The Great Gatsby - Remake in the Works

[Marc Chevalier]

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I don't understand how a movie like 1984's "The Cotton Club" got the costuming so right, while this "Great Gatsby" seems well on the road to getting it wrong.

 

[Marc Chevalier]

Has anyone mentioned that this "Gatsby" is being filmed in 3-D? Who knew that it was an action picture? Must be all those Charleston moves.

 

[HadleyH]

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The costumer should be sent to jail for banging audiences over the head with too-obviously vulgar, historically inaccurate outfits:

Exactly!

What I want to know is why everything (or almost everything) that Hollywood touches becomes a caricature? why?

Hello Hollywood WAKEY WAKEY!!! ". Flappers had measurements of pre-adolescent boys, with no waistline, no bust, and no butt." Is that so hard to understand?

Sadly .... the answer is yes: it is too hard to understand! [huh]



this is what i mean!

 

[Edward]

The costumer is the director's wife Catherine Martin. She's done the costumes for his earlier films - Romeo+Juliet, Moulin Rouge!, Australia, etc., - so I wouldn't expect accuracy or understatement!

Am I the only here worried that it's the STORY that isn't going to be better served this time around, even more than the look of the film?

Don't even mention Moulin Rouge what a pile of tripe that was, on every level.

It's a given Hollyweird will go wrong in some ways, but I don't think we can really speculate on the story side of it yet.

Luckily, the trouser width is accurate for 1922.

Well, that's something!

IMO, "Gatsby" is a book that doesn't lend itself well to film. It's sort of a given that it will suck this time around, as it has in previous movie versions.

I don't know, I don't think it has been done well yet on the big screen, though there was a made for TV version a few years ago that was pretty good. I don't think it's unfilmable, but it is an easy one to make into a bad film.

The biggest danger is if they decide to direct it as a love story, which it most assuredly is not. There's precious little love in this book - it's a story of obsession, and deluded obsession at that, not love.

Me too. I actually liked Robert Redford in it, but I can't stand Mia Farrow as Daisy.

I loathe Robert Redford in everything - he's in line to be the third slimiest man in Hollywood in my eyes! lol

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Why, oh why didn't they cast Justin Timberlake (or David Beckham) as Gatsby, Beck as Nick, Paris Hilton as Daisy, Victoria Beckham as Jordan ... and Snookie as Myrtle? That would have been hilarious and in keeping with the costuming we've seen in the set photos.

Beckham would be an ideal Myrtle if she had the physicality (hell, she's not even visible side on) - the worst kind of uppity socila climber there is. Type casting writ large. And Hilton is probably the closest we have today for a Daisy in real life, providing that the dumb bimbo act she does for the cameras really is an act - Daisy was a lot sharper than she liked to let on.

Exactly!

What I want to know is why everything (or almost everything) that Hollywood touches becomes a caricature? why?

Hello Hollywood WAKEY WAKEY!!! ". Flappers had measurements of pre-adolescent boys, with no waistline, no bust, and no butt." Is that so hard to understand?

Yes, BUT.... the book is very clear that Myrtle is a voluptuous figure (at least by 1920s standards) - it's just yet another way that she doesn't fit with what she so desperately wants to be.

I still hold out hope for a good story. The two male leads (Maguire and diCaprio) are excellent casting choices for their respective roles. Redford never captured Gatsby's eccentricity, his charm, his strength of purpose, or, indeed, his delusion.

 

[HadleyH]

Yes, BUT.... the book is very clear that Myrtle is a voluptuous figure (at least by 1920s standards) - it's just yet another way that she doesn't fit with what she so desperately wants to be.

Fine. I understand all that, but then give the actress a dress faithful to the times! Flappers didn not wear push-up bras, you know?

 

[Edward]

Fine. I understand all that, but then give the actress a dress faithful to the times! Flappers didn not wear push-up bras, you know?

Oh, I agree with you on the accuracy - or otherwise - of the costume. It should look a bit wrong, but wrong in the way that any current fashion trend would look wrong on a body type for which it is not designed, as opposed to "like something out of the Seventies".

At least we can hope the haircuts might not be too bad, as opposed to all those awful Sixties war movies with the Sixties hair (mind you, in half of those the haircuts are far from the biggest inaccuracies, but still!).

 

[Fidena]

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I don't understand how a movie like 1984's "The Cotton Club" got the costuming so right, while this "Great Gatsby" seems well on the road to getting it wrong.

