The Great Gatsby - Remake in the Works

[Doublegun]

:rofl: Wouldn't you know it? The CGI geniuses mispelled "Ziegfeld" (at 0:13) :rofl:

Oh but how many would catch that? I mean as long as the colors are brilliant and the music loud, who cares about details.

 

[Mr Vim]

Welcome to the lounge Trout, we're excited to have you here, and I did not notice the misspelling of the Ziegfield until it was pointed out to me... I think I finally realize what is bothering me so much about the music in the trailer... the initial song has been used too much in other trailers, and therefore I'm associating with those other films which were all dark pieces filled with very low but very modern ideas... it instantly derailed me the second I heard the song. The song just doesn't fit and I wish for the life of me it'd never been put in the trailer.

 

[Matt Deckard]

I have high hopes for this interpretation of the book.

 

[Edward]

e of the I'm trying to keep an open mind, though my expectations dropped like a stone as soon as heard Luhrman was directing. I think I'd rather sit through one of the Star Wars prequels than see Moulin Rouge again. Appalling piece of rubbish - "sound and fury, signifying nothing" indeed.

new image from the picture

I really like the look of this shot. I presume that's Nick and Gatsby with Meyer Wolfsheim. The latter was one of my favourite characters in the book. didn't like what they did with him in previous versions (looked too young). It's a very small part, but hugely important in setting up Gatsby's world, IMO.

I love the music, just not for this film. Then again, they had similarly modern music for the trailer for Boardwalk Empire, and that turned out great, so here's hoping it's just for the trailer. I am interested in seeing how it turns out.

Possible they are still clearing copyright on other stuff (period music will be out of copyright in the songs but if using a more recent recording, there will still be copyright in the sound recording). Can't comment directly on what they have used on the trailer as I am currently in Beijing and so cannot see Youtube content.

 

[Chasseur]

Meyer Wolfsheim. The latter was one of my favourite characters in the book. didn't like what they did with him in previous versions (looked too young). It's a very small part, but hugely important in setting up Gatsby's world, IMO.

Its an interesting choice using Amitabh Bachcham for his character. Amitabh is one of Bollywood's biggest stars since the 1970s. He is sort of omnipresent in Indian popular culture and advertising (one could say overexposed...). It'd be like a big Indian movie casting Robert Di Nero or Gerard Depardieu as a Mumbai mobster...

 

[MikeBravo]

Okay, big question

Should I go and rent the original Robert Redford version and then see this? Or see this version and then the Redford one?

I'm not worried about any spoilers as I read the bookonly recently. Any thoughts?

 

[ThesFlishThngs]

If it were me, I wouldn't bother seeing the Redford version at all. Not quite sure if it's the film itself, or something to do with the casting, or maybe the general weirdness of period drama of the 1970s, but nothing about that movie makes me want to see it again. I'd prefer to watch the 2000 version with Toby Stephens and Mira Sorvino.

 

[V.C. Brunswick]

Though I'm not a big fan of Robert Redford the 1974 Great Gatsby had a lovely score by Nelson Riddle with some of the songs performed by Nick Lucas.

[video=youtube;i9G1x_4ssvs]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i9G1x_4ssvs[/video]

 

[Bird Lives]

I am also hopefully awaiting this interpretation....The sound card on this comp. has been corrupted so I haven't heard the music...But I do hope they use period music...or at least period sounding music in the film....It does look like it could turn out to be more of a remake of Moulin Rouge....but it does look good and the cast is fine and of course the book was fantastic...
So hopefully it will knock us all out...there is always that possibility...

P.S. Opps...just heard the music....Quess this is one I'll wait for the DVD...unless I hear rave reviews...What a drag...I was really into this...but the music used in this context is insulting...

What's funny is I believe those who think they have to sell-out to get people to come...are so underestimating today's youth and public in general....Anything of real quality if marketed well will still be excepted....Maybe even with open arms...

