Baz Luhrmann's The Great Gatsby

My blog is a spoiler-free zone unless I point out an upcoming spoiler with big red letters, but foreshadowing will be present in this analysis.

          Baz Luhrmann's adaptation of F. Scott Fitzgerald's classic novel is the best yet. Despite a couple of annoyances, this movie stayed as true to the book as possible without reading it to the audience. I saw it on Sunday in 3D, and I have to say that I am glad that all of the 3D movies I have seen since September (except maybe for Life of Pi, which was a nice exception) have used the pop-out feature of the third dimension sparingly. Instead these movies (Frankenweenie, Oz the Great and Powerful, and now The Great Gatsby) have used the in-the-box feature flatteringly for the depth aspect. Anyway, for those of you who are unaware, it is the tale of Mr. Jay Gatsby (Leo DiCaprio) and his obsession with the lovely Daisy, the cousin of Nick Carraway, a midwesterner who moves next-door to Gatsby in West Egg, off the coast of Manhattan. Gatsby throws lavish parties in the Prohibition-era setting, hoping that Daisy will show up one day to rekindle their past fling. Full of affairs and a lot of booze, this tale takes a turn for the worst for the Great Gatsby, the one man who had Nick's greatest admiration. I am not going to outline the entire story, for that is what going to see the movie is for, but I shall continue on to point out certain elements of the new adaptation.

          To start off, I really enjoyed the movie. It was well-done, the casting will never be better in future versions to come, and the 1920s were given glory. My girl Lana del Rey's song "Young and Beautiful" was featured in at least twenty minutes of the movie, including different versions and instrumental segments in the score. It was even featured in a great flashback sequence (Nicely done, Baz! And thanks!). Gatsby's entrance is easily my favorite entrance of any character ever in any movie in the history of film. Fireworks, confetti, the whole deal. This is an example of when Baz's over-the-top style works (Romeo + Juliet is a great example of when it doesn't. Ugh.). Everyone you see on the movie poster gives a spectacular performance in the feature. Perhaps the two who stand out the most are Leo as Gatsby and Tobey Maguire as Nick. Real-life best friends, their chemistry is evident on the screen. Individually, they embody their characters seamlessly. Leo is back with a similar accent to Candie's in Quentin Tarantino's Django Unchained. His young face shows the childlike hope that destroys Gatsby. His longing eyes are enough to make any girl melt, and required for us to believe that Daisy loved him still. Maguire deserves a lot of credit for playing Nick so perfectly. In the book, although we don't learn that much about any of the characters, Nick is the one who we probably know the least about since he mainly just narrates other people's lives. However, Maguire was able to discover who Nick is well enough to actually become him. This leads me to my least favorite ingredient to Baz's recipe for near-perfection.

          In the book, Nick simply narrates the story of how he met Gatsby and what happened to Gatsby. We do not know where exactly he is telling the tale from or anything about his present life besides that fact that he often thinks about Gatsby and the effect he had on his own life. Baz understandably felt the need to come up with this information in order for the narration to translate well to the screen. Okay, so after supposedly being kept awake at night trying to come up with something to make it work, he and his cowriter settled for having Nick be writing the story down to help him deal with his alcoholism in a sanitarium. This completely aggravated the first minutes of my moviegoing experience after the phenomenal opening title sequence. I just read in my local newspaper that the idea was sparked by research on Fitzgerald's other works. An unfinished piece was planned to have a sanitarium scene, so Baz and cowriter Craig decided this was reason enough to go that route. As I'm sure many of you know out there, narrating from a mental institution is not only not new, but completely overused by filmmakers around the globe. It is now the easy way out for making sense of narrating the past, and I could not believe this technique (if I can even glorify the action with that word) was being used in an adaptation of one of the single greatest books of all time. I thought I had walked into a showing of Amadeus or something. At the end of the movie, when the symbolism of the green light is expanded upon in the brilliant way that Fitzgerald created and Baz embellished beautifully, another scene was added to show Nick finishing the story in the institution. They ruined a perfect ending with a huge cliché that I will never let go of. Today as I was planning this analysis in my head I realized something else that extended my contempt for the sanitarium addition: Nick Carraway would never end up in rehabilitation for alcoholism. Ever. In the book, and in the movie, when Nick goes to Tom's Manhattan apartment, he tells us that that was only the second the time in his whole life that he had been drunk. To solidify this point, once Gatsby is out of life, as well as his luxurious parties, Nick has no gateway to getting drunk. He never hangs out with Tom and Myrtle again, and he even moves back west, where the parties were much fewer. Nick has got to be the most sober person in the story (well Gatsby didn't really drink much either; he just waited for Daisy to come for him). Therefore, the sanitarium safety net is completely ridiculous for this movie.
          Although I really liked this movie, I cannot honestly say that I loved it. It couldn't have been better, really, and it did prove that the novel can be translated to the screen given the right conditions (actors, director, etc.). The only acting I didn't like was Mulligan's Daisy when we first meet her (in the rest of the movie she's fantastic). When Nick's narration tells us that she looks at everyone as though they were the only person she wanted to talk to in the whole entire world, she looks at Nick less-excitedly than the narration suggests. This is especially evident when she says one of my favorite lines from the book, "I'm p-paralyzed with happiness." She said so uninterestedly and didn't stutter pronouncedly. Yes, I'm being picky here, but it's probably my favorite line in the story; I can't help it! The art direction was breathtaking (I especially loved the over-exaggeration of the Buchanans' flowing white curtains, and of course Gatsby's whole property) and true to the book, exactly how I pictured it, actually. Although not everybody likes having hip hop/rap music in it due to the time period, I like the blend of modern electronic party music with old '20s vibes and melodies. And I'm a huge fan of '20s music, so that's a big compliment to Jay-Z, will.i.am, and the other musical influences on the soundtrack. I think this movie is one of the best adaptations out there for any story, especially since The Great Gatsby is so hard to do victoriously. I mean, the Robert Redford one was true to the book, but it was useless really. I can't even say that I really enjoyed that one. In Baz's version, the visual effects and transitions are fun and exciting. I really like how much emphasis was put on the green light. Despite all the perfect elements of the movie, one thing (besides the silly sanitarium nonsense) keeps me from jumping for joy at the mention of it: I didn't feel anything. I didn't feel anything for the characters, despite the phenomenal acting, not even Gatsby or Daisy or anybody. Truthfully, although I loved the book and it's definitely one of my favorite books I've read, I didn't feel anything when I read it either. Perhaps I felt a twinkle of astonishment at the great philosophy on the last two pages, and I loved the dialogue, and I loved the metaphors and conceits, even the ones I didn't quite understand upon first sighting, but I felt no sympathy, no sadness, or anything. I suppose it might be a good thing that I didn't feel anything for the movie since that feeling translated from the book for me, but I feel unfulfilled. Anxious to see it over and over again, but no emotions in my warm heart.