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randall 
"I like to watch."
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 Posted - 05/09/2013 : 03:59:53
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Not as dull as the 1974 Jack Clayton version [sorry, Baffy, but just being in it doesn't make you responsible for it], but I thought the whole shebang was headed south in the first :30 b/c of Baz Luhrmann's decision to "modernize" the beats of the party music. A near-disaster is slowly rescued by expert art direction and costumes, as this one poor choice eventually proves an anomaly. Likewise, a boneheaded *screenwriting* call frames the famous story as a bit of autopsychotherapy by Nick Carraway, so we have to live with that on both ends. But our irritation over all this crap is shoved away in the fullness of time as we sit and luxuriate; it just takes longer than it should to fall into this state.
The peeps are every bit as beautiful as required. Leo DiCaprio in particular is developing some interesting character lines in his face, so he's now the perfect age and look for the young but wizened Jay Gatsby [closer to my ideal than Redford, IMHO]. He knows everybody's watching, and I think he delivers. Carey Mulligan as Daisy has never looked lovelier; tell Baz thanx, girl! That nerdy bookworm Nick is played by...Tobey Maguire!
Like almost all adaptations of this novel [GATZ in the theater is an exception], this one omits F. Scott Fitzgerald's coda after a very important event not unlike the one in THE MERCHANT OF VENICE. I'm not going to spoil either one, except to say that after the events in question happen, we still have more play/novel/movie to go. The reason the writers gave up and created a therapeutic-typing framing story is that you can't do justice to GATSBY without Nick's final summation, so here it is, bitches.
Some will find this flick long at roughly 2 1/2. I found it fleet, since the last time I saw THE GREAT GATSBY performed was by a theatrical troupe who read it out loud, every word. So to me, this is the Cliffs Notes version. I'm fine with the length.
Which leaves us with the elephant in the room: why is this in 3-D? |
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BaftaBaby
"Always entranced by cinema."
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Posted - 05/27/2013 : 18:18:14
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Well, I'm trying hard to be objective here, so won't dwell too fondly on the 1974 version.
Actually, Luhrmann's film scoops off a big dollop of the cream of the novel. Which would be okay if Fitzgerald were creating a cake. But it ain't. It's a rich meat dish, so the whipped cream only emphasizes what's wrong with the 2013 film. Style over substance.
Precisely because the book is such a masterpiece - including a narrator whose very expressions constantly remind us of his inability to measure up to the expectations of a world defined by money - precisely because the book is so timeless, it can balance on its shoulders Luhrmann's misplaced interpretation.
Nowhere is this so flagrant as in the casting. As representatives of beautifully coiffed and cuffed corruption and carelessness, the main protagonists absolutely must be damaged by age. In this film only Joel Edgerton fits that bill.
This is not a comment about acting, but one of Luhrmann's lack of understanding of human attraction. As the book so poignantly reveals, when Daisy met Gatsby, their mutual attraction could high-jump over their social inequality. His uniform, we learn, hid the barrier that would have ever prevented her giving him a 2nd glance.
She was raised with the expectation of her class, which was modelled not on the rise of the American nouveau riche, but the old money circles that rippled out from the European aristocracy. And nowhere more powerfully than the UK. That flashback of Daisy's mother trying to direct her daughter toward a liaison that wouldn't end in some Kentucky version of a morganatic marriage conjures what she's always considered her duty. Like a Louisville version of Mrs Bennett she knows that a suitable young man is in want of a wife. A penniless solider is not, in her book, a suitable young man.
Whether she could express it or not, Daisy knew it fundamentally. So did James Gatz. His love at first sight presented him with the culmination of his self-designed make-over. He made the drastic mistake of believing that the style of life - hand-made shirts, gates from Versailles - could win the heart of a girl so far out of his league he could never grasp it. Just like he could never hold that green light in his hand.
In trying to give birth to his new self, he imagined himself the creator of those around him. He became a control freak.
Here's why the casting doesn't work. Daisy's initial attraction to Jay was a groin thing. That's why Fitzgerald could conclude with evocations of orgasm. The whole country was fucking its head off.
But Jay mistook the party atmos for true love, not the fairy tale. When Daisy learns from Jay's letters his confession of poverty - sure by now, assured by his control fantasies that she will leap with him beyond convention - something in her clicks back into place. She can promise what she likes, but actions speak louder than letters.
No one in her class expected married bliss. The legacy of Europe was fuelled by infidelities, and a fascination with social experiment. It's true now, and has been for 100s of years, that the very wealthy live just as they choose; it's the poor and those middle-class strivers who are the most puritanical, the most ready to judge, the most devastated by what they deem as failure.
