The Great Gatsby - Remake in the Works

[Albert.Tatlock]

A trio of lovely Ladies at my Local Cinema, a group of us dressed up and went out to Dinner afterwards

 

[Edward]

Saw it last night. I can now say I've done it. I'm not going to add to what's already been said.

You disliked it that much, eh?

I agree that that is what the director was trying to do, but it is a sloppy and pandering way to do it.

Honestly, I think you're both giving Luhrman far too much credit. Shoe-horning in modern pop music to everything he does is Luhrman's trade mark, in the same was as Spielberg's is cloying sentimentality, or Shyamalan must have a twist at the end, however jarring and preposterous.

 

[sheeplady]

Thought that thing would never end. "Just run over that broad and get me home to bed already."

This made me laugh snort.

I was thinking about this the other day and I think I'm upset they replaced the dog collar with pearls after they made such a big showing of how Tom bought pearls for Daisy. Tom loves Myrtle, but he doesn't respect her in the same way he respects his wife. "Respect" referring to his amount of esteem he has for his wife because of her background, not "respect" in terms of not cheating on her. Myrtle and Daisy aren't equals in his mind. (I actually think Tom loved Myrtle more than Daisy, but Daisy was far more important to his image. Tom would always choose image over substance or emotion.)

 

[The Wiser Hatter]

[video]https://vimeo.com/68451324[/video]

Behind the FX


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk 2

 

[Formeruser012523]

Had no idea it was so involved. Amazing.

 

[JonnyO]

Was just about to post this, good thing I looked first haha. I must say, it is quite amazing what someone can do with a green cloth and computer these days. To say I was amazed while watching that video would be an understatement. It is really a credit to the actors as well, I'm not sure I would be able to place myself mentally into the scene with just green/blue screens surrounding me.

[video]https://vimeo.com/68451324[/video]

Behind the FX


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk 2

 

[TheSacredFemme]

Oooh, lots of people seemed to really hate it!

I gotta say that I read the book within 2 hours, a few hours before seeing the film. I would now call that book one of my favourite books of all time. It has sparked quite the Fitzgerald love fets in me and I'm slowly working my way through all of his books and short stories. Gatsby to me was absolutely lovely, the imagery, the characters and the storyline blew my mind a little.

When I then went to see the film I was both worried about seeing it "butchered" as well as intrigued to see someone else's interpretation. All in all, I gotta say that I liked the film. Yes, parts were over the top and as a fan of jazz I would have liked to actually hear jazz, but I can appreciate what Luhrmann was trying to do. I would rather focus on the parts I really did enjoy and that was the actors' performances. I thought DiCaprio was a fantastic Gatsby and I'm incredibly excited to see how much he has matured as an actor. The same goes for Mulligan's portrayal as Daisy. She seemed spoiled, self-centred and down right unlikeable. Those qualities within the characters is what made me love the book. It is so rare to read books about people who aren't necessaries good people but none the less they aren't portrayed as villains.

I hope my chatter made sense! Some parts were definitely a miss but overall I enjoyed myself.

 

[Fading Fast]

Oooh, lots of people seemed to really hate it!

I gotta say that I read the book within 2 hours, a few hours before seeing the film. I would now call that book one of my favourite books of all time. It has sparked quite the Fitzgerald love fets in me and I'm slowly working my way through all of his books and short stories. Gatsby to me was absolutely lovely, the imagery, the characters and the storyline blew my mind a little.

When I then went to see the film I was both worried about seeing it "butchered" as well as intrigued to see someone else's interpretation. All in all, I gotta say that I liked the film. Yes, parts were over the top and as a fan of jazz I would have liked to actually hear jazz, but I can appreciate what Luhrmann was trying to do. I would rather focus on the parts I really did enjoy and that was the actors' performances. I thought DiCaprio was a fantastic Gatsby and I'm incredibly excited to see how much he has matured as an actor. The same goes for Mulligan's portrayal as Daisy. She seemed spoiled, self-centred and down right unlikeable. Those qualities within the characters is what made me love the book. It is so rare to read books about people who aren't necessaries good people but none the less they aren't portrayed as villains.

I hope my chatter made sense! Some parts were definitely a miss but overall I enjoyed myself.

