Today was a grey, cool, drizzly and generally crappy day, so I decided to go see a movie. I had been wanting to see the new The Great Gatsby movie, directed by Baz Luhrmann (of Romeo + Juliet and Moulin Rouge fame), starring Leonardo DiCaprio, Tobey Maguire, and Carey Mulligan. I had read the book by F. Scott Fitzgerald in high school, and it is one of my favorite books. The 1970's version of the movie, starring Robert Redford and directed by Martin Scorsese, however, I found to be a dreadful bore and virtually unwatchable. So I was curious how Luhrmann's take would pan out. After seeing it, I say that I like it. Here are my observations about/review of the movie:
Spoilers alert!
The Pros
1. First, if you are a literary purist, stop now, because you probably will not like the movie. The movie's story, as far as movie adaptations go, is pretty faithful to the basic plot and overall arch of the original story. They did not change much about the major events that happen, the important plot points and climax moments. What they did change, however, was the details. Basically, the film embellished a lot of details and "extras," both scene-wise and dialogue-wise, that were not necessarily in the book. A lot of what was added made explicit things that were hinted at or implied in the original story (Jay Gatsby's backstory, Jay and Daisy's backstory, Nick Carraway's backstory, etc.), but never fully explored. The movie added more detail and "meat" to those stories. It also added additional details in the movie about the everyday goings-on of the various characters, such as Nick Carraway's (Tobey MaGuire) job as a Wall Street trader, Gatsby's business dealings, etc.
While adding things to a movie from a book can be risky, I think that it worked here, because the details they added were logical or in line with the overall original plot. Nothing that was added substantively changed the overall story, it just made it -- and the character's emotions/motivations/feelings -- more explicit. I also think that this embellishment was, frankly, necessary to the make the movie filmable. In the original book, honestly, not much happens. It is very internally-driven. The problem with the Robert Redford movie, I think, was that it tried to be too faithful to the original source material, and tried to just film what physically, externally happened in the novel. Which ended up making the film really boring. Plus, I think the fact that the director/writer of the new version added more details made the story richer, in the sense that there was more character development, motivation, etc. on display than in the older movie. Literary purists may not like that Luhrmann pulled out and made explicit the internal nature of the characters, but to make a movie, I think making this choice is necessary.
2.Luhrmann made an interesting choice in framing the story, which is actually probably more in line with the original novel than the Redford version. The original novel is told as a memoir from Nick Carraway's perspective. If I am not mistaken (I might be, as the last time I saw that movie was in senior year of high school), the Redford movie kind of just plays out what happens in Carraway's story. In the new movie, the plot is framed as a story that a slightly older Nick Carraway is writing/retelling to his shrink (in the new movie, the frame is that the events of the story have made Carraway depressed and an alcoholic, so he is basically in rehab. He tells the story as part of his treatment, eventually writing it down and turning it into the novel). While the exact manner by which Nick telling his story comes about is an embellishment by the filmmakers, I think having it as a narrated/flashback-type mode of film, actually helps it stay closer to, or acknowledge, its literary source material. It is closer to the original in this respect because it remains essentially a (fictional) memoir. The film does a couple cool shots when Nick is typing his story on a typewriter, and there is an overlay of text as to what he is writing. The other nice thing about this technique, is that it allowed the film to pull and use some text from the original novel for the moments when Nick's character is narrating, without it being awkward or seeming out of place. I at least like this because in so doing, the film always has an acknowledgment of its original source material underlying whatever additions or embellishments the film thought necessary to tell the complete story. I think it allowed the filmmakers to change things when needed, without getting away from the story's core, which is the F. Scott Fitzgerald novel.
3.The music. A lot has been made of the fact that Luhrmann used anachronistic, modern, often hip-hop music in the score of the film. Obviously, there was not hip-hop, Beyonce, or Alicia Keys in 1920s America. Many people have complained about this, because the film is not fantasy, but is rather set in a real, historical time frame, and is generally trying to be realistic. Thus, to have hip-hop would be out of place and weird, or so the argument goes. I understand this argument, and I can see how people might object to the music's use. And I can also see this technique going horribly wrong. But, I actually think it works here. One of the things that the original novel underscores, is the frivolousness and the excess of the roaring '20s (and specifically, of the monied classes of the time). In a way, the Tom Buchanan/Daisy/Jordan characters portray or personify that shallowness and excess. The movie, while trying to be generally realist, was also trying to be evocative of that sense or impression that Fitzgerald conveyed in his novel. The hip-hop music, the use of hyper-realism when filming the party scenes and many of the scenes in New York City, I believe did convey that sense of living the carefree high life, the "bling," the party atmosphere. So while the music may not have been "correct," the mood or environment that it did create, was "correct" in the sense that it successfully created the "roaring" of the "roaring" 1920s. In fact, I think one of the failures of the older movie, was the fact that it failed to capture that extravagance: while there were party scenes, they weren't much more crazy or over-the-top than your average higher-end wedding. I think also the success of the modern music was that Luhrmann used it judiciously. There wasn't really any scene where you heard a full Jay-Z song. Rather, it would be maybe a 30-second clip of a recognizable song in the background (a good example would be a shot of New York City with a few bars of Alicia Keys' Empire State of Mind playing softly in the background). If extended music was used (for the party scenes especially), it had a modern beat, but didn't have words or wasn't a recognizable modern song, and the modern tune was often remixed with, or clearly derived from, 1920s-era jazz music. Full-on playing a whole P.Diddy song in the background would admittedly be "off," but I think the way in which Luhrmann used music in the film, while unconventional, was ultimately successful.