Daisy cannot continue to hold a torch for Jay. Tom is brutal with a soft side - no monster thinks of himself as a monster. When Daisy once again meets Gatsby, she has, by then, honed her taste for the disposable, for the momentary fulfilment of desire. The only way she could be attracted to him again wouldn't be his acquired riches, or the mystery of how he got them. And it wouldn't be a baby-face [lines or not - personally, I didn't see any - he admits to being 32 for heaven's sake]. It could only be a more matured physical presence who, in the one moment he needs to, could take control. But he doesn't. He fluffs it. That combined with the childish image of both their faces just lowers the real drama.
Wonderful actors though they both are - the power of a charged sexual attraction, one that's offered up bleeding from the pain of the past, just isn't there on the screen. This is not Romeo and Juliet.
In lesser roles, Myrtle needs to be much more rough trade. Actually, I always thought she might be a bit older than both Wilson and Tom. She's a vile main-chancer, trying in her own way to live as carelessly as the sophisticates she wants to become. Fitzgerald hints at this, but Luhrmann ignores it completely. Hers is the character that should move us the most.
Nick is even more a cipher by the casting of Maguire. Out-babyfacing the baby-faced DiCaprio.
And don't get me started on Amitabh Bachchan as the almost Fagin-like
Meyer Wolfsheim. Once again, I'm not talking about anyone's acting here. It's the casting. Why does Fitzgerald make him Jewish? Plenty of other people from all ethnicities were using the tactics of the rapidly emerging big business classes, but in a far more down and dirty way. Their future was either the ladder-climb out of the rat-hole by whatever means, or a life of so-called honest toil that would grind them down beyond desperation. Wolfsheim's role is a means of justifying Tom's disgusting prejudices - however misplaced that justification is.
These are the kinds of social examinations so powerfully portrayed in filmed novels like Remains of the Day, et al.
Luhrmann's Wolfsheim is not Jewish - conceptually, he's not. He lacks the smell of the Lower East Side, mingling pickled herrings, mildewed rags, the smell of latkes fried in chicken fat. He can dress well, this character, but we should never forget his past.
All the characters, except the Buchanans - and possibly Jordan, but I wonder about her, too [why, for instance, was her cheating at golf removed?] - except, as I say, for the Buchanans are elbowing and wiggling and swimming upstream to escape their pasts. That, Fitzgerald had long ago realized, was America's destiny. It's quite a moving epiphany for someone so conflicted himself about his love/hate of country, his own yearning for completion.
But, in the end, we're not moved by anyone in this film. We watch, as distant from human emotion as the green light is from Gatsby's fist.
Fitzgerald wrote characters who were metaphors - which is the whole point of the coda.
I simply cannot judge Jack's 1974 version with complete objectivity. But I was anxious to see how Luhrmann would handle the seminal shirt scene. Whatever else, Jack's triple dissolves - involving Redford - sex on legs - and Farrow's vulnerable Daisy - well, that's got it all over buzzy Baz.
I'm very glad I saw the 2D version.
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randall
"I like to watch."
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Posted - 05/27/2013 : 23:11:04
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Some pretty interesting thoughts about the novel, which most film critics don't much bother with; could this be b/c of immersion in the work prepping for your 1974 gig, or because a post like this lets you say whatever you want, without having to compress it to fit a certain space? [I certainly appreciate the latter, as weary readers of my blog well know.]
Couldn't disagree more about Leo. Lines or not [as you say], he inhabited J. Gatz in a way that Redford never did. In this role, Redford was nothing more than a supermodel [and a ticket-seller]. Leo showed us something inside. You can have Mulligan, Fisher, even Maguire [who did a superb job IMO at displaying Nick's na�ve yet observing wonderment, and I could make a case for either of the aforementioned ladies as well], but on the leading role I just strongly disagree and think you got it wrong. But that's what makes horse races, innit?
Anybody who loves the novel can pick apart any omission they like [you selected Jordan's golf cheating], but so can any LORD OF THE RINGS fan. To perform the entirety of THE GREAT GATSBY requires nine hours with two intermishes and a dinner break. So we gonna leave something out if we even step up and try. [After all, Jack didn't shoot the coda either...]
All in all, I felt the 1974 version was done because somebody felt they had to. [We'd just had the huge hit THE STING, after all.] The 2013 version, with all its warts, and they're legion, was done because somebody felt he wanted to. And, to quote Robert Frost, that has made all the difference. |
Edited by - randall on 05/27/2013 23:49:51 |
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BaftaBaby
"Always entranced by cinema."
