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The Great Gatsby - Remake in the Works

Steve

Practically Family
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550
Location
Pensacola, FL
Typical Hollywood star costuming: a period style made modern-looking, so as to not turn off audiences. Funny thing is, DiCaprio's costumes in "The Aviator" were much more period authentic. Why there and not here?

The Aviator was directed by a man who cared about telling a story about a man in a certain place and time. It wasn't directed in 3D by the man who gave us the cluster fornication that was Moulin Rouge.
 

Gregg Axley

I'll Lock Up
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5,125
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Tennessee
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.
Well good luck trying that now, talk about blowing the budget on costuming! I'm not saying they wouldn't look good, he'd do an awesome job.
Too bad they couldn't borrow some of his cars while they were at it....
 

Tommy

One of the Regulars
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284
Location
Pennsylvania USA
I rather like the 40's version with Alan Ladd

[video=youtube;U2jh6XkjrHU]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U2jh6XkjrHU[/video]

I found this Alan Ladd version to be similar in relationship to the redford version, as A Night To Remember was to Cameron's Titantic, leaner and sticking to the knitting. The 70's Gatsby film was too sentimental and reflective. Almost filmed as a homage to the novel.
 

Bruce Wayne

My Mail is Forwarded Here
308856_10150376318111674_84169421673_8755167_89586007_n.jpg
 

Edward

Bartender
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25,081
Location
London, UK
Marc and others are better placed than me to comment on the *cut*, but theccolouring of Gatsby's togs in that shot is spot on. Bodes well.
 

kinghtalexis

New in Town
Messages
7
Location
USA
Wow, That sounds nice, i am a big fan of Leonardo Di Caprio and I am sure that he will do justice to the role. I can't wait for the movie now.
 

Travis Lee Johnston

Practically Family
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623
Location
Mesa/Phoenix, Arizona
Summer blockbuster type flicks set with major bankable directors and producers will always have a huge budget for wardrobe. While even a slightly smaller flick might have to cut corners or use things that would/could be 'passable' as period correct to someone who might not tell the difference. I'm sure sometimes too there just isn't the time on a production to nitpick about a costume or a detail of some sort.

Historic cars are a prime example of this in a film. Using vehicles with incorrect tires, rims, paint colors for the time period etc.

Though some things are more cringe inducing than others.
 
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3PcSuit

One of the Regulars
Messages
160
oh come now I can just see the update perhaps the wild 80's in silicone valley a brash upstart computer geek romances the wife of the "old money" SOB of a typewriter/kodak film distribution company all set amid the wine country of california with soundtrack by the talking heads and the petshop boys.

I just caught this now. . . Film isn't a typewriter, it's the medium that brought you 80% of big budget movies last year, Mad Men, Law and Order, 2 1/2 Men, 30 Rock and many others. And, BTW, most theatres still project billions of feet a year. As this is a thread ABOUT A FILM, I find the notion rather ironic.

Whaddaya think we do, play DVDs on the 60-foot screen?!?!?
 

3PcSuit

One of the Regulars
Messages
160
.

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.

Acting [in]ability aside for a moment, I'd probably see money to see this. It'd be wonderful to have celebrities being paid money, basically, to parody their own lifestyles :)
 

Stanley Doble

Call Me a Cab
Messages
2,808
Location
Cobourg
The chance of this movie being any good is practically nil. It was obvious when they announced they were using 1929 Duesenberg and Packard cars, the costumes confirm it.

The story is of a specific time and place, a wealthy suburb of New York City in the summer of 1922. Change the date more than a year or so either way and the story makes no sense.

Look at the time line. 1917 - Gatsby the handsome young army officer falls in love with rich and socially connected debutante Daisy. The romance had to take place at this specific time, Daisy was so far above him in class and wealth only his status as an army officer allowed them to get together and that narrows it down to 1917-1918.

November 1918. Armistice declared. Gatsby goes to Oxford, an opportunity offered to American officers at that time.

1919- Gatsby gets word of Daisy's marriage to Tom while he is attending Oxford and rushes back to the US.

1919-1921. Gatsby makes a fortune through shady dealings thanks to his "connegshon" the gambler and fixer Meyer Rothsheim.

1922 Gatsby uses his new found wealth to rent a big flashy house and throw lavish parties every weekend in a subtle plot to get Daisy back. He imagines her coming to one of his parties and casually rekindling their old romance. When this fails he fixes a meeting through his next door neighbor, a cousin of Daisy's.

Move the story to 1929 and it makes no sense. Nobody could carry a torch like that for 12 years. If they first met in 1926, how? A bum like Gatsby would never have got near Daisy except for the war.

All the movie adaptations miss the point in so many ways. I agree Redford made a lousy Gatsby but would argue he would make a good Tom Buchanan.

Gatsby is described as having considerable personal charm, but once in while his true nature shows through, that of a young roughneck who will do anything for a buck.

Nobody is what they seem. On the surface, the kind of glittering socialites one sees in the rotogravures. But Tom, the handsome sportsman and polo player, is a racist and more than a little on the dumb side. He cheats on his wife and knocks his girlfriend around. Daisy is an airhead. They both get in scrapes and run out leaving others to take the punishment.

Their friend Jordan Baker is another. Supposedly an amateur golf champion, she cheats and lies about it, drives like a fool and depends on others keeping out of her way.

Gatsby may be a hoodlum and a four flusher but he is ennobled by his love for Daisy, or rather his Platonic ideal of what she represents. He started out with a dream of success and achievement. It was a cheap dream, the kind a not very well brought up 14 year old boy would come up with but it was his and he stuck to it to the end. His romance, or twisted nobility is what Fitzgerald means when he says Gatsby is worth more than the rest of them put together.

This is the real story. It is the story that makes the old "boy meets girl, boy loses girl, boy gets girl back again" come alive. It is a story that will tear your heart out if told properly. Why doesn't anybody get it?
 
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