The Apprentice Film: The Making of a Narcissistic Monster
By Liz Goldner
October 26, 2024
Being so appalled by the sight and sound of present-day Donald J. Trump at rallies and interviews, why would anyone want to see more of him as a younger version of his current monstrous self?
Dr. Frankenstein (Jeremy Strong at Roy Cohn) and his monster share the back seat of a limo in “The Apprentice.”
All photos courtesy of Pief Weyman.
The acting in the recently released film, “The Apprentice,” is impressive, with Sebastian Stan creating a brilliant portrayal of The Donald. His interpretation of the obsessively ambitious real-estate mogul is of the person we see on the tube and read about, in the making, but not yet the monster he would become.
The film’s earliest scenes in 1973 reveal the posh clubs and the beautiful glamorous people, especially women, that Trump was attracted to in New York City during the rapidly changing — politically, socially, and sexually — 1970s. One scene shows him wining and dining a starlet-like female in a private club, telling her that he’s one of the youngest people permitted there and mentioning various wealthy people nearby. Another scene depicts him meeting his gorgeous, red hot pants clad future wife, Ivana, in a club. He is so smitten by her that he pursues her relentlessly, even to her modeling assignment at an Aspen ski resort. (Trump rapes Ivana later in the movie, a claim that his wife made during her 1990 divorce proceedings, but later retracted.)
Maria Bakalova, left, is Ivana Trump in “The Apprentice.”
Also compelling is that the Trump we see and hear today was already displaying his sneering mannerisms, swagger, and audacious personality 50 years ago. This attitude is particularly dramatic when he drives his fancy car to one of the slum apartments that made his father, Fred, very rich, to collect rent from impoverished tenants. Knocking on one door after another, greeted by a variety of tenants who obviously despise him — one of whom greets him with a kettle of boiling water that he tosses at him — the burgeoning real estate “genius” shows zero compassion for them, only contempt.
His braggadocio propels Trump to pursue the demonic lawyer Roy Cohn (who gloats about prosecuting Julius and Ethel Rosenberg for espionage and sending them to the electric chair in 1953) to represent him. Trump hounds Cohn when his father’s slum apartments are being sued for racial discrimination in the early 1970s. After Cohn rebuffs him, Trump follows him into a private club men’s room and harasses him while he is taking a piss. Cohn walks out of the stall, stone-faced, agreeing to represent Trump while zipping up his fly.
Sebastian Stan convinces in his role at Donald Trump in “The Apprentice.”
As New York City was in the doldrums and its politics were corrupt at the time, Cohn had a relatively easy time wielding his dirty tricks to win Trump’s case. He then became Trump’s mentor, supplanting his tyrannical father. The film unfolds with Cohn, played by Jeremy Strong (familiar to many viewers for his role in “Succession”), advising, counseling, and defending Trump. That he was a closeted gay man who hosted glamorous parties with S&M orgies didn’t dissuade the businessman, whose ambitions superseded any glimmer of concern. In one Cohn party scene, he is greeted by Andy Warhol, played so true-to-life by Bruce Beaton that you might think the artist had risen from the dead. Warhol tells Trump that he’s an artist who makes whatever kind of art sells. Trump responds with a grin, “Making money is an art.”
Cohn teaches the young Trump, fresh from Flushing, Queens, how to dress and deal with the media. While riding in the back seat of a private car, Cohn shares with him his three most important dictums: “Attack, attack, attack; admit nothing, deny everything; always claim victory, never admit defeat.” Hearing these rules stated by Strong, playing the devil incarnate Cohn, feels like a bulb lighting up inside one’s head. The rules explain the real-life Trump’s behavior since entering politics a decade ago, especially his disparaging comments about Kamala Harris and so many others, his incessant lies about our nation, and his continual and ever-uncritical self-aggrandizement.
Ivanka and Donald in an exchange in “The Apprentice.”
As the film proceeds to the 1980s, Trump gains tremendous financial power, often through suspect behavior. We cruise through the audacious development of Trump Tower, which he brazenly brags about to his father, whose real-estate accomplishments were comparatively déclassé. A decade later he strives to prop up his failing Atlantic City casinos. He also witnesses his older brother Fred Jr. decline into alcoholism, ask him for help, which he denies him, and soon after dies from substance abuse, which tears the younger Trump apart. It is one of the film’s few displays of vulnerability.
As the protégé’s fame and questionable success increase, Cohn faces disbarment and contracts AIDS. Before he dies in 1986, the two have a contentious argument on a New York City street, with Cohn calling Trump an ungrateful fraud. Shortly afterwards, they have a brief yet difficult reconciliation at Trump’s Florida resort, after which Cohn dies. This incident is followed by the resort staff intensely sanitizing the estate at the order of the germophobic owner. Trump then declines to attend Cohn’s funeral.
Jeremy Strong, left, is Roy Cohn and Sebastian Stan, right, is Donald Trump in the movie “The Apprentice.”
Soon after, Trump meets with Tony Schwartz, played by Eoin Duffy, who ghost wrote his book, “The Art of the Deal,” which allowed Trump to revel in his own presumed greatness. Schwartz wrote in the New York Times, on October 11, “Watching ‘The Apprentice’ crystallized two big lessons that I learned from Mr. Trump 30 years ago, and that I’ve seen play out in his life ever since with more and more extreme consequences. The first lesson is that a lack of conscience can be a huge advantage when it comes to accruing power, attention and wealth in a society where most other human beings abide by a social contract. The second lesson is that nothing we get for ourselves from the outside world can ever adequately substitute for what we’re missing on the inside.”
“The Apprentice,” is worth seeing for its perceptive view of the New York City of the 1970s and ‘80s, with its focus on some of its major business, political, and media players in an era when greed and corruption reached previously unheard-of heights. More importantly, it reveals in detail the early influences on and evolving of the incomprehensible, narcissistic monster that Donald Trump would become.
