“The Great Gatsby” directed by Baz Luhrmann

By on June 9, 2013

film icon  Dan Walker on Film

Director: Baz Luhrmann (“Strictly Ballroom”, “Moulin Rouge!”  and see the link at the bottom of this review)

Cast:

Leonardo DiCaprio (“What’s Eating Gilbert Grape”, “The Basketball Diaries”, “Marvin’s Room”, four Scorsese movies between 2002 and 2010)

Toby Maguire (“The Ice Storm”, “Pleasantville”, “The Cider House Rules”, “Wonder Boys”)

Joel Edgerton (“Star Wars Episode III – Revenge of the Sith”, “Smokin’ Aces”)

Adelaide Clemens (I’ve never seen her in a movie before.  We already have a Michelle Williams.)

Running Time:  143 Minutes

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Jim Broadbent in “Moulin Rouge”

Baz Luhrmann (who also co-wrote the screenplay) made an interesting choice in casting Americans as his two leads.  Pretty much everyone involved with this movie is Australian.  Having finally recovered from “Moulin Rouge!” 1, a very polarizing movie, I went into “The Great Gatsby” prepared for Luhrmann’s visually stimulating, energetic, dressy, technically showy/tight, music-driven style of movie-making with more emphasis on style than substance.2  I never read the book or saw the Redford film but I still know enough about the author and story to get any Fitzgerald/Gatsby-related questions correct on Jeopardy.

Kylie Minogue in “Moulin Rouge”

Adelaide Clemens

 

Set in 1920’s New York City, the story is told from the viewpoint of Nick Garraway (Maguire) – the alter-ego of F. Scott Fitzgerald as the story is based on F.’s experiences – a transplanted Midwesterner who is befriended by his Long Island next-door neighbor, the obscenely wealthy and mysterious Jay Gatsby (DiCaprio).  Gatsby’s focus, besides flaunting his wealth with massive, overblown parties at his massive, overblown mansion that required no invitation and drew the most important, wealthy and beautiful New Yorkers, is to regain the hand of his years-prior paramour, Catherine (Clemens), now a married Manhattanite.  The two met in the South while Gatsby was a soldier.  In the way is Catherine’s blue-blood husband, Tom (Edgerton), who plays the exact same role that Billy Zane’s character did in “Titanic” against DiCaprio, and with the exact same persona, down to their condescending, buffoonish, and cowardly moments.  In both movies, DiCaprio’s character steals a woman from a wealthy high-society man she’s already committed to.  While I realize this scenario is considered very romantic to love-starved women who wish they could be similarly rescued from their lives, it’s disrespectful, adulterous, unethical and really selfish on the part of both of DiCaprio’s characters.  It’s unfair in both movies that the men who are in committed relationships with the cheating floozies are made out to be the bad guys. We also discover that Gatsby’s background and the source of his wealth are not what he says they are.  Add liar, fraud and criminal to his adulterer status and it’s impossible for anyone with scruples to root for the title character.  Like “Titanic”, the climactic scene of this love triangle is violent but this time the result is fatal.

Maguire and DiCaprio in “The Great Gatsby”

What happens with Nick is really secondary and forgettable.  I mean that; I literally forgot what exactly his storyline was other than providing narration and being Gatsby’s appendage.  Compared to Nick, anyone that put out a focused effort in life would be considered “great”.  I don’t even remember him having a steady girl.  Even if he did, it was hard to tell the film’s women apart since they were buried in costume, makeup, and things on their heads.  I didn’t recognize Isla Fisher, who I like in the new episodes of “Arrested Development”, released recently on Netflix.  I didn’t realize she was even in the movie until I looked at the cast listing.