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Posted - 05/29/2013 : 20:02:45
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quote:
Originally posted by randall
Some pretty interesting thoughts about the novel, which most film critics don't much bother with; could this be b/c of immersion in the work prepping for your 1974 gig, or because a post like this lets you say whatever you want, without having to compress it to fit a certain space? [I certainly appreciate the latter, as weary readers of my blog well know.]
No and no! PS - I think your blog is pretty terrific, and have that documented in print!!! 
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Couldn't disagree more about Leo. ... etc
See, you're talking about acting. I was talking about casting. My entire post was a rationale of why I feel Baz got the casting wrong.
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All in all, I felt the 1974 version was done because somebody felt they had to. [We'd just had the huge hit THE STING, after all.] The 2013 version, with all its warts, and they're legion, was done because somebody felt he wanted to. And, to quote Robert Frost, that has made all the difference.
Dunno where you're getting your info from on this. But it's just plain wrong. The studio had already pitted Gatsby against Chinatown - way back in the script stage. At the time Jack was one of only 4-5 directors to get final cut - just when the studios were looking to take power away from directors. The project had been a passion - almost a Gatsby-like obsession for J for decades. He and Coppola worked ceaselessly on the screenplay, and Jack was still fine-toothcoming it during the edit. Some studio heads changed. There was "an incident" involving Jack and a studio exec. Paramount decided to spring-load Chinatown's p.r. budget. And lotsa other stuff. Of course, I only know Jack's side. You may be privileged with other info. 
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randall
"I like to watch."
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Posted - 05/30/2013 : 11:15:56
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| "I felt" means it's my opinion, not info. "I felt" it was Clayton who got the casting wrong, as I already said. But it's not hard to speculate how that happened. BUTCH CASSIDY had been a smash for Fox and THE STING was in production at U; Newman and Redford were the hottest male stars in pictures, and THE STING is even close to Gatsby's period. So it didn't take a genius to imagine Redford in the role [Newman was already too old], or to green-light the project at that particular time. I don't doubt Clayton's passion for the material, but he joins a long line of directors who'd love/have loved a shot at Gatsby. |
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BaftaBaby
"Always entranced by cinema."
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Posted - 05/30/2013 : 16:49:40
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quote:
Originally posted by randall
"I felt" means it's my opinion, not info. "I felt" it was Clayton who got the casting wrong, as I already said. But it's not hard to speculate how that happened. BUTCH CASSIDY had been a smash for Fox and THE STING was in production at U; Newman and Redford were the hottest male stars in pictures, and THE STING is even close to Gatsby's period. So it didn't take a genius to imagine Redford in the role [Newman was already too old], or to green-light the project at that particular time. I don't doubt Clayton's passion for the material, but he joins a long line of directors who'd love/have loved a shot at Gatsby.
randall I love you, I really do ... but your assumptions about this film, why it was made, and how it was made are just not based on reality. The studios have undergone major changes since the late 60s/early 70s. At the time, J had a 5-picture deal with Paramount, and, as I say, he was one of only a handful of directors with final cut.
For those who don't know, final cut allows a director to veto any changes the studio wants to make before the film's release. In the dying days of the studio system, all the majors were determined to re-take it - especially from directors who didn't play the H'wood game. Which Jack never did.
He also had a decisive say in the casting. Nowadays it's the top agents who manipulate these things. And, yes, that happened a bit back then, too. But it was mostly a studio exec vs "auteur" director thing.
By the time The Sting came out, Jack had long ago begun a draft screenplay, aided by his loyal asst Jeannie Sims [who also worked for their mutual friend John Schlesinger].
Jack, who'd directed Truman Capote's script for The Innocents and got on with him well enough, invited him onto the project. But their friendship was fuelled by alcoholism, and by that time TC was doing more drugs, which J didn't. So, it didn't work out and everyone knew it, including Capote.
For a while he toyed with the idea of using a British actor as Gatsby, but concluded that just wouldn't work. He needed someone to embody the sexually irresistible Gatz, and Capote's script hadn't delivered that very important quality. I'm not sure when he actually had met Redford, but it was years and years before. J was always very close friends with Karel Reisz, and they frequently exchanged cast and crew suggestions. So Karel may have introduced them. Jack and RR shared political sentiments, which went a long way with J.
Whatever, in Redford's case, he was [in the term of the era, and as you rightly point out] "acceptable" to the studio. As for Mia, he knew her and Andre socially. He knew how her privileged early life had been marred by personal disappointment, and felt that provided a good emotional starting point for Daisy.
The advantage, as all directors know, of being based outside Hollywood, is that the execs can't keep a constant check on pre-production progress. And, as I keep saying, J had a lot of power at the time.