 

[Edward]

If it were me, I wouldn't bother seeing the Redford version at all. Not quite sure if it's the film itself, or something to do with the casting, or maybe the general weirdness of period drama of the 1970s, but nothing about that movie makes me want to see it again. I'd prefer to watch the 2000 version with Toby Stephens and Mira Sorvino.

I agree entirely. I can't remember if it was the Redford version that really irritated me with the casting of Wolfshein (young and suave - didn't fit at all imo). I do know I thought Redford's portrayal of Gatsby simply awful. No depth at all, plus Gatsby should be charming and attractive. Redford just seems slimy to me, no matter what he's in. Any creepier and he's be Michael Douglas.

 

[Chasseur]

maybe the general weirdness of period drama of the 1970s

I know we tend to bash the 1970s on default, but its quite a strange decade for period drama. It seems no matter what time period the movie was supposed to be about you can almost always spot a '70s made period film. There were some good ones like Chinatown and the Godfather, but in general most of the movies miss the mark.

The Redford Gatsby stand out, I guess because I was forced to watch it in my high school literature class...

Redford just seems slimy to me, no matter what he's in. Any creepier and he's be Michael Douglas.

I kept laughing reading that, quite true. If we keep adding creepiness do we reach Alec Baldwin levels?

 

[mummyjohn]

...I kept laughing reading that, quite true. If we keep adding creepiness [to Michael Douglas] do we reach Alec Baldwin levels?

Interesting choices, as these are some of my favourite actors! But that ain't what I'm here to talk about.

I, for one, am THRILLED about this trailer. Adapting Gatsby has been attempted several times, yet none has ever come to be seen as "the definitive" version. I've been excited about DiCaprio's attachment ever since its announcement; after Shutter Island, Inception, and more recently J. Edgar it's clear that he goes for a certain type of movie, namely headline roles in what I paradoxically call "blockbuster art films," that is to say they are not what you'd typically consider blockbuster fare (action, accessible comedy, etcetera) yet they are sold to high numbers of viewers, and can sometimes be real tentpoles (Inception). I for one cannot imagine a story more high-concept and pre-sold than The Great Gatsby, for the USA at least - this is our book, it fascinates all of us. But for as popular as it is, any even halfway-decent film adaptation of Gatsby has to be pretty 'artsy;' the book is [arguably] most famous for its fantastic imagery and the visual metaphors that the characters see. When I first read it, I recall a sense of hyper-real saturation, as though everything in the book's world was painted more richly than in ours.

But more important than DiCaprio is Luhrmann. He strikes me as an ideal man to helm such a project, as it needs that larger-than-life "unleashed visuals" directorial eye that's indicative of Luhrmann, Herzog, Nolan, Verbinski, or Snyder. I hesitate to include the last two, because Verbinski seems to me more of a blockbuster-maker than a delicate craftsman (note I didn't include Cameron, who's way on that end of the spectrum) and because Snyder doesn't seem mature enough to master the subtleties of Gatsby, he always goes for emphasis of cool action (which was excellent for 300 and Watchmen too, but would be completely misapplied here). I posit that Gatsby, in many ways, paints the twenties as we want to see them: big, loud, fun, and all-around cooler, sexier, swankier, and classier than "real life" (even at the time). After all, that's what the movies (and all literature) can do: let us vicariously experience a reality better than our own. And after having seen films like Moulin Rouge! I was positively floored by Luhrmann's work, and the way this trailer "tastes" reaffirms to me that he's the right man for the job.

-------------

As for the music that it seems everyone's so up about, music selection is a very critical part of film advertising that it seems a lot of people "don't get." A song in a trailer for an adaptation such as this does not need to complement the time period of the material, as counter-intuitive as that may sound. It has to complement, or rather emphasize, the feelings in the material and short-circuit the viewers' desire to 'think' about the trailer and get the emotional sensations along the lines of, "I want to see that, I NEED to see that, it burns to have to wait to experience that movie." I found the music - which I did not recognize and connote with anything else, as some here have, so maybe that's a game-changer - to complement the action: it gave a low, luxurious rumble at first that filled my mind with images of dark mahogany-lined rooms and V-12s in my garage. The second (Jack White) selection echoed straining urgency, a series of discombobulated, fleeting moments, a breakdown of the way things were into the way they will be. But Luhrmann didn't pick these numbers merely because they sound suitable, this short article notes how these songs' sentiments are tremendously fitting. His ability to make that connection should be celebrated.