I'm excited for you to have "discovered" Fitzgerald for yourself as you now have a wealth of material to work through. While the novels are enjoyable - "The Beautiful and the Damned" and "Tender is the Night" are my two favorites (after "Gatsby"), I think I almost enjoy his short stories more. Yes, they are uneven in quality (some were clearly written for cash, some by his wife under his name as they got paid more that way), but the good ones lift off the page. Purely form memory, "Babylon Revisited" and "Diamond as Big as the Ritz" were two I enjoyed greatly - and still think about regularly. And I agree with your DiCaprio observation (full disclosure, I have not seen this version of Gatsby yet), as I thought he was outstanding - nuanced when necessary, bold when appropriate and fully owing the character - in both "Shutter Island" (and under-rated movie) and "Django Unchanged" (not Tarantino's best, but still has a lot to offer if you are okay with Tarantino's over-the-top world - I thought "Inglorious Basterds" was a more fully developed recent offering from him). Enjoy your time with Fitzgerald.

 

[Warden]

Things move slowly in the Harry & Edna household, so we only saw this film last night. Split views I am afraid, Edna liked it, I thought a missed opportunity.

 

[poetman]

I just rented this on a whim…as the previews didn't look that exciting. I didn't make it past Jay-z rapping to 1920's art-deco glamour. That was the dumbest, most anachronistic, foolish, unartistic decision I've encountered in a while. It was disgusting on so many levels. The cinematography was abdominal with the camera angle speeding over the lake like some cheap Disney film. PURE TRASH!

 

[Stanley Doble]

I'd agree, and maybe this is just my lack of knowledge about racial relations at that time, but it seemed totally unrealistic that Tom had so many Black/African American servants waiting on his guests. Having been in homes were there are servants in the Northeast, very few of them had Black and African American servants, and certainly there was a preference for having white servants who waited on guests among the most racist of them. (In other words, non-white servants were out of sight.) I think the director missed the interpretation of Tom's line about the superiority/inferiority of people and races- he's not just talking about a modern interpretation of race as in Black/African American, Latino, Asian, White. He's talking about class too- the idea is that people from "good" families (read rich) are of a superior race to those who are from "poor" families. He is so racist and classist that he doesn't even see anyone as human unless they meet his standards of old money- yet alone the less than human other races. He's a bigot towards everyone.

You may be reading too much into Tom's racism. No doubt he was a selfish, racist, sexist, etc b#stard. But the point of him talking about that racist book was how dumb he was. The book was a sensationalist piece of trash on the level of Anne Coulter or Rush Limbaugh. Tom was the kind of dope who took it seriously when he heard about it, two years after everybody else, although he couldn't quite remember what it was about.

 

[Stanley Doble]

Gatsby was a poser and a social climber but he was a sincere poser and social climber. He really believed in his vision of a superior life with a superior class of people. He set out to recreate himself when he was in his teens and he stayed true to his Platonic ideal . In the end it killed him.

 

[Stanley Doble]

Gatsby also had a great deal of charm and personal magnetism. Fitzgerald describes how he would focus all his attention on a person and make them feel understood and appreciated.

The "old sport" catch phrase, Fitzgerald borrowed from a Gatsby like acquaintance. Most of Fitzgerald's characters were modeled on people he knew, and his stories incorporated experiences and anecdotes that happened to them.

 

[Fading Fast]

You may be reading too much into Tom's racism. No doubt he was a selfish, racist, sexist, etc b#stard. But the point of him talking about that racist book was how dumb he was. The book was a sensationalist piece of trash on the level of Anne Coulter or Rush Limbaugh. Tom was the kind of dope who took it seriously when he heard about it, two years after everybody else, although he couldn't quite remember what it was about.

Sometimes I think the better theme of the Great Gatsby wasn't Gatsby as wreckage of the American Dream, but the moral corruption and bankrupt integrity of the "Old Guard" of society. It took another forty years for that guard to fully break down, but Fitzgerald was ahead of his time in seeing it. While some have accused Fitzgerald of loving the rich (and he certainly tried to integrate and ingratiate himself into their world in his life) as "The Great Gatsby" shows, he didn't pull punches in his literature pointing out their ugly side.

 

[Stanley Doble]

I took it a little differently. From a distance, the cast of characters looked like the glittering heroes of the sunday supplements. Get a little closer and you see Gatsby is a phony. Closer yet, and you see all of them are phonies. Even closer, and you see that even though Gatsby was a phony, he was the only decent human being in the bunch.