New trailer for Gatsby- Page 3

[Jordan Catalano]

Posted: 5/6/13 at 11:42am

I'm just going to wait for the porn version, "The Great Big 10 inch Gatsby".

[Wynbish]

Posted: 5/6/13 at 11:59am

Featuring Tom and Daisy F*CKaman

[ray-andallthatjazz86]

Posted: 5/6/13 at 1:24pm

Besty, I've said it before but it bears repeating, the Mia Farrow/Robert Redford version is simply unwatchable, it's the worst kind of adaptation.
The reviews are not good for this one though, that's unfortunate. I was *really* looking forward to it. My only hope comes from the fact that MOULIN ROUGE was very polarizing, but it sounds like you guys were right.

[Kad]

Posted: 5/6/13 at 2:05pm

Those reviews just cement my initial fears. This looks like a Gatsby pitched to wealthy people who unironically host "Gatsby" parties.

[best12bars]

Posted: 5/6/13 at 2:27pm

More than anything else, "dull" is the nail in the coffin (according to these early reviews).

Maybe this classic novel really is un-filmable. Four different attempts on the big screen now.

[ray-andallthatjazz86]

Posted: 5/6/13 at 3:16pm

What's turning me off about the reviews is the idea that Luhrman portrays Gatsby as someone the audience should envy, which I find pretty much unforgivable. I love adaptations that are out there, love Luhrman and love his approach. I couldn't care less if the movie is faithful or not to the book, but to depict Gatsby and his lifestyle as something enviable is so off the mark. Gatsby is a mirage, a phony, and that's where the tragedy of the story lies, that is why Nick develops sympathy for him at the end of the story. That is so disappointing, though it seems like I was the only one who didn't see this coming from 10 miles away.

[best12bars]

Posted: 5/6/13 at 3:50pm

I had high hopes for it too, ray.

I'll probably see it anyway, but at least I know (more or less) what I'm getting myself into now.

[FindingNamo]

Posted: 5/6/13 at 4:28pm

Well, we don't really know (yet) that the movie celebrates the waste and the phoniness all the way through.

[CarlosAlberto]

Posted: 5/6/13 at 4:39pm

Apparently Tennessee Williams was a big fan of the 1974 film version:

Tennessee Williams, in his book Memoirs' [p. 178], wrote: “It seems to me that quite a few of my stories, as well as my one acts, would provide interesting and profitable material for the contemporary cinema, if committed to ... such cinematic masters of direction as Jack Clayton, who made of The Great Gatsby a film that even surpassed, I think, the novel by Scott Fitzgerald.”

[FindingNamo]

Posted: 5/6/13 at 4:40pm

The poor thing. All that drug and drink.

[CarlosAlberto]

Posted: 5/6/13 at 4:44pm

^ Same thought crossed my mind.

[ray-andallthatjazz86]

Posted: 5/6/13 at 4:52pm

Kris Tapley, one of my favorite film bloggers, has a brief write up offering a bit of a different opinion on the material:

I saw the film a few weeks back and, even as a Luhrmann fan, I was prepared for the worst. Why? A mixture of advance buzz, a trailer indicative of a film that could fall on either side of the line and even that rescheduling scenario, which is the kind of thing that rarely spells much more than trouble. After struggling for about a half hour to get into the film (Luhrmann's usual largesse really takes some getting used to when married with 1920s New York), it settled in and a simple fact took hold: it takes a lot to ruin a story this great. F. Scott Fitzgerald keeps it on an even enough keel, I think.

Something else became clear, too: Of COURSE Luhrmann would adapt this story. Here is a filmmaker preoccupied throughout his career with passion, obsession and, yes, love. From "Strictly Ballroom" to "Moulin Rouge!" to "Australia," that is the essence of his oeuvre. And this classic love story makes an interesting companion to 1996's "Romeo + Juliet," with that in mind. I walked away appreciative of the ambition, charmed by the themes and, overall, positive on the experience. Leonardo DiCaprio's performance was a highlight, as was Joel Edgerton's.
InContention

[Musical Master]

Posted: 5/6/13 at 11:12pm

I'm going to see this movie when it comes out this weekend and I think that The Great Gatsby is not only an analysis of 1920's culture, it is a visual kind of book as well. Yeah the less said about the GOD-AWFUL 1974 film adaptation the better...

I know I maybe in the minority but I HATE Moulin-Rouge with a passion. It's just a cliched mess with great art direction. Baz was lucky I liked Australia for it's simple epic 1930's cinema feel.

I will keep an open mind about this film despite what everyone in the thread and what reviews are saying.

[Jungle Red]

Posted: 5/7/13 at 12:07am

I think you're the only person who liked AUSTRALIA. Movies can be epic without being long and boring.

I love MOULIN ROUGE. Cliched, yes, but amazing. From the very beginning, it was all about true love and that's how it ended. He delivered. Was it the best story? No. Didn't have to be.

I'll see Gatsby. It's one of my most favorite books and I love the cast.

[rosscoe(au)]

Posted: 5/7/13 at 12:46am

The New Yorker's David Denby criticised Luhrman's direction for its "vulgarity" and "stunning absence of taste" though he said lead actor Leonardo DiCaprio was "a more forceful Gatsby than placid Robert Redford was in the tastefully opulent but inert adaptation of the book from 1974."


Read more: http://www.news.com.au/entertainment/movies/the-great-gatsby-fails-to-excite-us-critics-ahead-of-cannes-film-festival-premiere/story-e6frfmvr-1226636226109#ixzz2SZzCUUeQ

[Kad]

Posted: 5/7/13 at 12:59am

I love Moulin Rouge, too. It's cliche and simple, but effective.

