Last edited Sun May 12, 2013, 11:19 AM - Edit history (2)
Scratch off To-Do list: Saw The Great Gatsby. Are To-Do(s) “chores”?
First of all, going to actual theaters to see movies for me can be numbered in less than a dozen in the past fifteen years, so I’m, like, raised by wolves just in that part of the activity itself.
I go on weekdays and at the Noon showings when there shouldn’t be any kids, or hardly anybody, there, besides that in my area the type of movies I see are not for the locals, yes I’m so exquisite. But this time, for reasons, I had to do it on a Saturday afternoon and the building was crammed, and to my surprise, the Gatsby compartment was almost half full.
Just before the previews, when I thought everybody was in place and I was suitably sequestered, three young girls clambered up the steps to my perch at the top and, bless their hearts, just had to sit a few seats from me. Two of them were giggling and yakking up a storm and the other one was chomping on popcorn. Just by the sounds, it didn’t seem to me that they were a Gatsby crowd, whatever that means. But they became key to my response to the movie.
I had read a half dozen reviews and one diss and one plaudit for the director, so the expectations were that, supposedly, DiCAPRIO and the Jordan actress were fairly good, better than the rest of the cast, that the Nick and Tom BUCHANAN actors were fairly bad, and that the spectacles and all other visuals were spectacular.
One of the reviewers said that if you hadn’t read the book in years, not to do it until after the movie so as not to obsess about details from the book left in or out. I haven’t read the book in forty years, and not much of it stayed with me, certainly not like DOSTOYEVSKY, HAWTHORNE, MELVILLE or several others. All in my chit chat account was what just anybody (not Lit majors, as I *was*) would know: “Great Am novel, blah blah, American Dream, blah, green light, blah and blah, what anybody with American Civ summaries might know (is Am Civ still something?!1).
There has been talk, here and elsewhere, about the book being so itself that it can’t be filmed, and how some aficionados will stay away from ANY film. I had to see it because it’s a Lit thing.
O.K., these are my very own personal opinions etched in stone: The visuals of the whole thing are precious, with “precious” having its good and its snotty side. The main thought in seeing the party and crowd scenes and the recreations of New York and the masses and the neighborhoods was: What an incredibly complicated feat this was for a director to put together, meaning that it called attention to the physical technicalities of making that movie instead of letting you (be lost in thought, brood, build castles in air, chew over, cogitate, consider, contemplate, deliberate, feel, meditate, moon*, mull over, percolate, ponder, puzzle over, reflect, revolve, roll, ruminate, speculate, think, think over, turn over, weigh ) on the content. I’m not fascinated by Busby BERKELEY spectacles.
My single biggest gripe was the Nick actor. But when the lead actor is baby faced, his sidekick has to have even less gravitas. Either the character or the actor had a limited number of responses, and this actor’s looks and voice got to be irritating since he was the unifying factor for everything.
I had seen trailers showcasing the characters and the Jordan actress certainly had the look of hardened sophistication that made me expect snappy dialog, but all I got was the look in a very brief role. The Tom BUCHANAN actor was panned for looking like a Snidely WHIPLASH type of appearance, but actually, as the movie went on, it became a settled conclusion that all of these characters as presented were a mixture of cartoons and mannequins.
But now to Leonardo and the giddy girls in my row of seats. His first appearance begged for the kind of entrance that Orson WELLS got in The Third Man and STREISAND in Funny Girl, but fireworks don’t work that kind of magic. But the two girls in my row of seats SQUEALED in a mature, subdued way that was only audible to me and the row in front of us. It became apparent that they were there because they think Leonardo is CUTE. I saw Gangs of New York and The Aviator and maybe one other thing of DiCAPRIO’s but had not focused on him at all, certainly not like the earlier PACINO and NICHOLSON, but I had a vague feeling that he’s likeable and sort of pity that he seems to have been passed over more than once and thought this might be it for him to go for broke, but he ain't doing it here, either.
And that’s the bottom line. Halfway through the movie, it all became an adolescent “love” story, a Romance Novel for teens, with the girls in my row verbalizing approvingly of Daisy’s every “love” activity, how a girl just must love getting a roomful of flowers, and how CUTE Leonardo is, “loving” her and just doting on her, not really HER, more like everything in his mind about how she supposedly was. I say, in his mind, because the two characters (in this movie) are seldom actually in each other’s presence or interacting when they are. Whether it’s the movie or the book, but this GAtsby is not in love with a real person, is in love with his mental image or else in love with THE IDEA of his being in love. And for something (the movie? the book?) being hyped so much for its DEBAUCHERY, it was all hopping and jumping “dancing” without actual debauchery. Even the one sex scene was a Pasteurized, sterilized, shoulders-up thing. And Leonardo in his strappy-top bathing suit looked absurd, period costume or no period costume. The two characters with more time together were Gatsby and Nick, and given the actors involved, it was hard to see why.
Daisy is said to be superficial, but as things are presented in this movie, the FIVE YEARS when he had NO CONTACT with her, and NOW supposedly is totally obsessed with her, is a total adolescent fantasy of “being in love with love,” which is why the girls in my row of seats were enthralled and approving of this movie. Those FIVE YEARS were referenced a lot, and given that, Daisy was not that superficial to dismiss GATSBY as a choice. Whatever the “reason” for the FIVE YEARS, whether making money or adventures, it just don’t add up to “love.”
The girls in my row of seats were probably certainly too young to see Titanic back when, but they have probably seen it since, and probably multiple times, so they were not disappointed in these pretty pictures and the “love” story here.
One pleasant surprise for me: The soundtrack. I had been really wary about this director’s reputation (I haven’t seen Moulin Rouge or anything else of his), have just heard about his wild anachronisms in his movies music. And when I heard that rap and GERSHWIN were being mashed here, I had dread. But the whole soundtrack was unintrusive, pleasant, and not overbearing.
On my way out, a couple in their 20s were behind me, and the dude (NOT a Lit major) said, “That was a good movie!1 Was it a TRUE STORY?!1” His girlfriend said, possibly embarrassed for him, “I don’t think so.”
As for seeing it or not, we all MUST see it, just because it’s a Gatsby project. I eschewed the 3D, but the 2D still was obvious when gestures and objects were made to fly into your face.
And, before I saw this DU thread, I had decided to look up the REDFORD-FARROW version.
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