Day: September 20, 2022

Is story all about money? Even when there is not a bag of money to motivate the characters, are we dealing with wealthy characters? Are movies secretly about the Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous? Characters can quickly become wealthy and barely notice it, like Harry Potter, who went from sleeping in a closet under the stairs to inheriting a mountain of gold at Gringotts in chapter 5 of the first book.

Let’s take a look at IMDB’s top 25 rated movies to see. It’s not a fair sampling of all stories, but it might be enough to run a simple test.

1. The Shawshank Redemption (1994): Andy Dupree withdraws $370,000 of laundered money in 1966, or about $3.3 million today.
2. The Godfather (1972): The Corleone family is worth a billion, possibly more. We don’t see stacks of money lying around, but killing off your competitors for the family has a solid profit margin.
3. The Dark Knight (2008), Bruce Wayne is the quintessential billionaire worth an estimated $50 billion.
4. The Godfather Part II (1974): The billionaire Corleone family again.
5. 12 Angry Men (1957): Unknown. Juror #4 seems to be a man of wealth and position, but we do not know most of the jurors’ names, let alone their income.
6. Schindler’s List (1993): Oskar Schindler, a wealthy German industrialist and entrepreneur is a millionaire who uses his fortune to save Jews during WW2.
7. The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King (2003): Aragorn, crowned as High King Elessar, reunites Arnor’s and Gondor’s kingdoms. While his net worth may be difficult to judge, there would be few in middle earth with more power and resources.
8. Pulp Fiction (1994) Crimelord Marsellus Wallace is a millionaire with influence from the world of boxing to drugs and smuggling.
9. The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring (2001), Bilbo is the wealthiest hobbit in all the Shire. The Mithril armor he gifts Frodo is worth more than the whole Shire combined. Estimated fantasy armor millionaire.
10. The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly (1966) Blondie walks away with 200,000 gold dollars, or about 16.5 million in today’s currency.
11. Forrest Gump (1994) Forrest Gump is a billionaire and possibly a gozillionaire thanks to Bubba Gump Shrimp and Hurricane Andrew.
12. Fight Club (1999): Tyler Durden may not be wealthy, but he destroys all the credit card records worth, gifting debt holders $480 billion in 1999 or $887 billion today. Project Mayhem is all about debt and money.
13. Inception (2010): Fischer and Saito are billionaires keeping the dream alive.
14. The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers (2002) I am going with Galadriel this time, who surpasses all other elves in beauty, knowledge, and power. Not all about money, but she did get one of the three elf rings of power.
15. Star Wars: Episode V – The Empire Strikes Back (1980) – Lando might be the wealthiest member of this film; he owns Cloud City and lives in luxury. Estimated Cloud City millionaire, but Vader definitely is more powerful. Leia probably lost much of her wealth when Alderan blew up, otherwise, she would top the list.
16. The Matrix (1999) – This is not all about money because the world is a simulation. It’s hard to worry about money when humans are batteries, and you eat amino goop for every meal.
17. Goodfellas (1990) – When you measure money by inches, not amount, it just might be about the money. Henry’s biggest frustration in leaving organized crime is he’s just an average nobody, like everyone else.
18. One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest (1975) – There are no millions here, but gambling, betting, and games like Monopoly make appearances teaching inmates about their agency. Not about the money, but money makes some great arguments here.
19. Se7en (1995) – John Doe targets his second victim, wealthy and amoral attorney Eli Gould, for his sin of greed. Not sure about the amount, but Gould has lots of ill-gotten money.
20. Seven Samurai (1954): Poor farmers look for impoverished Samurai who will take rice as their payment for defending the village from bandits. No millionaires here, but rice motivates everything in this Japanese period epic.
21. It’s a Wonderful Life (1946) Mr. Potter is the wealthiest and meanest man in Bedford Falls and owns most businesses, including the Bank. He offers George a $20K salary in 1936, more than $350K today. Definitely a millionaire, possibly a billionaire.
22. The Silence of the Lambs (1991): The most influential person is probably Senator Ruth Martin. Buffalo Bill has the FBI after him because he kidnapped the Senator’s daughter. Dr. Lector was wealthy, but I have difficulty putting money first in this psychological thriller.
23. City of God (2002) – Drug lords fighting for control in a Brazilian favela. I’m not sure about the exchange rate, but the crime war involves most of the drug money in town.
24. Saving Private Ryan (1998) – Not much money here, just world war two combat up close and personal.
25. Life is Beautiful (1997) – Another world war two film focused on the Holocaust. Hard to say this one is about money even if the family wins a tank in the end.

Well, it’s hard for me to count this one clearly, especially where we have Middle Earth, the Star Wars universe, and the postapocalyptic world of the Matrix to calculate finances. But even in those fantasy worlds, we often deal with their wealthiest and most powerful characters. Morpheus owns a sweet hovercraft!

By my count, 18 have millionaires, billionaires, kings, senators, and drug lords. And why shouldn’t they? Money is a major motivator in our lives, why should fictional characters be different? And even when the characters have nothing but the rice they grow themselves, it is a major focus of the movie. You don’t have to have many resources to find motivation.

So is there an escape from money in stories? Yes! But the authors probably have to kill characters to make it happen.

Speaking of death, murders, and war, how many of those movies don’t have violent death? None of them.

I thought It’s a Wonderful Life came the closest, except it has a montage of World War Two where Navy fighter pilot Ace Harry Bailey shoots down 15 enemy planes. Joe Baley prepares for suicide to collect life insurance money. Inception deaths besides Mal’s suicide are dream projections, but we still get plenty of murder and mayhem on screen.

Maybe money as a motivator is the safer option in the end.