Entry 11, Sixth Review: The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerlad, and The Great Gatsby directed by Baz Luhrman

With Francis Ford Coppola’s The Great Gatsby in 1974 being too literal, Baz Luhrman’s adaptation of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s magnum opus for American Literature is too much and, equally, not enough.

Perhaps my previous dislike for the book (yes, don’t hate me) clouds my ability to judge this year’s widely-discussed screen adaptation. On the bare surface, the obvious subject matter in The Great Gatsby could attract filmmakers like tragic love to the poets: combining the decadence and moral disgust of the obscenely rich, with the struggle for (or in) true love.

As Luhrman says in 60 Minutes, the Twenties “was a golden orgy of money: women’s skirts went up, skyscrapers went up, the stock market – everything was going up.” He wisely added that, as Fitzgerald’s story was published in 1925, the author predicted that it would all crash – as it did in the Depression.

Here’s a quick inventory of what could describe Luhrman’s latest visual glamour-bomb: champagne, fireworks, diamonds, chrome, martinis littering piano surfaces and marble railings like party favors, flapper girls and dames in sequined and satin costumes, jazz bands in tuxedos, palace-sized mansions, mega-pixeled colors, and all kinds of booze. And tinsel. Tinsel everywhere. It was like a New Year’s Eve party, hosted by P. Diddy, or Jay-Z (a true Gatsby figure in the fact that he’s as innovatively, favorably nouveau-riche as this generation can provide), and crewed by MTV.

I admit that I was enraptured and excited by the scenes featuring Gatsby’s parties. I was further seduced by Leo DiCaprio’s Gatsby. The best part was the frantic, heart-stuttering moments leading up to his breathless reunion with Daisy Buchanan (Carey Mulligan). In that scene was embarrassing, anxious-excited situational humor. The ridiculousness of a millionaire’s eccentricities bled out for the audience’s delight, seeing Gatsby’s coolness crack under the pressure of an old but heady crush. 

I fell in love with DiCaprio as Gatsby, wanted to be romanced by him. Dicaprio’s easily one of the best actors of our time. He’s got the most successful multi-faceted acting careers out there (Titanic, The Aviator, Inception, Shutter Island, The Basketball Diaries, What’s Eating Gilbert Grape?, Blood Diamond, Gangs in New York, The Departed, Need I Say More?). He’s mastered the perfect balance of impassivity, dignity, weakness, emotional instability, grief, greed, malice, and whatever’s hard to imitate on its own; yet he can probably do them all at once. Where Redford performed the title role like a golden statue, impassive and too-godlike, DiCaprio can do like a faceted jewel.  

DiCaprio not only acts brilliantly, but he adjusts to each director’s style. He tailors his physique and mannerisms to not just to Jay Gatsby, but indeed Luhrman’s Gatsby.

What’s important to note is that, with Jay Gatsby’s endless love for Daisy, another relationship is rather overlooked, despite its consistency in the novel: the narrator Nick Carraway’s fascination-turned-admiration for the self-made millionaire. Carraway, played by Tobey Maguire, is carefully iconic enough to have carried the role to its proper weight.

There are changes to his portrayal from the novel, however. Another example of too-literal-ness is when Carraway’s narration takes a too-physical form. Carraway is introduced in the beginning of the film, reminiscing on his time spent as Gatsby’s friend in the 1920s, but he is a broken man, treated for depression and alcoholism in a sanitarium. It’s not enough that Carraway could be portrayed as looking back into the past, the “good old days.” He has to have a physical effect from Gatsby’s downfall. No subtlety there. Is it not enough that Carraway’s narration of the past is told in a nostalgic tone, but that he has to suffer from drastic demons?

Come on, Luhrman, have some appreciation for subtlety. I can’t recall that the 1974 Gatsby had Carraway doing-voice-overs in which he read from the book’s text (because the words are just that good, and apparently cannot be parted from). It definitely could’ve been done away with, as could the visual of the novel’s text: “So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past.”

Luhrman’s casting of Tobey Maguire as Carraway to DiCaprio’s Gatsby worked very well. These two actors have been long-time friends before they were made famous.  Also, DiCaprio first starred in Luhrman’s modern-day rendition of Romeo + Juliet in 1997, right before he was immortalized in Titanic. 

I like the contemporary music fusing with the 1920s time era. It’s different, and especially daring. When I think of the lifestyles of the rich and the famous, I primarily think of rap stars with their ridiculous amount of gold, furs, booze and infamy – and also their offensively obvious amount of BLING. Where rock stars are rebels, rap stars are lions, sitting pretty on their entourages and inarguable reputations as kings. That’s also a way to describe Gatsby. He slunk away to gain his riches, and suddenly, here he arrives with a mansion that could make Disney CEOs salivate with theme park offers. Further, he treads onto the Buchanan “pride” with a desire to claim the lioness, Daisy (though fearless and independent she is not).

