Throughout his legendary career, has never settled. Never short on ambition, Scorsese is a true maverick in the industry. Somehow, his audaciousness has increased since he hit his 70s, when most people as accomplished as him would maybe begin to settle down. In the last decade, the visionary filmmaker behind and continues to produce modern-day classics seemingly with ease in his later years.

, released in 2013, showed Scorsese at the top of his game. Arguably Scorsese's most rewatchable film to date, its drive and relentlessly visceral pace feel like it should've been made by a 35-year-old, and not someone in their early 70s. The Wolf of Wall Street is a collection of indelible moments and scenes, with none having a more seismic impact than the lunch scene between and , featuring an improvised gesture by the latter that

Scorsese's spiritual late period run, starting with The Wolf of Wall Street through his recent film, , engages with familiar text for the director, including faith and organized crime, portrayed in and , respectively. Scorsese's sobering self-reflection in these films has made each of these films transcendent. Audiences can track the deconstruction of his frequent themes of salvation and punishment in real time. On the surface, The Wolf of Wall Street, the story of the corrupt stockbroker, (DiCaprio), is your typical Scorsese crime biopic, featuring a rags-to-riches narrative complemented by a narration track and a sweeping pop music soundtrack. With this film, based on the memoir by the real Belfort, Scorsese turns up the dial, presenting the debauchery of Belfort with an What makes it more haunting than any of his previous crime sagas is that, in the end, Belfort never truly pays for his crimes, because we as a society (and Scorsese to an extent), enable his actions.

Jordan Belfort, the hungry 22-year-old Reagan-era capitalist, gets his first break on Wall Street as a broker for the banking firm, L.F. Rothschild. His employer, Mark Hanna (McConaughey), takes him under his wing, telling him to ignore the other belligerent brokers and focus on the money. During his first day at work, Hanna invites Jordan out for lunch. While he's on the clock and the sun's still out, Hanna drinks a martini and snorts a line of cocaine, setting the tone for life on Wall Street. Hanna imparts wisdom to his apprentice, mostly consisting of drug and sexual habits. He insists that one must keep your body pushing at a steady pace or else they'll lose sight of the main goal: It doesn't take long for Jordan to adapt to Hanna's lifestyle, as we immediately see him on a cocaine trip at a strip club. By the end of the film, Hanna's drug intake will be "rookie numbers" compared to Jordan's inhumane level of excess.

In this scene, McConaughey does everything but light the screen on fire with his charisma and magnetic energy. This heat-check performance the actor's creative rejuvenation period after years of waning credibility among the public, where he won an Oscar for , wowed the dance floor in , and led the space blockbuster, . McConaughey's making distinct choices and taking big swings in his performance, but nothing feels out of place. The signature attribute of this indelible supporting turn is the , accompanied by a humming beat that synchronizes with each bump. It serves as the national anthem of Wall Street — a As part of this mock initiation process, he instructs Jordan to perform the chest pump and tune. Hanna's "pre-game" routine, which perfectly evokes the tone of The Wolf of Wall Street, stood alongside "alright, alright, alright" as McConaughey's defining trait.

McConuaghey's humming "money chant" in The Wolf of Wall Street was improvised. He explained to The Independentthat the chest bump was a ritual before filming. His co-star, DiCaprio, was intrigued, and he This is a technique that . In a video, the actor stated that it is a "relaxation tool," citing that any musical beat helps him stay loose before the cameras roll. Many of the film's most iconic moments, notably the "sell me this pen" exchange, were not in 's script but were ad-libbed on the spot by DiCaprio and his fellow cast members. It helped that the film also starred , who specialized in improv-heavy comedies under the system.

The lunch scene not only captured Matthew McConaughey at his rawest, but it also solidified Martin Scorsese's greater vision for The Wolf of Wall Street. With its 3-hour runtime, the film stays true to its idea about bloated excess. However, Scorsese's impeccable Either way, Scorsese, as he reveals in this interview, cites that all the material in the script was overwhelming him, and he was uncertain how everything was going to connect thematically. From his perspective, filming the lunch scene, on the fourth day of shooting, was when it all "clicked in."