But at the end of the day, if Moulin Rouge! is anything to go off, this movie will be a treat that remains delicious for years to come.

 

[Edward]

Dicaprio's casting excited me - its Luhrmann about whom I have grave reservations. He's down there with George Lucas and Joel Schumacher in my book. Hopefully fate will intervene and it'll be a case of the monkeys and the typewriters.... On the music, this may be a matter of how to sell the trailer. It's very common over here on television for period pieces to use a modern pop song in the trailer to sell it, but have something period-appropriate in the show itself. I wonder whether anyone who goes to see it will feel duped if that's the case... there were several stories in the press here about a small minority of people walking out of both The Artist and Sweeney Todd, angry because they felt that had been tricked into going to see, respectively, a silent and a musical. Some folks were genuinely outraged that Sweeney Todd turn out to be a musical.

Its an interesting choice using Amitabh Bachcham for his character. Amitabh is one of Bollywood's biggest stars since the 1970s. He is sort of omnipresent in Indian popular culture and advertising (one could say overexposed...). It'd be like a big Indian movie casting Robert Di Nero or Gerard Depardieu as a Mumbai mobster...

I wonder where I recognise him from he does look very familiar, but I've really not seem much, if any, Bollywood, so it's not from that.

I know we tend to bash the 1970s on default

The Seventies gets all the abuse more richly deserved by the Eighties, and the (absurdly over-fetishised) Sixties.

I kept laughing reading that, quite true. If we keep adding creepiness do we reach Alec Baldwin levels?

ha! No. No, no, no. Nobody is creepier or slimier than Redford and Douglas. It's roughly this, in descending order:

Michael Douglas

Robert Redford / Richard Gere


with Alec Baldwin some long way down.

 

[Chasseur]

I wonder where I recognise him from he does look very familiar, but I've really not seem much, if any, Bollywood, so it's not from that.

You've been to India a couple of times right Edward?

His face is omnipresent in advertising there: Billboards, Bus stops, TV, etc. It'd be almost impossible to watch Indian TV or walk in an Indian city and not see his face every 2-3 minutes. From Reid & Taylor fabrics to Cabury chocolates... Its like a commercial form of a Kemalist or Maoist cult of personality.

 

[Noirblack]

Perhaps the movie will be an artistic tour de force. I can't judge a movie from its preview. However the preview looks like an over-directed monstrosity. The sound of DiCaprio's voice immediately reminds me that the title character will be played by a thespian with the talents of a child actor (Growing Pains). He is now a man-child, but more child than man, and that always comes through on screen. His on screen presence is best summed up as "boy puts on daddy's jacket, shoes, and hat and pretends to be a man". This is why his only good performance was in Catch Me If You Can. That is exactly what the role in that movie called for.

 

[Edward]

You've been to India a couple of times right Edward?

His face is omnipresent in advertising there: Billboards, Bus stops, TV, etc. It'd be almost impossible to watch Indian TV or walk in an Indian city and not see his face every 2-3 minutes. From Reid & Taylor fabrics to Cabury chocolates... Its like a commercial form of a Kemalist or Maoist cult of personality.

Ah, that might be it! I've only been out there the once, in Bangalore, May 2010. I spent a week there and had a couple of days in town here and there between university business, so it's quite likely I saw him on that. There was also a guy on (UK soap opera) Eastenders for a bit who was apparently the biggest star in Bollywood. He was briefly in the show, and I seem to recall had to be written out earlier than they wanted due to working visa complications(?). I don't follow the show, but that might have been him too. Interesting casting for Wolfsheim - he looks the part, IMO. I had always read wolfsheim as Middle-Eastern Jewish, or at least with enough of the "exotic" about him that he would certainly be "alien" to nick Carraway's white, Midwestern world.