And let's face it: Gatsby's plot, on its own, is actually slight and simple. It's not really about what happens. It's how it's expressed and what it stands for.

And therein lies the reason I think no adaptation of Gatsby will surpass the Elevator Repair Service's Gatz. Because it took the source material- every word- and put it through a new lens. Nothing was lost; things were only gained. It took the story, which can so often feel so distanced by time, and showed how it was relevant 90 years later to common people.

[Jungle Red]

Posted: 5/7/13 at 1:36am

Its prose is what makes it special to me. No matter how hard they try, you can't copy it on screen. The images and words can be there and be said, but do what?

I used to have the last paraphrased memorized but all I remember is the green light.

[EricMontreal22]

Posted: 5/7/13 at 4:17am

Exactly. The actual basic plot is I suppose--at least at this point, pretty cliché. It's how it's written--and I don't know if that could ever work on film (voice over, as the Rudd tv movie version shows, really doesn't capture that.) Yes, Moulin Rouge is more cliché, but on its own terms IMHO it works despite having such basic a plot.

I'm not sure I do see the book as being very visual as Musical Master says, myself. Sure it has some iconic imagery (the green light, the famous Eyes advertisement that they used for the original dust jacket, etc) but those are things that are hard to have the same impact when they just show them on film.

"
I agree with this as well. Coppola wrote the screenplay, why didn't Paramount let him direct it as well. Why Jack Clayton?
Redford and Farrow have absolutely NO chemistry: zip, zilch, nada. "

I believe Coppola, for whatever reason, has said he never wanted to direct it. He came in--IIRC--as a script doctor when Capote's script wasn't working, more or less, though he has always maintained that despite the credit, his script was never even really used.

Clayton has done some wonderful adaptations of books that should have been hard to film--The Innocents obviously, where I would say one of the strengths of James' original Turn of the Screw was in his gorgeous prose. But also The Pumpkin Eater, and Something Wicked This Way Comes (which apparently did suffer from Disney enforced changes done without Clayton.) These all have amazing atmosphere, which his Gatsby film doesn't. My point is, on paper there was nothing wrong with choosing him to direct the film-- It does seem like it was a difficult filmmaking process in general--with it being made more from uber producers Robert Evans and David Merrick as a sort of prestige vanity project, and so much mis-casting (Bruce Dern as Tom?) it was kinda doomed from the start, difficulty in filming the novel aside.

[best12bars]

Posted: 5/7/13 at 7:02am

The actual basic plot is I suppose--at least at this point, pretty cliché. It's how it's written

Exactly, Eric, which is why I had high hopes for Baz's version. He can take a simple plot (Moulin Rouge!) and add his style to it, and turn it into "cinematic poetry."

If someone just films the love story "plot line" between Gatsby and Daisy, it's boring as hell. A second-rate soap opera, by anybody's standards. It's the way it's told that counts.

[ray-andallthatjazz86]

Posted: 5/7/13 at 1:18pm

If someone just films the love story "plot line" between Gatsby and Daisy, it's boring as hell. A second-rate soap opera, by anybody's standards. It's the way it's told that counts.

So true, Besty. The story matters so little here, and just like you said, that's why I thought you needed someone like Baz Luhrman to translate the style of the book, which is really what matters about the book. The Clayton travesty focuses too much on the story, leaving chunks of dialogue from the book in the novel, and has no interest in being cinematic in any way. If anything, this version probably improves on that. I'll definitely be there Friday night, waiting to see what Luhrman did with the material, Todd McCarthy from The Hollywood Reporter liked it better than most.


The Hollywood Reporter

[PalJoey]

Posted: 5/7/13 at 2:51pm

McCarthy's backhanded compliment "A hugely elaborate, well-cast adaptation of an American classic that will provoke every possible reaction" is almost as damning as Max Berrbohm's classic "For people who like that kind of thing, this is the kind of thing they like."

Updated On: 5/7/13 at 02:51 PM

[strummergirl]

Posted: 5/7/13 at 7:41pm

By 1974 Coppola was already making plans for Apocalypse Now. Meh had also just finished both The Godfather Part II and The Conversation. I won't blame him for him being a little too busy. From what I read, he wanted Brando for Gatsby. That was never going to happen with Brando's demands in salary. I also think Bob Evans pushed for Ali MacGraw as Daisy in that production. Anyway, as Eric said, Coppola, who really broke through in the business as a screenwriter first, did not want to direct. Honestly, he could have had any project he wanted at the time on a silver platter. He chose Conrad over Fitzgerald.

Updated On: 5/10/13 at 07:41 PM

[EricMontreal22]

Posted: 5/10/13 at 11:31am

A HUGE SPOILER FOLLOWS....










So did anyone else see this last night? I actually won tickets to the ten showing here--which I only found out about because a friend saw my name in the papers.

I didn't hate it. Actually I thought some parts were really exciting--the 3D, as much as I mock that element really worked in certain scenes--particularly going back across the water between the two houses. It did make me feel like I was there (which I assume is the point of 3D.)

The story was a miss mach. I went with three friends, and one of them had, somehow, never read the novel--and he was confused by a good deal of it when we talked afterwards. One thing I did take from the trailer is it really did feel exhausting--I wanted far more quiet scenes than we got. I haven't re-read the novel in at least five years, but as I said earlier in this thread, it has always left me with the feeling of being actually a very intimate novel.

OK the big spoiler (and I will grant, one of my friends found this element perfect--I think it's horrid.) The film is basically narrated from an insane asylum. Really.

[Jim Colyer]

Posted: 5/10/13 at 4:02pm

I'll see it tonight.

[Jordan Catalano]

Posted: 5/10/13 at 5:32pm

Like anyone gives a SH*T.