“The Great Gatsby” party scene

While the movie is well made, the book – which I want to read now – has to be better than the story in the movie which, without the big production and slick visuals, isn’t that interesting or layered.  It’s as though the screenplay was written with only visuals in mind.  The acting was sufficient and, for me, Edgerton stood out and might have had the best role.  The movie starts like “Moulin Rouge!” – quick-cuts, hyper-energetic and dense with fancy costumes – then settles into a more grounded style as the movie goes on and to its conclusion.  I found the music and voice of Jay-Z (an executive producer on the movie) distracting and out of place. (3)

When I left the theatre, I felt like I saw a good movie.  The more I think and write about it, the less satisfying the experience ultimately was, which is exactly what happened when I saw “Moulin Rouge!”, which is the much better of the two films.  Especially compared to “Mud”, which I watched the day before I saw “Gatsby” and for which my appreciation grew as I wrote the review, time spent watching “The Great Gatsby” almost seems wasted.  That’s something I rarely think after seeing a movie.

DPW

(1) I’ve always referred to “Moulin Rouge!” – which won Oscars for Production Design-Set Decoration and Costume Design and got eight nominations, including Best Picture – as a drag queen’s acid trip.  I’ve also compared it to watching Judy Garland’s live performances; you know what you’re seeing is special, unique, and well executed but it’s still unnerving to watch.

(2)   This isn’t completely fair since “Strictly Ballroom”, while enjoyable and entertaining and musical, wasn’t flashy at all and was much more straight-forward in its style.  Also, I never realized there was a prominent Spanish-speaking community in Australia until I saw the movie.

(3) There are rap performers – like Eminem, Dr. Dre, and Ludacris – and songs I like so it’s not that.  I don’t begrudge Jay-Z his success because there are obviously a lot of people that like him.  I don’t care for his monotonous, lazy and hard-to-decipher rapping style.  By comparison, Eminem’s lyrics are clever, the music is interesting and you can make out every clear, energetic and well-enunciated syllable as long as you can keep up with his rapid-fire delivery.  He doesn’t even drop his “g”s.  Snoop Dog’s style might be lazy but he has an interesting energy, you can understand him and he’s just cooler.  I lived eight years in both Los Angeles and Manhattan so it’s not an East Coast-West Coast thing.  I can’t pretend, like so many middle-class people bafflingly influenced by him do, that I can relate to whatever it is Jay-Z is rapping about.  Also, between his marriage to the equally over-exposed and omnipresent Beyonce and his part ownership of the Nets, it’s all too much, including his involvement with this movie.  He gave up his percentage in the Nets to start his own sports agency but I have to make the point that he – or the media – made it seem like he OWNED the team when he actually only owned something like 3%.  The phrases “too rich” or “too big” don’t seem to be in the vocabularies of New Yorkers.  I’ll expand on that later.

It just occurred to me that Jay-Z is to white suburbanites that imagine they connect with him what DiCaprio’s “Titanic” and “Gatsby” characters are to love-starved women; a temporary and delusional escape from their otherwise colorless lives.  (Oh no, I di’n’t.)

I’d heard of Baz Luhrmann’s 1999 record (it’s spoken so it’s hard to call it a “song”), “Everybody’s Free To Use Sunscreen” before but never actually listened to it or seen the video until I researched it for this review.  It has very thoughtful, positive messages.  Check it out:   http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sTJ7AzBIJoI A few thoughts:

Gregory Peck

One problem I have with DiCaprio and Maguire is that both retain a boyishness that, for me, detracts from their performances.  I think they’re both good actors but that’s not the point.  Tom Cruise has this same trait, but it’s secondary to his superficial acting.  To put it into perspective, compare them to Gregory Peck, Burt Lancaster or Robert Mitchum.   It would have been more interesting to have Australian actors like Hugh Jackman or Eric Bana in the movie.  As great an actor as he is, Russell Crowe might be too old.  Besides, he’s Jor-El in the new Superman movie.  That’s enough Crowe for one summer.  His was my favorite performance in “Les Miserables”, a movie in which every element was great.  I had to find a way to get that into a review.

