Under the New York Times headline “Shimmying Off the Literary Mantle,” A.O. Scott reminds us that a film adaptation doesn’t always need to be a book’s conjoined twin. Especially when the book is already everything a novel needs to be.
The best way to enjoy Baz Luhrmann’s big and noisy new version of “The Great Gatsby” — and despite what you may have heard, it is an eminently enjoyable movie — is to put aside whatever literary agenda you are tempted to bring with you. I grant that this is not so easily done. F. Scott Fitzgerald’s slender, charming third novel has accumulated a heavier burden of cultural significance than it can easily bear. Short and accessible enough to be consumed in a sitting (as in “Gatz,” Elevator Repair Service’s full-text staged reading), the book has become, in the 88 years since its publication, a schoolroom staple and a pop-cultural totem. It shapes our increasingly fuzzy image of the jazz age and fuels endless term papers on the American dream and related topics.
Through this fog of glib allusion and secondhand thinking, the wistful glimmer of Fitzgerald’s prose shines like the green light at the end of Daisy Buchanan’s dock. If “The Great Gatsby” can’t quite sustain the Big Ideas that are routinely attached to it — a fact that periodically inspires showboating critical contrarians to proclaim that it’s not such a big deal after all — it nonetheless remains a lively, imaginative presence. The book may not be as Great as its reputation, but it is also, partly for that reason, better than you might expect. It is flawed and flimsy in some ways, but it still manages to be touching, surprising and, in its bittersweet fashion, a lot of fun.
All of which is to say that whatever you think of Mr. Luhrmann’s energetic, brightly colored rendering of the sad story of Jay Gatsby, the Trimalchio of West Egg, Long Island, it should at least be immune to accusations of sacrilege. “Gatsby” is not gospel; it is grist for endless reinterpretation. Mr. Luhrmann’s reverence for the source material is evident. He sticks close to the details of the story and lifts dialogue and description directly from the novel’s pages. But he has also felt free to make that material his own, bending it according to his artistic sensibility and what he takes to be the mood of the times. The result is less a conventional movie adaptation than a splashy, trashy opera, a wayward, lavishly theatrical celebration of the emotional and material extravagance that Fitzgerald surveyed with fascinated ambivalence…
Some of the finely shaded social distinctions that preoccupied Fitzgerald — between Easterners and Westerners, new money and old — are noted, but they don’t have a whole lot of resonance. We are in a world of artifice and illusion, confected from old-fashioned production-design virtuosity and newfangled digital hocus-pocus…
In the 3-D version, the viewer swoops and swerves through one of Gatsby’s parties in a movement that combines Vincente Minnelli-style suavity with the controlled vertigo of a theme park ride. As it happens, Nick Carraway compares the sybaritic scene at Gatsby’s mansion to “an amusement park.” And Mr. Luhrmann’s peculiar genius — also the thing that drives cultural purists of various stripes crazy — lies in his eager, calculating mix of refinement and vulgarity.
Neither Fitzgerald nor Nick, his diffident mouthpiece, was immune to the seductions of hedonism and luxury, and the book does not entirely succeed as a critique of American materialism at what seemed to be its high-water mark. Mr. Luhrmann, for his part, does not resist at all. He fuses the iconography of dressed-up ’20s decadence with the swagger of hip-hop high-end consumerism. Jay Gatsby has got money. He’s got cars. He’ll spend a hundred grand over by the bar…
To those of us watching in our modest multiplex seats, he is a movie star. In previous incarnations he was Robert Redford, Alan Ladd and Warner Baxter, and now Leonardo DiCaprio has slipped into the ice cream suit and the curious diction. “Old sport” may be the two hardest words for an American actor to say, but for Gatsby himself they were an affectation, so it is possible to overlook Mr. DiCaprio’s overdone accent. (I do wish he would try a performance without one, though.) More important, it is impossible to look away from him. His charisma has increased as his youthful prettiness has worn and thickened away, and he is beautiful, sad, confident and desperate in exactly the way Gatsby should be…
I know I was supposed to read the book in school and that I didn’t like it, but I’m not even sure if I finished it. And I felt the same about the old movie. I guess I just don’t find the story interesting. I love Luhrmann and think DiCaprio is one of our best actors, but again I was underwhelmed. I saw it in 3D, which was fine. But it was missing something. I think Mulligan and DiCaprio didn’t make a good couple. But honestly I can’t think of anyone to replace her with. She seemed like she should be perfect. But the staring/teary thing she does is getting old. In one film it maybe seems like lovely acting but over a few films it looks the only thing in her bag of tricks. Edgerton was really good. I wondered where the Isla Fischer storyline was. And I wanted to marry the pink suit.
So I guess I’m disappointed overall, but I was never into a remake of The Great Gatsby in the first place. I’m only “into” the people involved. That wasn’t enough in this case.
“A.O. Scott reminds us that a film adaptation doesn’t always need to be a book’s conjoined twin”
Thank God that A.O. Scott said it, I wouldn’t have believed it otherwise.
As with most true Artist, B.L. should just keep doing what he does. People (especially those that fancy themselves “aficionado’s”) constantly complain that there isn’t nothing “new” and “different” in film-but the minute someone strays from their comfort zone, they bitch and moan incessantly.
As a New Yorker, I am not surprised that the New York critics were quick to jump all over it. I am sure they had penned what they were going to say before they even viewed the film. No one can stand to see a true visionary or true artist actually “make” it and be successful. New York critics will jump on any bandwagon as long as the film can’t possibly be commercially successful. It’s just the “New York” way.
I have not seen it yet, but considering how much I adore B.L.’s other films, I am excited to see it.
I agree that the confluence of “trashy and classy” is a wonderful thing that B.L. has mastered. Conflict is what art is about-and the fact that we will be arguing and talking about this film all year is proof that he is the truest of the true.
never for a moment gave a damn for Gatsby or any of the other characters/sociopaths either.
awful people
A.O. Scott is, as always, a pompous ass. He isn’t worthy of shining F. Scott Fitzgerald’s spats. That having been said, I am a little worried about Baz L. tackling “Gatsby.” I’ll know for myself soon enough.
This sits at a 54 on Metacritic. I knew this was gonna fall in the mid 50s and be firmly divided among critics. However, for whatever reason, I’m more curious to see it now than before.
Yeh but…
I consider Andrea Arnold’s Wuthering Heights. Many misunderstood that film, expecting it to better resemble their impression of the novel (an impression rather more influenced by previous cinematic adaptations). I loved it as a work of art in its own right, building its art upon the story and tone of Bronte’s book, just as Bronte build hers upon that story and that tone.
I’m not expecting Baz Luhrmann’s Gatsby to be a straight adaptation of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s. I wouldn’t want it to be, not least for the fact that I think Luhrmann’s heart wouldn’t be in such a film, as it so evidently appears to be in such abundance in the version hitting domestic theatres tomorrow. And I have no literary agenda, despite The Great Gatsby being one of the few novels I’ve read. I just think it looks like shit.
I’ll wait until I see it, ofc. But it looks like shit.
Few days back I saw FISH TANK (again) with my new projector, and holy shit, of the females I like she’s the one with the most sophisticated handle and understanding of film form. Arnold is the female PT Anderson
I am very curious what you wind up thinking about this movie, Ryan. Have you seen it yet?