The Great Gatsby - Remake in the Works

[MikeBravo]

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.

I read the book quite recently and I interpreted Gatsby as actually being quite shallow. In fact I thought he was rather a slimey character as well. I recall the narrator being rather underwhelmed when he actually met Gatsby a one of the parties.

All his charm and riches was gained with the sole aim of obtaining the affections of a married woman whom he had meet previously. She would not have a relationship with him because he had no money.

 

[MikeBravo]

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.

If this is so, and I am not terribly familiar with Mr Dicaprio's work, then from my reading of the novel, he is perfectly cast as Gatsby.

Also his physical appearance coincides with how the character was described in the novel. Once I borrow the book from the library again, I will publish the excerpts to back up my conclusions

 

[Chasseur]

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.

Actually I think Amitabh is a good choice, he can do the exotic mobster character well. I just find it interesting because he's a very well know actor outside of the US and Europe but relativeluy unknown for the audiance of this film. So its like a Bollywood film with Depardieu, he'd be well know in the Atlantic film world, but most of the Bollywood audiance would be like, "Who's this French guy in the film?"

I also agree with you on the casting, at least the male casting, Dicaprio and McGuire are good choices for their characters and I generally like their work. Like Edward its the director, Baz Luhrmann, and his films that leaves me doubful. Under other hands I think Dicaprio is a good choice for Gatsby as far as I remember from the books. He was excellent in the Aviator I thought.

 

[Edward]

I read the book quite recently and I interpreted Gatsby as actually being quite shallow. In fact I thought he was rather a slimey character as well. I recall the narrator being rather underwhelmed when he actually met Gatsby a one of the parties.

All his charm and riches was gained with the sole aim of obtaining the affections of a married woman whom he had meet previously. She would not have a relationship with him because he had no money.

I've always read Gatsby as being a jazz age Heathcliff, but yes, reading The Great Gatsby as a love story is an even bigger misinterpretation than reading Romeo and Juliet as such. It is emphatically not a story of love, but rather one of obsession, self-delusion, and the crushing effect of the class system.

Actually I think Amitabh is a good choice, he can do the exotic mobster character well. I just find it interesting because he's a very well know actor outside of the US and Europe but relativeluy unknown for the audiance of this film. So its like a Bollywood film with Depardieu, he'd be well know in the Atlantic film world, but most of the Bollywood audiance would be like, "Who's this French guy in the film?"

I also agree with you on the casting, at least the male casting, Dicaprio and McGuire are good choices for their characters and I generally like their work. Like Edward its the director, Baz Luhrmann, and his films that leaves me doubful. Under other hands I think Dicaprio is a good choice for Gatsby as far as I remember from the books. He was excellent in the Aviator I thought.

 

[cookie]

A lot of this was filmed in Australia near me in seaside Manly http://www.gentlemansgazette.com/great-gatsby-movie/

 

[Gene]

I thought Luhrmann's Romeo and Juliet was incredible, so I'm hoping more for this to be in that vein than in Moulin Rouge.

 

[rue]

I thought Luhrmann's Romeo and Juliet was incredible

Me too!

 

[sheeplady]

I read the book quite recently and I interpreted Gatsby as actually being quite shallow. In fact I thought he was rather a slimey character as well. I recall the narrator being rather underwhelmed when he actually met Gatsby a one of the parties.

All his charm and riches was gained with the sole aim of obtaining the affections of a married woman whom he had meet previously. She would not have a relationship with him because he had no money.

I always thought he was more tragic than shallow. He spent his life chasing his dream of a woman who didn't exist. He obviously had talent of some sort (even if it was the dark kind) and it was totally wasted on a woman who deserved to take a long walk off a short pier. (But I hate Daisy and I can't find anything redeemable in her or her husband's character.) Gatsby created a goal in his life: Daisy and became obsessed with obtaining her- even to the point where he no longer recognized her. The whole book is about waste and carelessness. And the people who waste the most and don't care at all are the rich spoiled idiots who go on with their lives like nothing happened leaving a mile-wide path of destruction in their wake.

I'm not sure if F. Scott Fitzgerald wrote Gatsby to be a tragic character or not; but I always saw him as someone who got sucked in, became "part of the machine" to the point where he created this fake persona, and was spit out. If the class structure was not so cruel and demeaning, he wouldn't have been so obsessed or done what he did (as it is implied his character did to get his money). Gatsby wasn't nearly as tragic as Myrtle or her husband (a total victim) because he played into his destruction. The machine being the class structure- those at the top survive unscathed but the social climbers and the ones at the bottom suffer.

 

[Edward]

I thought Luhrmann's Romeo and Juliet was incredible, so I'm hoping more for this to be in that vein than in Moulin Rouge.

The more I see of his work, the more I think R&J was a fluke.

 

[Chasseur]

I thought Luhrmann's Romeo and Juliet was incredible, so I'm hoping more for this to be in that vein than in Moulin Rouge.

