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Analysis on the Movie The Best Offer

The movie, The Best Offer is an art thriller depicting the story of a peculiar auctioneer, Virgil. Virgil is extremely successful both as an auctioneer and as a collector who has an obsession towards female portraits. One day, he receives a strange case of a mysterious woman, Claire who eventually causes him to lose everything. The source of IMDB gives out the synopsis of the movie and the review in New York Times points out the “the elegance of auction” in the movie.  I watched this movie during the summer and was not surprised to find myself fascinated by every aspect of it. Moreover, I have found connection between this movie and what has been discussed in this class. The movie, in sync with its name, shows multiple aspects of auctioning and social network.

Throughout the movie, Virgil plays as a successful auctioneer while colluding art collector. He increases art collection directly through the auctions that he hosts. The auctions in the movie are English auctions where the bidder wins when no one else is willing to pay for a higher price. In such auctions, as discussed in lectures, the dominant strategy is always to bid truthfully. When bidders enter the auction and see the artworks, they usually come up with their true value at the amount they are willing to bid. As Virgil sees an art piece which he is fond of, he would identify it as a fake. By doing so, the true value for each bidder would lower as they would not be willing to bid at their original true value while Virgil benefits greatly by having his partner-in-crime, Billy to win the auction. As Virgil’s true values for the art pieces remain high, he wins huge payoff through his colluded schemes. He is able to manipulate and change the minds of the bidders, lowering their bidding value while thinking they could have won the bids while Virgil became the ultimate winner from the huge payoff.

Virgil is a loner in life, his avoids human interaction which directly leads to his tragic ending. The only people who he remains in contact with is Billy, his auction partner in crime, and Robert, the guy working at an antique mechanic shop. As Virgil slowly gets to know Claire and opens up to him, he seems to develop a strong tie between him and Claire. To Virgil, he is the center of his social network where Claire, Robert, and Billy are the three nodes that are connected to him but disconnected from each other. What he has ignored is that the three strong ties he established would end up violating the Strong Triadic Relationship and the three nodes would always end up having a tie to each other. Billy, Robert, and Claire are tied together strongly, in fact, as they put up an ultimate scheme together against Virgil, causing him to lose everything including love, and his entire art collections. Moreover, Virgil is not the center node of his network. Rather, he is the node that is at the outer edges of his network map, leaving him highly dependent on his other nodes and low bargaining power; the other nodes could end up not offering him anything, leaving vulnerable, just as what he really ends up in the movie, been offered nothing and taken away everything.

Sources:

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1924396/

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/01/01/movies/the-best-offer-from-giuseppe-tornatore.html

 

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