Besides, the rap stuck to the party montages. Lana Del Rey’s siren song “Young and Beautiful” is the main (repetitive) theme, and Florence + the Machine’s “Over the Love” could be heard floating in the dark camera shots.

I watched Joel Edgerton with more appreciation than Carey Mulligan. I never liked Daisy as a character. And yes, Tom Buchanan is a definitive bully of a stock character, but Joel Edgerton, a new player into the acting field, commands the role with equal ease and innovation. There was something more humanlike in him.

The scene involving Myrtle and the car crash was so dreamlike that the heaviness of the moment barely translated to the audience. It should’ve been stark, not…well, whimsical.

Luhrman may have gone over-the-top with Romeo + Juliet, a more well-known story than Gatsby, but Shakespeare’s most well-known play has been adapted and reinvented for centuries. There are few versions of Gatsby adaptations come to life, so the idea of creating a rebelliously stylish version is, understandably, not welcome. Gatsby is a precious novel to English majors, teachers and writers. Fitzgerald’s singular star of American Literature is indeed so beautifully written that it is almost lyrical.

There’s so much going on. Maybe the trailer’s just greatly misleading (the traitorous Iron Man 3 comes to mind), but it’s almost a whirlwind of 3D, iconic cast members, decadent shots and locations, and modern music. The best way to describe tailoring this film down to a more view-able perfection would be to trim off the sequined trim and patterned rosettes of a gown, maintaining the shape, or the theme, of the total piece.

Gatsby was a pretty spot-on commentary on the social era. Fitzgerald bravely painted the picture of how the enjoyment of the Roaring Twenties would come crashing down. He also revealed the gilded nature of the elite’s perfect lives – there was deep-rooted unhappiness, resentment, greed and infidelity. To embellish a near-satirical story with a more brilliant vision on why it’s so great to be rich would probably diminish the heart of the film, the message that the moviegoer is supposed to be clenched by as they walk out of the theater. Sometimes the heavy-hearted realization of the theme is not the same as it occurs when one flips to the last page of the book. 

But alas, if an aesthetic explanation like that could stop a film from being made, then the world would be bereft of a lot (A LOT) of films.

Entry 10: The Glamorous, Expensive-Looking Eye Candy That is Luhrman’s Gatsby

There’s been a lot of talk about this spring’s film adaptation of one of the best American novels of the twentieth century. The Great Gatsby, written by F. Scott Fitzgerald, is a seductive story about a self-made millionaire whose perfect world in 1920’s Long Island is set to crumble as he confronts his past. Jay Gatsby, the title character, is the poster man of the American Dream, the idea that anyone can reinvent themselves from poor to rich and remain that way without any consequences. The adaptation is directed by Australian theatric Baz Luhrman, previously known for Moulin Rouge and Romeo + Juliet, but what puts this film on the racetrack is Leonardo DiCaprio as Gatsby.

As usual, this is not the first film to be adapted from the original text. In Francis Ford Coppola’s 1974 adaptation, Robert Redford played Gatsby with cool, unblemished finesse. I watched that version in my junior high school English class after we had finished reading the book for school. Gatsby was a clear favorite among all the social groups, compared to slightly painful reads like The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, The Scarlet Letter, and The Crucible.

The novel that lavish-styled Luhrman based his new film on is a classic read by everyone in American high schools, if not American literature classes. It’s a book that, arguably, is the most favorite among teenagers. Besides its shorter length and easier language, it’s all about what it’s like to be rich: it’s set in the fictional Eden of West Egg, New York, full of the exclusive social elite, in the Roaring 1920’s, where everything’s in blissful excess before the plummet of the Great Depression. And who doesn’t fall prey to mysterious millionaires that harbor undying devotion to their past loves?

It’s a film that Hollywood directors must have been attracted to. Those who would have wanted to exercise artistic interpretation certainly could have – perhaps the setting could be changed to a modern-day boarding school, featuring teenagers at the cusp of their youth and beauty?

Already, the internet is expressing doubt. It doesn’t seem to be DiCaprio they’re unsure of; it’s Luhrman. His films are more colorful, more visually brilliant than anyone else’s. Ideally, Gatsby provides perfect material for Luhrman’s style: A delightfully romantic, paradisiacal setting that slowly unfurls the vice and unhappiness within. At the same time, such a style is seen in music videos.

According to an article in theguardian.com.uk, however (“The Great Gatsby: Baz Luhrman’s film opens to mixed reviews”), critics from Variety and The Hollywood Reporter are uneasy about the film’s excessive display of riches and attractiveness. What’s worrisome about this vision is that it could take the viewer so far into this splendid world that it’s as if none of it is real. “Too far” would be somewhere as far as this year’s Oz the Great and Powerful. So much of the film came from CGI animation and costumes, and the performances of the actors had little room to grow.