Perhaps the movie will be an artistic tour de force. I can't judge a movie from its preview. However the preview looks like an over-directed monstrosity. The sound of DiCaprio's voice immediately reminds me that the title character will be played by a thespian with the talents of a child actor (Growing Pains). He is now a man-child, but more child than man, and that always comes through on screen. His on screen presence is best summed up as "boy puts on daddy's jacket, shoes, and hat and pretends to be a man". This is why his only good performance was in Catch Me If You Can. That is exactly what the role in that movie called for.

 

[mummyjohn]

...there were several stories in the press here about a small minority of people walking out of both The Artist and Sweeney Todd, angry because they felt that had been tricked into going to see, respectively, a silent and a musical. Some folks were genuinely outraged that Sweeney Todd turn out to be a musical.

Seriously? Is that even possible? I literally cannot imagine what a conversation with one of these people [regarding their walkout] would entail...hearing this statement to me is equivalent to two plus two suddenly equaling five, it's just not comprehensible.

Its like a commercial form of a Kemalist or Maoist cult of personality.

That is so cool.

 

[Edward]

Seriously? Is that even possible? I literally cannot imagine what a conversation with one of these people [regarding their walkout] would entail...hearing this statement to me is equivalent to two plus two suddenly equaling five, it's just not comprehensible.

Seems idiotic to me - I thought everyone knew of Sweeney Todd as a musical (actually, it's an opera, really), but the complainers claimed not to, and the trailer didn't show anyone singing, so... I'm even more mystified as to how anyone could have missed that The Artist wasn't a talky...

 

[mummyjohn]

Seems idiotic to me - I thought everyone knew of Sweeney Todd as a musical (actually, it's an opera, really), but the complainers claimed not to, and the trailer didn't show anyone singing, so... I'm even more mystified as to how anyone could have missed that The Artist wasn't a talky...

To be honest, I didn't when I went in. I was home for Christmas, and my folks gave a choice between The Descendants and The Artist. This was way before it got as big as it did, I actually knew nothing about it at the time. I had heard of Descendants and didn't really want to see it. The Artist turned out to be one of the most fun movies I've watched in years (I could go on a while with that, but that's its own thread)!

Long story short: I had no idea what the movie was or was about, and was pleasantly surprised. Besides, isn't going into the cinema with no preconcieved notions or connotations the best way to see a movie? Without expectations, you can be totally blown away! Happened to me with many of what are now among my most beloved movies: The Artist, Hugo, 2001: A Space Odyssey (it doesn't get better than this, folks) Mulholland Dr., Eyes Wide Shut, and not to mention...Moulin Rouge!

 

[MikeBravo]

Its an interesting choice using Amitabh Bachcham for his character. Amitabh is one of Bollywood's biggest stars since the 1970s. He is sort of omnipresent in Indian popular culture and advertising (one could say overexposed...). It'd be like a big Indian movie casting Robert Di Nero or Gerard Depardieu as a Mumbai mobster...

I think the important thing in the casting is that Wolfsheim look "foreign". Please note the inverted commas there, I am not trying to be racist. This is similar to Peter Lorre in the Maltese Falcon who had an "exotic" appearance, supposedly from the Levantine, whch we now call the Middle East, when in fact he is Hungarian.

"The Levant includes most of modern Lebanon, Syria, Jordan, Israel, the Palestinian territories, and sometimes parts of Cyprus, Turkey and Iraq, and corresponds roughly to the historic area of Greater Syria; precise definitions have varied. The Levant has been described as the "crossroads of western Asia, the eastern Mediterranean and northeast Africa" Source: Wikipedia

In one of the Sherlock Holmes novels witnesses to a crime describe the perpetrator as "foreign". Conan Doyle through Holmes talks about how the criminal is often describes by witnesses as foreign, as if an Englishman would be incapable of such monstrous acts that were carried out in the story.

I must read those books again