But eventually it got out that a new script was needed. It was to be called a rewrite. As the project taxi'd up to the run-way, Coppola was brought in. The studio knew that FFC needed money and wouldn't go against any studio directive. They thought he was their way of retaining some control. They knew the Godfather was breathing down their necks, and it just might parlay the novel into a cine-hit.
J. respected FCC, though their "usual" subject matter was very different. J also felt that FCC's research on the mafia would lend real authenticity to the underworld bedrock of Fitzgerald's novel. [which J knew practically by heart at this point]
Now Robert Evans will tell you and anyone who'll listen that it was he who offered Robert Towne the job of adapting Gatsby for a film. Evans was head of production at Paramount, which was fighting its own backstage battles with Gulf&Western - a huge conglomerate, whose CEO had brought Evans in to shake up the media world. G&W had very little interest in films, having earned its big bucks in a portfolio of manufacturing industries. Their game was first and foremost to satisfy their shareholders who all believed that making cinema and making bedding and refining zinc mining were all the same thing.
G&W wanted Jack to film everything in the states, but he refused to leave his beloved Pinewood. The entire Valley of Ashes was built there. The only concession he made to a US shoot was the Egg scenes - mostly because they weren't Hollywood. And there really wasn't a UK equivalent or appropriate architectural style. But they were mostly shot in Newport, which J. loved to visit. It had a fascinating history.
Jack was always concerned with every detail of his films. When he lost final cut - after the incident I spoke of earlier - he had a challenging personal climb up from his snatched creative assurance to maintain his dignity as someone devoted to filmmaking. It was poignant to watch, and a joy to witness his personal triumph.
Ah well, yet another essay from me, I'm afraid.
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randall
"I like to watch."
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Posted - 05/30/2013 : 20:52:56
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OK, so you're saying then that the miscasting of Redford was Clayton's responsibility? And it doesn't matter when he began the script. What matters is who was standing there when he rolled film. [By the time THE STING "came out," he should have already been doing so. Casting decisions would have taken place earlier.]
Also, Gulf + Western [they were so precious that they used the plus symbol, like early Industrial Light + Magic; Mel Brooks satirized them in SILENT MOVIE as "Engulf + Devour"] was hardly the only unrelated conglomerate to own a studio: Transamerica, the insurance peddlers of the famous San Francisco tower, owned UA; and Kinney, which owned Warner Bros., started in parking lots, for Pete's sake. Today all the majors are only cogs in much larger companies, but a single picture can still affect the stock price, as THE GODFATHER did for Par in 1972. [A video game today can affect it more.]
That was interesting backstage stuff you gave us, and thanks for posting, but really, what does it have to do with what I said? |
Edited by - randall on 05/30/2013 23:11:16 |
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BaftaBaby
"Always entranced by cinema."
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Posted - 05/31/2013 : 17:46:53
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quote:
Originally posted by randall
That was interesting backstage stuff you gave us, and thanks for posting, but really, what does it have to do with what I said?
Well, I apologize for not making clear what I was trying to say about DiCaprio's Gatsby. I'll try again.
Just for fun, the next time you go outside [if you're willing to speak to strange women of all ages] take the following list with you. Show the list to at least five, preferably more women. Then ask them to rate how sexy they are from one to fifteen. Not the best looking. Not the best actors. The sexiest.
Denzel Washington
Johnny Depp
Ed Norton
Robert Pattinson
Rob Lowe
Ben Stiller
Robert De Niro
Tom Cruise
Philip Seymour Hoffman
Ben Affleck
Casey Affleck
Martin Freeman
Clint Eastwood
Keanu Reeves
Michael J Fox
Daisy in 1927 cannot be won by wealth. She cannot be won by kindness. She cannot be won by love. She cannot actually be won away from Tom. She can only be tempted out of Tom's bed by sex, sexual chemistry.
DiCaprio has certainly continued to prove himself as an actor in films like Blood Diamond and Django. To confuse that with raw heterosexual sex appeal -- well, it will be interesting to see the results of your survey. And I wonder where you think DiCap fits into that list.
Basically, Gatsby has to make her come just by looking at her.
In shorthand, he's her equivalent bit of rough to Myrtle.
The novel's about fucking and dreams and dreams and fucking. Way more than 50 shades of each.
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randall
"I like to watch."
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Posted - 06/01/2013 : 21:02:27
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| Um, only if I can add Leo himself to that list. Otherwise, what the heck is the point? |
Edited by - randall on 06/01/2013 21:05:45 |
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The Great Gatsby
