widescreen wednesday - the great gatsby
it's rare for a summer blockbuster to surpass its hype and marketing and utterly transcend my expectations.
but i have to say that i haven't been so transported by a movie since, since ... well, i guess the very first star wars back in 1977. as i walked out of the cinema after seeing a tiny x-wing destroy the death star for the first time the world outside the cinema seemed less real than when i walked in. and so it was when i walked out of the great gatsby. the evening breeze was more caressing, the moon peeking out through its cloudy curtains seemed a little bluer, and the back-lit figure smoking on the balcony as i walked by blossomed with an operatic back-story.
well, i guess it helped that the reviews that i had read were decidedly mixed. an oddly enough much of the criticism, i would say, is true or valid. but that did not stop the movie from bringing me to a new and better place.
i guess i also am a huge fan of baz luhrmann at his over the top best. after star wars the movie i have seen the most times in a cinema (as opposed to on a small screen at home) is Moulin Rouge. and i can without any contradiction say that Moulin Rouge is the better and more enjoyable movie. and yet.
where the critics are all in agreement is that this movie is gorgeously, voluptuously, dare i say rapturously designed and shot. and to an aesthetic that is so totally me: 1920s art deco that is still soft and sinuos, before the 30s brought a hard industrial edge to it. the look is still very bespoke and laboriously hand-made rather than mass-produced machine age.
and that look is enveloped in an equally luscious time-travelling soundscape that teases you with themes from lana del rey's haunting torch song.
the acting by leonardo dicaprio is top-notch and there was a moment when his smile brought flashbacks to his younger romeo self that was electric. i'm not so sure tobey maguire is my ideal nick but i can't, off the top of my head think who would be better. carey mulligan is a bit of a cipher but that to me is part of the point. she is a blank canvas on which gatsby painted his dreams. but before we get to that i have to say i loved newcomer elizabeth debicki's jordan. she elicits worship in every scene she blesses.
the critics who say the movie is not faithful enough as well as those who say the movie is too faithful to the novel are both correct. but they all miss the point. this is a movie not a novel. and you can do amazing things with a movie that you can't in a novel (and vice-versa, cf Game of Thrones books and TV series). Once you are able to forget the novel (which, thankfully, i read a lifetime ago and now only have the vaguest memory of) the movie can work its wonderful magic on you.
so yes it is a story of unfulfilled love. but if you see it as a story about how nick loves jay more than about jay loving daisy then it all sort of makes wonderful sense and there is a sort of happy ending to it all. but again if you focus on the love story you are still missing the point. it is about the power of dreams and in a very modern and meta way, it is about the seductive power of movie magic and how your imagination, how a story can make you believe in a world far, far more edifying than mere reality.
Click to viewbut i have to say that i haven't been so transported by a movie since, since ... well, i guess the very first star wars back in 1977. as i walked out of the cinema after seeing a tiny x-wing destroy the death star for the first time the world outside the cinema seemed less real than when i walked in. and so it was when i walked out of the great gatsby. the evening breeze was more caressing, the moon peeking out through its cloudy curtains seemed a little bluer, and the back-lit figure smoking on the balcony as i walked by blossomed with an operatic back-story.
well, i guess it helped that the reviews that i had read were decidedly mixed. an oddly enough much of the criticism, i would say, is true or valid. but that did not stop the movie from bringing me to a new and better place.
i guess i also am a huge fan of baz luhrmann at his over the top best. after star wars the movie i have seen the most times in a cinema (as opposed to on a small screen at home) is Moulin Rouge. and i can without any contradiction say that Moulin Rouge is the better and more enjoyable movie. and yet.
where the critics are all in agreement is that this movie is gorgeously, voluptuously, dare i say rapturously designed and shot. and to an aesthetic that is so totally me: 1920s art deco that is still soft and sinuos, before the 30s brought a hard industrial edge to it. the look is still very bespoke and laboriously hand-made rather than mass-produced machine age.
and that look is enveloped in an equally luscious time-travelling soundscape that teases you with themes from lana del rey's haunting torch song.
the acting by leonardo dicaprio is top-notch and there was a moment when his smile brought flashbacks to his younger romeo self that was electric. i'm not so sure tobey maguire is my ideal nick but i can't, off the top of my head think who would be better. carey mulligan is a bit of a cipher but that to me is part of the point. she is a blank canvas on which gatsby painted his dreams. but before we get to that i have to say i loved newcomer elizabeth debicki's jordan. she elicits worship in every scene she blesses.
the critics who say the movie is not faithful enough as well as those who say the movie is too faithful to the novel are both correct. but they all miss the point. this is a movie not a novel. and you can do amazing things with a movie that you can't in a novel (and vice-versa, cf Game of Thrones books and TV series). Once you are able to forget the novel (which, thankfully, i read a lifetime ago and now only have the vaguest memory of) the movie can work its wonderful magic on you.
so yes it is a story of unfulfilled love. but if you see it as a story about how nick loves jay more than about jay loving daisy then it all sort of makes wonderful sense and there is a sort of happy ending to it all. but again if you focus on the love story you are still missing the point. it is about the power of dreams and in a very modern and meta way, it is about the seductive power of movie magic and how your imagination, how a story can make you believe in a world far, far more edifying than mere reality.