In the 1970's version it seemed like the costumer just went down to the local macy's to pick up a few three piece suits, completely disregarding the fact that a 1922 three piece and a 1970's three piece were two completely different animals. Shirts and ties were pretty damn horrible, too. I couldn't make it though the movie. Awful representation of the book, and like you said there wasn't even any eye candy to be seen.

 

[Edward]

The Redford costumes were faithful to the book in some respects: e.g. the white suit/silvershirt/gold tie combo. Just a shame they weren't so diligent with the cut!

 

[Fidena]

The Redford costumes were faithful to the book in some respects: e.g. the white suit/silvershirt/gold tie combo. Just a shame they weren't so diligent with the cut!

Yeah, the cuts were my problem. They did get the colors right, though. Give them that.

 

[Marc Chevalier]

In the 1970's version it seemed like the costumer just went down to the local macy's to pick up a few three piece suits, ...

The costumer hired 'Polo Ralph Lauren' to make the clothes for the lead male characters. 'Polo' had been around for only six years ...

As for 1922, the whole movie looked more as if it were set in the later '20s.

 

[Mojito]

Period accuracy (I don't claim to know women's clothes from that era) would be the issue. Myrtle should be a little bit much, but strictly in the context of her own period. She's as much a dreamer as Gatsby, and comes from the same working class background, equally striving, in her own way, to break into the world of the rich. He is perhaps more successful at it than Myrtle, though ultimately getting in with those "careless people" kills them both. Myrtle I always read as a beautiful woman who has the misfortune to be born with the perfect hourglass figure in an era when the overriding beauty ideal is to have no figure - no bust, and no hips, both of which she definitely has. Twenty years later she'd be the ideal, but not in the day in which she lives. She's a trier, so she'll have some approximation of high society fashions, cobbled together from what bits she can afford, the bits Tom buys her (which, given his nature, are unlikely to be what suit her figure or have much if any thought put into the buying of them), and inspiration from what the big Hollywood names are wearing in Town Tattle and the other magazines she buys.

That's pretty much it. Here's how we first meet Myrtle:

Then I heard footsteps on a stairs, and in a moment the thickish figure of a woman blocked out the light from the office door. She was in the middle thirties, and faintly stout, but she carried her surplus flesh sensuously as some women can. Her face, above a spotted dress of dark blue crepe-de-chine, contained no facet or gleam of beauty, but there was an immediately perceptible vitality about her as if the nerves of her body were continually smouldering

Later we have her attire described like this:

Mrs. Wilson had changed her costume some time before, and was now attired in an elaborate afternoon dress of cream-colored chiffon, which gave out a continual rustle as she swept about the room. With the influence of the dress her personality had also undergone a change. The intense vitality that had been so remarkable in the garage was converted into impressive hauteur. Her laughter, her gestures, her assertions became more violently affected moment by moment, and as she expanded the room grew smaller around her, until she seemed to be revolving on a noisy, creaking pivot through the smoky air.

It seems they've chosen to represent Myrtle's innate voluptuous sensuality by putting her in a form fitting dress that emphasises her curves - especially the hips and bust, hugging the waist. But this is exactly the opposite of what Myrtle would have tried to do - the very areas she would have de-emphasised. That almost looks like a corset with a dress over it, and the ruching around the bust adds to the push-up affect that's already there. Myrtle is meant to be vulgar but vital, and desperately aspirational - she would not be flashing her thigh (a 1922 dress with a split up the middle like that is unthinkable). They could conceivably emphasise the hips if they wanted to with a gypsy girdle type sash - there is a hint of it there - but the problem with this whole outfit is that there are just too many stand-out aberations. The hem length, the hose/socks, the shoes (what I can see of them), the bodice treatment...you can get away with perhaps one or two anachronistic stylings like that, but the effect taken as a whole is just so atypical. and wrong. Myrtle's sensuality when she first shows up is seen almost in spite of what sounds like a comparatively conservative crepe-de-chine dress. Later we see her put on the fussy afternoon gown, and with it all sorts of affectations...the contrast should be marked. Be interesting to see how they handle that change into the second outfit.

I feel that Myrtle should be depicted as if she's almost too vital, too sensuous to be contained by her clothes - not as if she was poured into them. And yes, they should reflect her aspirations - I see her devouring fashion magazines and snapping up the cheap Woolworth's jewelery that was available to women in the 1920s.

 

[Mojito]

The costumer hired 'Polo Ralph Lauren' to make the clothes for the lead male characters. 'Polo' had been around for only six years ...