Wallace Reid

Alcohol played a big part in the lifestyle portrayed in the movie and in 1920’s Prohibition-era New York City, both socially and financially.   As I was watching the drinking/partying scenes, I thought about how cocaine was more prevalent among similarly wealthy, high-living people – who called it “joy powder” – in Hollywood during the same period.  (I say “Hollywood” as opposed to “Los Angeles” because there wasn’t much in that area other than the film industry back then.)  The actress Mabel Normand reportedly had a $2000-a-month – a lot of money in the 1920’s – cocaine habit.  I’ve read where heroin was also used by movie stars then and that the career of popular actor Wallace Reid deteriorated as a result of his heroin use and he died from withdrawal.  In 1920 another popular actor and heroin addict, Olive Thomas, who was married to Mary Pickford’s brother, Jack, died from ingesting bichloride of mercury prescribed to her husband, who was also reputed to be a heroin addict.  Neither Reid nor Thomas died directly from heroin overdoses but their deaths were attributed to their heroin use.  That difference between the rich circles of the two cities had never occurred to me before watching this movie.

Cruise in “Tropic Thunder”

One last tangent:  When I was in LA, I was constantly asked if I thought Tom Cruise was gay.  My response was always the same, “Who cares?  The guy’s a terrible actor.”  The reaction was usually one of laughter but I wasn’t trying to be funny and sincerely meant both parts of my response.  I was never sure what was more at issue, his sexuality or my opinion, which, in conversation, is usually much more succinct than it is in my reviews, especially when I don’t like the question.  I really did get asked that a lot.  Rather than wasting energy thinking about the sexuality (or any other personal aspect) of someone they’re not in an intimate relationship with, people would find they’d get more out of life by focusing on doing the best they can with their own relationships, responsibilities, hobbies and interests.

For the record, I thought Cruise was great in “Risky Business”, “Jerry Maguire”, “Collateral” and “Tropic Thunder”.  I couldn’t tell if it was him or his character that was more overdone in “Magnolia”.  Despite my opinion of him as an actor, I don’t begrudge him his success and, as long as he fills theatre seats, he contributes more to the film industry with his acting than I do with these reviews.

About Dan Walker

As part of an Air Force family, I went to elementary school in Great Falls, MT, junior high in Cheyenne, WY and high school and college in the San Francisco Bay Area, graduating from San Francisco State University with a degree in business. I was fortunate to have worked for great companies in Silicon Valley (Oracle Corp) and Hollywood (Miramax Films). I also lived and worked (primarily in financial services, which has no great companies) for eight years in Manhattan, New York City. I now reside in New York's beautiful Hudson Valley.

3 comments on ““The Great Gatsby” directed by Baz Luhrmann

  1. Ken Voorhees on said:

    I am absolutely the wrong person to ask about a Baz Luhrmann film as I think I am the
    only gay man on the planet that HATED Moulin Rouge. I found it so cluttered with device that it drained the film of any authenticity, and that’s a pretty hard thing to do when you are working with the wonderfully talented likes of Nicole Kidman and Ewan McGregor. I wouldn’t cross the street to see another of his films. I do like the way you write: fresh, thoughtful, biases upfront. Nice job!

  2. I also am not impressed with Di Caprio’s performances, but, with so many wonderful directors casting him each year, perhaps they are onto something with his talent. He’ll likely get better with age, but maybe I just cannot get around him playing well known characters which puts some actors at a disadvantage. As for the movie, I struggle to understand why Jay Gatsby was so “great”?

  3. Lucy Vilato-Walker on said:

    While I liked the movie, and the glamour and glitz of the time, I do agree that the book was better. I also was not happy about the music. Don’t get me wrong I love that type of music, but Sana and I thought they should have stuck to the wonderful traditionl Jazz of those times. She loves that time period so much that for the first time in a very long time she wants to celebrate her next birthday and have it as the theme of the Roaring 20’s.

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