STEADY LEAK: WHY YOU SHOULD BE EXHILARATED BY THE TRAILER FOR THE GREAT GATSBY

I read this before reading the trailer and I couldn't see where you were coming from. Now I do. I know that being contrarian is the internet's deal but come on.

Yeah, everything about this article is wrong. 

This is where you say why this is.

Well, I for one am not excited about this adaptation. Sure, it looks like a hundred million bucks, probably because the budget is 127 million. There's no reason for this movie to cost that much when Boardwalk Empire does the same era for a fraction of the cost. I love the photography as it doesn't have fucking TEAL AND ORANGE nor does it give everything a sepia tone just because it takes place in the past. But Baz Luhrmann is a horrible choice for this and he's terribly overrated. His two most well regarded movies (Romeo + Juliet, Moulin Rouge) were little more than feature length music video's while Australia was a colossal pile of Wombat shit. If this was being shot by Brett Rhatner, McG or Zack Snyder, people would be pissing blood. How is Luhrmann any better than those other Directors apart from the fact that he's a bit more artful?!

 

Furthermore, although the Great Gatsby is an excellent book, it needs a more measured pace. I would have KILLED to have seen Coppola adapt his original version of the screenplay from the 70's using today's technology as he would've been PERFECT for this if he was able to bring his A-game. The casting seems very wrong. DiCaprio still looks like a bloated teenager wearing his dads clothes while you just know Toby only got hired because he and Leo are buds. Carey Mulligan is very pretty but she looks like a little girl. Gretchen Mol, who is coincidentally in Boardwalk Empire, would have made a fantastic Daisy while I would have went for Rachel McAdams for Myrtle. 

 

As for the trailer, I really don't understand this fixation with using Rap and Hip-hop for movies set in the 1920's or 1950's (Gangster Squad) when THIS is the perfect song for The Great Gatsby....

 

   

U2's LOVE IS BLINDNESS is not rap or hip hop and worked really well, I thought. I'm excited about this. Some movies are meant to transport you to another time or world and this fits the bill. And come on, MOULIN ROUGE is not a feature length music video. Please.


And Nick, good to see you writing again. I know you're busy as hell but keep it up!

Moulin Rouge IS a feature length music video. I know this because I saw that piece of shit when it was released in 2001. It had the cast singing pre-existing popsongs for fuck sakes.

Exhilarated is perhaps too strong a word. Interested? Sure. Pinterested? Definitely. 

It looks great, visually at least, but I've hated everything I've seen of Luhrman's so far.

 

And you made me watch Equilibrium, damn you.
 

Because what was missing from the Redford version was 3D and CGI cars...

And that's not to say that those things are bad in and of themselves.  But that trailer looks like Luhrman got lost in the glitz of the Jazz Age and completely whiffed on the underlying emptiness behind all of it that runs through the novel.

I saw a stageplay a couple of years ago called Gatz that consisted of a guy pretty much reading the entire novel. It was set in an office and the main dude starts reading the book by himself at his desk, and as he goes along, other characters "become" the characters from Gatsby (like, the office jerk became Nick, the sympathetic boss was Gatsby, the office cutie was Daisy, etc). It was broken into three parts and was an eight hour theater event. It was truly amazing and one of the greatest pieces of theater I've ever seen.

 

If this movie is half as good as that, I'll be amazed. 

 

I said this somewhere else, and someone else alluded to it in the other thread, but showing the glitz and glamour as glitzy and glamorous does not mean that aspect of the book was lost on Lurhmann.  Obviously we'll have to wait and watch the movie to know for sure, but the idea that making it a spectacle means he's endorsing it is silly.  As I said on that other site, should he have made the movie look like Schindler's List?

I was exhilarated(sp)  by it.  Moulin Rouge remains incredibly potent and spectacular, and remains one of my favorite films of the previous decade.

 

I refuse to not get excited about a Baz Luhrmann adaptation of a great American novel set in the 1920s.  I roger the concerns, but I have great faith in the man to make it work.  Hell, I'll take a failure like Australia over most director's successes.

 

Besides, opulence matters.  So high you fly, so far you fall, and all that.

You can't have the thematic point of the novel conveyed without the opulence- so while that's the "easy" part, it's also entirely necessary. It's also the ONLY thing that is ever going to be the focus in a trailer designed to entice people to a 3D drama. They're never ever going to cut some shit like The Master trailer.

 

So I get the trepidation, and I do disagree with giving it a pass because it's spectacle based on not-robots, but this trailer doesn't innately convey "missed point." If you don't dig Luhrmann or give him the benefit of the doubt, I dig that, and... well I guess we'll just see.

 

But looking at this with, "AH-HA! See? Right there- it's full of flashy sets and costumes and stuff" is not a confirmation of anything that wasn't obvious from the announcement that this was happening. Shit's gonna look good and look cool, now we just have to see if Luhrmann and his cast (who should all be well capable), have any inclination to subvert that cool - Matthew Weiner style. 

 

I think maybe one more post slipped in before mine has made my thoughts redundant!

I just watched this trailer. The film looks beautiful on a shot by shot basis. Luhrmann though still doesn't seem right for this project. He can't do subtlety. I don't think I've ever seen him do a movie that wasn't dripping wtih camp, even in the supposedly serious moments (I'm looking at you, Australia). I'm not going to get my hopes up, but I'm intrigued enough to check it out.

In some ways, Luhrman might be perfect, because most of his movies are visually opulent and yet totally empty. 

 

On the other hand, Romeo & Juliet. 

My only hesitation with this, like all adaptations of Great Literature, is that the power of The Great Gatsby is in its prose, not its plot. No matter what Luhrman manages to accomplish, I just don't see anyone being able to satisfactorily translate to the language of cinema one of the greatest endings ever written, and one of my favorite passages that I've ever read:

 

 

If I hear that last line read by Tobey MaGuire in voiceover I'll be throwing my copy of the novel at the projector. That said, I'm sure I'll be looking for a 2D screening opening weekend.

Nick is right on.  I mean, has no one seen Strictly Ballroom?  I will forever give Luhrman the benefit of the doubt because of that one.

 

I'm guessing Gatsby's script and anachronistic soundtrack will give me a migraine though. BUT I WILL STILL SEE IT.

I was nervous about this until I saw that Loki was against it. Now, bring on the Great Gatsby, Christmas 2012! 

Afuckingmen. Generally, as a rule, I try to avoid sharing personal shit here, but I'm gonna break my rule in response to this. The last time I read the book, when I got to that line, I related to it so powerfully that it brought tears to my eyes.   If they fuck it up on film, I swear, heads will roll!