As for 1922, the whole movie looked more as if it were set in the later '20s.

Yes...there were some very nice beaded dresses in the party scenes that looked as if they might even be originals, but they dated to c. 1926 or so. I wasn't too happy with some of the hairstyling and headdresses either on the women, although a few were effective.

Still better than the later telemovie. I lasted about 15 minutes before I could stand it no longer. Between Gatsby being overwhelmingly slimy and the absolutely ridiculous costuming, I found it totally unwatchable.

 

[Edward]

That's pretty much it. Here's how we first meet Myrtle:



Later we have her attire described like this:



It seems they've chosen to represent Myrtle's innate voluptuous sensuality by putting her in a form fitting dress that emphasises her curves - especially the hips and bust, hugging the waist. But this is exactly the opposite of what Myrtle would have tried to do - the very areas she would have de-emphasised. That almost looks like a corset with a dress over it, and the ruching around the bust adds to the push-up affect that's already there. Myrtle is meant to be vulgar but vital, and desperately aspirational - she would not be flashing her thigh (a 1922 dress with a split up the middle like that is unthinkable). They could conceivably emphasise the hips if they wanted to with a gypsy girdle type sash - there is a hint of it there - but the problem with this whole outfit is that there are just too many stand-out aberations. The hem length, the hose/socks, the shoes (what I can see of them), the bodice treatment...you can get away with perhaps one or two anachronistic stylings like that, but the effect taken as a whole is just so atypical. and wrong. Myrtle's sensuality when she first shows up is seen almost in spite of what sounds like a comparatively conservative crepe-de-chine dress. Later we see her put on the fussy afternoon gown, and with it all sorts of affectations...the contrast should be marked. Be interesting to see how they handle that change into the second outfit.

I feel that Myrtle should be depicted as if she's almost too vital, too sensuous to be contained by her clothes - not as if she was poured into them. And yes, they should reflect her aspirations - I see her devouring fashion magazines and snapping up the cheap Woolworth's jewelery that was available to women in the 1920s.

Agreed. I'm not au fait with the ladies' styles of the period, but certainly the pop socks in the photo look screamingly wrong to me. For some reason, they scream 1990s to me, but that could simply be when I first saw something like that.

Yes...there were some very nice beaded dresses in the party scenes that looked as if they might even be originals, but they dated to c. 1926 or so. I wasn't too happy with some of the hairstyling and headdresses either on the women, although a few were effective.

Still better than the later telemovie. I lasted about 15 minutes before I could stand it no longer. Between Gatsby being overwhelmingly slimy and the absolutely ridiculous costuming, I found it totally unwatchable.

For some reason I remember the TV version as being better in some respects (though less faithful to the book in others), but to be fair I may simply have been unreasonably pleased at the lack of Robert Redford.

 

[Marc Chevalier]

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Hmm... let's look at the track record of recent American films (including a remake) set in the '20s and '30s -- especially from the standpoint of language (slang and dialects), costume, set, and prop authenticity.


"King Kong"? Bad.

"The Aviator"? Good.

"Changeling"? Fairly bad.

"Public Enemies"? Meh.

"Midnight in Paris"? Uneven.


Seen from this perspective, the odds are that "The Great Gatsby"will be mediocre ... unless it somehow bucks the trend, as "The Aviator" did.

 

[cookie]

Latest on Great Gatsby

http://www.smh.com.au/entertainment...the-old-power-station-yet-20111104-1n010.html

 

[The Wiser Hatter]

Great set dressing and cars in the pictures.

 

[cookie]

Manly's St Patrick's opens for Luhrmann's The Great Gatsby: Filming sections of the movie in my home town. Enjoy!

http://manly-daily.whereilive.com.au/news/story/gatsby-takes-in-the-view/

http://manly-daily.whereilive.com.au/photos/gallery/filming-of-the-great-gatsby-in-manly/

http://manly-daily.whereilive.com.au/news/story/seminary-flappers-join-in-gatsbys-great-party/

http://manly-daily.whereilive.com.au/news/story/looking-out-for-leonardo-dicaprio/

 

[Gene]

I'll probably be the only one here who will say I didn't care for the book or the Redford movie. I found them both boring.

 

[Steve]

Just saw this image.

Thoughts?

I'm no expert on the fine details of 1920s clothing, but DiCaprio seems to be wearing the attitude well.

 

[rue]

He looks old! That was my first thought.