family. It's easy to be attached to a pet and what that dog represented for him. Sam (Spacey) was always walking the fine line between ruthlessness and common humanity as a character in the film. He also qualified, in some ways, to be the sort of hypocrite that Will (Bettany) was speaking of when describing the normal people.
my vessel is magnificent and large and huge-ish -
Renaldo Matlin — 14 years ago(February 09, 2012 10:09 PM)
I don't know what scares me the most. The bankers of this world, or the people on this board who can't grasp why Spacey's character would cry over his dog, the only thing he had left in the world that he cared about.