4.Performances. Not much to be said here, with the clearly strong cast. The acting was very good, but then with a cast headlined by Leonardo DiCaprio and Tobey MaGuire, anything less would be surprising. Tobey MaGuire in particular did a very good job playing the the naive newcomer to the New York scene; as essentially an observer of the stories of those around him, you see him get sucked into this crazy, hyper-real world, and you can see how, through the movie, his greater understanding of and involvement with that world turns his naiveté into disillusionment. I think it also helped that MaGuire, in whatever role he plays, just kind of comes off as that naive guy, so it worked. As for DiCaprio, 'nuff said. Did a great job. One of my favorite scenes in the movie is when he is preparing to see Daisy, the lost love of his life, for the first time after five years. He gets that awkward, embarrassed, doesn't-know-how-to-act-in-front-of-someone-he-still-has-feelings-for run-up to the big meet down to a frickin T. I can't really explain why it is so good, except for the fact that any of us who have ever been in that kind of situation will recognize and identify with it immediately. He channels the nervous 17-year-old asking his crush to prom, basically perfectly. Carey Mulligan as the confused, heartbroken, but ultimately shallow Daisy displays remarkable complexity; you see her emotion, and she conveys her affection for Gatsby realistically. It is clear that she loves the man very deeply, which makes her final decision to retreat back into the money and what is easy all the more maddening. And I got to hand it to Joel Edgerton, who played the antagonist Tom Buchanan: while the audience may not (and is not really supposed to) like Daisy's husband, there a few moments in the movie where, through the shallow, lusty and generally douchey character that is Tom Buchanan, the audience actually sees his humanity, his feelings and some of his vulnerability. While the audience may not like him, there are moments where it can sympathize with, or at least understand, him. Considering the character, that is quite the achievement.
Since it is still too early I think for there to be clips of the movie available on YouTube, I am putting in a clip of the trailer, so you can get an idea of the performances:
The Cons
1.Timing. One thing that I found "off," was the pacing of the movie. Namely, it was very uneven. A lot of the scenes with the additional details and dialogue were quite extensive relative to the movie, and yet some of the scenes of real importance (such as the car accident scene), felt kind of rushed in comparison. Also, the party scenes and New York City scenes were often sped-up, done in a hyper-real or almost fantastical way. And yet a lot of the rest of the movie was paced more like your standard drama, more subdued and slower. While I think the craziness of the party and some of the other scenes was intentional, the differences in the pacing, and the often-abrupt changes in pacing, could be somewhat jarring. Plus there were a few moments where the hyper-real came in to a scene that was otherwise "normal," so that was also somewhat off-putting.
2.Somewhat related to the above, but some of the sequential storytelling was off. The movie added a lot of necessary detail to the characters' stories, often through flashbacks. While I think these were necessary, sometimes the place in the story which a lot this backstory or explanation happened, was kind of random, or seemed somehow out of place. I guess what I am trying to say is that, in places, the story was jumpy. I think this came from the fact that the filmmakers were trying to add in the necessary details, but I think they could have been more successful in so doing, without creating this kind of hopping-back-and-forth sense that could take the viewer out of the current story. There were several places that flashed forward to Nick's telling of the story; while breaks back and forth like that are necessary for the storyteller frame narrative, sometimes where the break happened, was kind of random. So more logical transitions between the shifting time frames would have helped the movie.
Overall, I really liked the movie. I think that Luhrmann did, ultimately, make a version of Gatsby that could be filmed and watched (and enjoyed) by audiences. He had to do this by essentially creating "more" to the story, but I think that, in the end, it worked. If I had to give the movie a rating, I would say 7/10. Purists may not like the changes that were made, but from a storytelling perspective, I think it made the myth of Jay Gatsby much more accessible and "real."
One of the interesting things about the movie, is that it captured an element of the story that I hadn't noticed or remembered from the book. Namely, it is pretty clear that in the Daisy-Tom relationship, they are both clearly married to the wrong person. While it is clear that they care (or cared) for one another, and at least at one point had some kind of love for each other, their true, (at risk of sounding hokey) soul mate love was elsewhere. In Daisy's case, she obviously should have been with Gatsby. Tom's case is interesting, though. A major plot point is his affair with the wife of a lowly auto mechanic; when she ends up dying, and Tom looks over her dead body, the audience sees the kind of emotion, love and sadness on his face, that he never really shows around Daisy. While he may have loved Daisy, he loved this lowly woman. But, due essentially to their social positions (Gatsby was poor when Daisy met him, the wife is just a working-class woman), neither Tom nor Daisy can pursue the love that would truly make them happiest, instead relegated to clandestine affairs that are doomed to tragic failure (it is interesting to note that, in the end, both the "other" paramours vis-a-vis the Tom-Daisy marriage -- the mechanic's wife and Gatsby -- end up dead). I don't know how much of this was originally in the book (it's been a while since I read it), and how much was Luhrmann playing up that angle, but I do think it was an angle or bent to the story that ultimately worked in the overall plot or "point" of the movie.
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