What works (for me): DiCaprio. There’s no one else that comes to mind who could truly capture the multifaceted, mysterious yet yearning prince-in-every-way-but-name Jay Gatsby. I saw the last Gatsby film with Robert Redford, and he looked the handsome part, but he wasn’t tragic as DiCaprio’s Gatsby appears in the trailer. DiCaprio, while cool and catlike, allows himself to be imperfect and not always collected. By “imperfect,” I don’t mean he’s a raging, purple-faced alcoholic, or his emotional switches are practically bipolar. There should hopefully be subtlety, which DiCaprio can certainly do. Also, Luhrman also had Dicaprio star in a previous film of his – Romeo + Juliet, another modern adaptation based on a widely-known story that resonated with its contemporaries.

The rest of the casting, especially Tobey Maguire, also fit quite well. Whatever could fail for the film is the script. Carey Mulligan looks like a perfect Daisy Buchanan, the lovely woman who sparked Gatsby’s heart and kept it alight. She’s pretty as a picture, and gentle-looking in a way where she looks like she has never been upset or angry in her life. But there’s a reason why she’s the one woman out of the infamous Jay Gatsby’s reach. There has to be a mix of more than just innocence and carefree spirit.

Joel Edgerton is someone I’m looking forward to watching. He’s got enough tough-guy-with-a-kind-interior roles (Warrior, Zero Dark Thirty) to need a switch. Playing Daisy’s uninteresting but bullish husband Tom Buchanan is a role Edgerton could better characterize.  

What I want to work, but might not: The director. Luhrman has a reputation for being, in his glossy characterization of the camera, flashy. Flashy, if not managed in moderation, quickly becomes ‘chintz-y.’ ‘Shallow’ could describe characters, too – if everything is beautiful, where’s the humanity? That’s what I became worried about. Moulin Rouge is a cult favorite, showing sex, romance and drinking draped in the decadence of whorehouses and the streets of Paris, but it’s reserved for occasions like Valentine’s Day or costume parties are.

The soundtrack has been equally talked about. According to theguardian.com.uk, Luhrman collaborated with a real-life American Dream achiever Jay-Z. I haven’t listened to any of it yet, but when I listened to the trailer, the two tracks, in my opinion, set a tone that could link a modern audience: teens and twenty-somethings, even adolescents and the older age groups who have long forgotten/grown out of this likable classic. The Turtles’ best-known song “Happy Together” is performed by Filter, a modern rock band, and is happily included in the soundtrack. It’s different, and it resonates. Maybe it’s been a while since I read Gatsby, but the whole infidelity thing between Gatsby, Daisy, Tom and Myrtle, not to mention the threat of Gatsby’s “kingdom” threatening to collapse, suggested plenty of rage, fear, facets and weak links…what musical artist wouldn’t want to cover that?

Florence + the Machine’s hit “Over the Love” is sweetly haunting. Lana Del Rey’s “Young and In Love,” sounds as sad as looking over the ocean in solitude – as Gatsby does. It’s Del Rey’s calling card, but after “Video Games,” I’ve tried listening to her other hits and none of them caught my interest. Something about Del Rey being included in the soundtrack for Gatsby makes sense, but hopefully this theme doesn’t speak for itself too strongly that it quickly gets boring, or overwhelms the natural process of the story.

Will these songs be included in the film, though? Or will the soundtrack be mostly covered by an orchestral score? I’d like to see modern music be played in the film, but it’s very difficult to pull that technique off. It certainly wouldn’t be as easy as for a teen novel-turned-motion-picture like the Twilight films or this year’s Beautiful Creatures. This is The Great effing Gatsby, after all.

Why it’s a perfect novel to film: Ideally, this is as much a favorite book for many as people like the tabloids, reality shows, celebrity gossip, the Academy Awards, and anything relating to the triumphs and downfalls of the Rich and Famous. People can’t help but want to see, if not immerse themselves, in it. By becoming familiar with it, especially with the help of television and the internet, we simple folk can associate ourselves with it. Luhrman’s brightly-colored, chrome-embellished, diamond-encrusted stage is the ultimate eye candy. And then someone decided that audience members needed to be more sunken in it by making the film 3-D. Why? Are there sick action scenes? Iron Man 3 was rife with them, not Gatsby. There’s one major car chase that ends in a tragic accident.

After Iron Man 3, I’ll wait on 3D until next week’s Star Trek: Into Darkness. To sum up my prediction of Luhrman’s Gatsby will be like, think of a teen’s prom night: it’ll feel super fun and fantastic if someone hadn’t dared you to drink that flask of booze. Too much excess will muddle the best parts.