Agreed. I think it was quite cleaver and "slick" actually. I enjoyed highly. All the references to sword and dagger being the manufacturers of the firearms was very slick idea. The setting too as well well was well executed I thought. In contrast Moulin Rouge while it had a couple of fun moments was just not good...

 

[Son_of_Atropos]

Turns out Brooks Brothers did the suits.

http://www.ivy-style.com/brooks-outfitted-gatsby-cast.html
http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/fa...utfits-leonardo-dicaprio-tobey-maguire-334893

 

[Edward]

Agreed. I think it was quite cleaver and "slick" actually. I enjoyed highly. All the references to sword and dagger being the manufacturers of the firearms was very slick idea. The setting too as well well was well executed I thought. In contrast Moulin Rouge while it had a couple of fun moments was just not good...

Moulin Rouge was, from start to finish, just awful in every way. Romeo + Juliet was great - the one thing I idn't like was what they did with Mercutio: that, to me, was a total misinterpretation.

 

[mummyjohn]

I was Brooks Brother faithful before, but now I may never go anywhere else!

Until this thread started, I never knew there was so much hate for Moulin Rouge! When it first came out, I was a little young for it, so my friends and I didn't get around to watching it until last Summer, and we loved it. But hey, to each his own.

Regardless, that Gatsby trailer (which I've seen well over two dozen times) just gives me a chill with every successive viewing. Saw it for the first time in a cinema the other day where it ran before Men In Black III, and as good as my home stereo is, seeing and hearing it with the pounding, tight speakers of a real auditorium brought it to a whole new level.

 

[Doctor Strange]

Not everybody here hates Moulin Rouge! I think it's great fun, while totally ahistorical and absurd. Entertaining trash.

Now Luhrmann's Australia, which really wants to be taken seriously as a historical epic, I think is far more embarrassing junk.

 

[mummyjohn]

Not everybody here hates Moulin Rouge! I think it's great fun, while totally ahistorical and absurd.

Exactly! I'm not looking for accuracy in it, just something really really fun! I'm laughing, but I know "it is what it is," and I'm laughing with it.

 

[Gene]

The more I see of his work, the more I think R&J was a fluke.

You may be exactly right!

 

[Son_of_Atropos]

Trailer for the 1926 silent film version.

http://youtu.be/Asajgm-ciWA

 

[Stanley Doble]

I read the book quite recently and I interpreted Gatsby as actually being quite shallow. In fact I thought he was rather a slimey character as well. I recall the narrator being rather underwhelmed when he actually met Gatsby a one of the parties.

All his charm and riches was gained with the sole aim of obtaining the affections of a married woman whom he had meet previously. She would not have a relationship with him because he had no money.

Everybody was "quite shallow". None were what they appeared to be. It was the kind of group that might appear in the style section of the weekend newspaper: Tom Buchanan, the handsome polo player. His beautiful wife Daisy. Their friend Jordan Baker the amateur golf champion. And of course the mysterious Gatsby. The man who throws the fabulous weekend parties at his mansion on the water at West Egg.

Buchanan turns out to be a racist, who cheats on his wife and knocks his girlfriend around.

Daisy is an airhead who first falls in love with Gatsby, as soon as he is out of sight falls in love with Buchanan, until she gets a letter from Gatsby, when she falls back in love with him, but marries Buchanan anyway, then falls in love with Gatsby again, until she gets in a jam and runs back to Buchanan.

They both have a habit of getting into jams and skipping town, leaving someone else to take the heat and clean up the mess they made.

Their friend Jordan Baker isn't much better. She cheats at golf, and is another careless spoiled brat who lies and uses people.

The mysterious Gatsby turns out to be a cheap four flusher, cat's paw of Wolfsheim the gambler and fixer. His mansion is rented, his parties full of B list celebrities and gate crashers, and by the end of the summer he is broke and depending on a scheme involving stolen bonds to recoup his fortune.

But Gatsby is redeemed by his love for Daisy. He dedicated his life to building himself into a Platonic ideal of the rich sophisticate. It wasn't much of a dream, the kind a hick teenager would dream up if he read too many cheap novels but it was his dream and he never deviated from it even though, in the end, it killed him.

That is what Nick Carraway was talking about when he said to Gatsby, "you are worth all the rest of them put together".

 

[Stanley Doble]

I've always read Gatsby as being a jazz age Heathcliff, but yes, reading The Great Gatsby as a love story is an even bigger misinterpretation than reading Romeo and Juliet as such. It is emphatically not a story of love, but rather one of obsession, self-delusion, and the crushing effect of the class system.

Nailed it.

 

[Stanley Doble]

The character of Wolfsheim is based on Arnold Rothstein the gambler and gangster who actually did fix the World Series in 1919 (or so it was said). He is emphatically American, the prototype of the Jewish American gangster.

Why would they hire Bachcham? Couldn't they get Justin Beiber? (sarcasm)

And what is with the beard? Show me one bearded gangster from the twenties, either in real life or the movies.