The scintillating exchange between Jordan and Hanna represented the thesis of the film: dynamic speed. "That's the movie," Scorsese said. he continued, citing how the pace of this scene connects to the frantic behavioral climate of Wall Street. He recognized that, throughout the rest of the picture, a respective conversation "takes on its own speed" and "acceleration." Between scenes and within scenes, . The constant tug and pull between quickly and methodically paced scenes complements Scorsese's visceral camera movements and radio-dial soundtrack.

Crafting a film at every stage; casting, filming, and editing, often formulates spontaneously. Each element has a life of its own, and it's up to the filmmaker to adapt to these ever-changing circumstances. Few directors have embraced and thrived off of improvisation and on-the-spot decision-making quite like Martin Scorsese. Scorsese is a cinematic genius because — never sacrificing the plot for emotional vibrancy. The lunch scene between Leonardo DiCaprio and Matthew McConaughey jolts the viewer immediately. This gave Scorsese a bright idea: what if every scene operated like this? As a result, The Wolf of Wall Street was born.

In more ways than none, The Wolf of Wall Street represents the culmination of Martin Scorsese’s work. The film, nominated for five Academy Awards, signaled a new direction for Scorsese, as his late period run that continues through Killers of the Flower Moon In an unfortunate similarity, The Wolf of Wall Street kicked off a trend of Scorsese being snubbed at the Oscars, as this film, Silence, The Irishman, and Flower Moon went a combined zero for 26 across four ceremonies. Although there is widespread reverence for his recent films, many still don’t grasp the profundity of his overarching messages.

Of course, there is nothing ordinary about the debauchery practiced by Jordan Belfort and his motley crew of corrupt stockbrokers, but their yuppie, white-collar presentation contrasts with the sleazy mafiosos of his past crime films. Right when we think that Scorsese is recklessly glorifying the actions of his characters (which is an ill-advised claim that has lingered with him for decades), he concludes The Wolf of Wall Street with a sobering coda. Belfort getting off scot-free and showing zero signs of reformation is not a gesture of condonation on Scorsese’s part,Worst of all, the ending outlines that most of us, like the audience watching the film, are destined to become entranced by the charm and alluring lifestyle of nefarious wolves like Belfort.

Additionally, The Wolf of Wall Street, with its darkly humorous roots and rambunctious subject, allowed Because his films often carry a cinema verite-like quality to them, capturing a specific milieu like organized crime, 19th century New York socialites in , or the eerie streets of Soho in , it makes sense that the director would allow his actors to play each scene spontaneously. In the ultimate act of affection from a son to a mother, Scorsese allowed his recurring cameo star, , to improvise most of her lines in the deliciously entertaining late-night dinner scene in Goodfellas. He understands the power of improvising, as this scene is refreshingly unrehearsed and true to Italian-American life. Robert De Niro’s delivery of “You talkin’ to me?” while standing before a mirror in Taxi Driver lives in the annals of film history. However, it was not conceived by screenwriter Paul Schrader. Because production was falling behind schedule, De Niro had to think of a line quickly on his feet, and the rest is history. Considering that De Niro’s Travis Bickle has a blurred interpretation of reality, he would deliver lines with a certain spontaneity.

While Scorsese holds plenty of influence on a film set, he was no match for Jack Nicholson during the filming of The Departed. From his “I smell a rat” routine and chaotically pulling an unaccounted-for gun on his scene partner, Leonardo DiCaprio, Scorsese sat back and watched Nicholson chew the scenery with whatever popped into his mind. Scorsese’s films recognize that mobsters and criminal figures are generally psychologically unstable, and improvisational moments provide his actors with a chance to go off the cuff and surprise everyone on set. The most iconic scene in Goodfellas, and perhaps Scorsese’s filmography, the “How am I funny?” confrontation, arose from an anecdote Joe Pesci shared with Scorsese. Without pause, this exchange was added to the script and not told by any of the extras in the scene. There are countless examples of Scorsese striking gold by giving his actors space to experiment, like Matthew McConaughey in The Wolf of Wall Street, or to enhance the intensity of a moment, like Pesci and Nicholson.

The Wolf of Wall Street is available to watch on Paramount+ in the U.S.

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