Part III: The Great Gatsby – Superheroes & Explosions
(– ***Spoilers For The Above*** –)
W.B. Preston
I walked into this film expecting to hate it. Not because I hate the
material, I barely remember reading it in high school, and I casually
flipped through it during the weeks leading to its theatrical release.
No I expected to hate it because it is a
Hollywood film based on a beloved
American
Classic, and this corporate machine has a tendency to screw these kinds
of things up. However I must admit I was quite mesmerized by the entire
spectacle of the thing. Although I would not begrudge an English
professor his particular criticisms on the poor translation of
Fitzgerald’s magnum opus, of which there are many liberties taken by the
filmmakers with the old master’s work, I must say this is quite the
entertaining piece.
It has all of the brightness, calamity
and destruction of the rest of these pre-summer releases, yet the
driving force behind this film is not superpowers, explosions and
gargantuan vulgarity, but rather an exhibition of decadence of style,
and emotion. An overindulgence in extravagance, a display of waste and
excess of wealth stacked to dizzying heights, a tower whose fall
unfortunately is nowhere near as exhilarating as its construction. The
parallels between the production of the film, the time period for which
the film takes place, and the current socio-economic atmosphere are
uncanny. The film itself is said to have cost in the upwards of 200
million dollars, however its producers used some sort of tricky tax
credit money
switcheroo so they can write it off as only a 120 million dollar film.
Basically they spent an ungodly amount of money to make this film, but
in order to save face on the films returns, they had their lawyers and
banks and governments provide them with the unique opportunity to
discount 80 million dollars, because they were so gracious enough to
make the film in Australia. In this world of cynicism, duplicity, and
sarcasm, does irony even begin to define anything anymore?
Essentially
this is a classic 1930’s ‘talky’, in every sense of the word, but
photographed, edited, colorized and costumed as if it were
The Avengers.
Every penny is up on that screen, and we are in awe of the sheer
spectacle. The sheer hedonism at display here is enough to justify
capitalism’s current fall from grace, as well as the fall prophetically
hinted at in Fitzgerald’s book, but largely ignored in this adaptation.
Thinking back on those party scenes, to describe them as lavish would be
asinine, I can’t help but deem a future as bleak as
Oblivion to be well deserved.
I’m no fan of the voice-over narration technique, especially when that voice is
Tobey Maguire, and add to that the unnecessary conceit of changing Fitzgerald’s work to shoehorn in a bewildering plot involving
Nick Carraway
in an addiction clinic, it’s enough to drive me crazy. However once we
get passed the rather odd prologue, I was whisked away into this
cinematic treat, the whirling camera and the candy colored costumes, the
frenetic editing and Fitzgerald’s words peppered throughout, I half
forgot that the voice-over was there.
This is
Baz Luhrmann’s greatest cinematic achievement, surpassing
Romeo & Juliet, and a reorganization of the sweeping scope of his
Australia, which I found to be an interestingly odd film. I however was far away from any
film criticism
at the time and went into the movie on DVD without any preconceived
notions about it, and quite enjoyed its weird comedic elements and
strange mysticism, even if it was a bit gaudy, with it’s emotion hanging
on its sleeve and its dialogue being a bit too on the nose. Some of
that unsubtleness can be found here as well, however there is a visual
focus that exemplifies the emotion on display, which neither of those
other two films can boast. These visual cues and technical decisions
often contrast with my preconceived notion of the material, yet these
decisions were not made arbitrarily, and most serve to reveal subtext
and allow the story to bloom colorful images.
The utter control
and the successful execution of a devised plan must be applauded here.
There is not a wasted shot, nor a dragging moment to be found in this
film. There is no doubt that every moment, every sound, every color,
every word and every distortion of time was planned, well thought out,
and then applied with a singular vision and voice. Clearly I was stunned
by the aesthetic applications only glimpsed in the trailers, I was
unprepared for what I witnessed. It was after this film that I began
noticing a strand of themes running through this film, from
Oblivion to Iron Man to Gatsby. The
wealthy, the privileged, the 1%, singular in their narcissistic
ambitions, which manifests itself physically in the case of Oblivion’s
protagonist Jack, even as the world descends, or has descended into ruin
and chaos, they struggle to find a truth, or peace, or love, things
which can never be derived from money or power as ideals.
Perhaps
for this reason the American audiences no longer connect with most
American films the way we did some forty or fifty years ago. This is
well before my time, but I know my history. As the filmmakers made more
and more money, the goal of filmmaking became making more and more
money. A filmmaker’s goal was always to make money going back to the
nickelodeons, but in the time when film was unabashedly adored, there
was a code of honor, of artistic integrity that was lost,
serendipitously in the mid seventies with
Jaws and Star Wars.
Even those films had a sense of moral weight, a modest ambition, made
unselfishly with money in concert. Now money is the only goal, or fame,
or power, and the average American can no longer relate to the
filmmakers. Possibly a similar situation presented itself in the late
fifties and early sixties. Yet at that time there was an idealistic love
of cinema, while today we cinephiles love film cynically, or
ironically. We live to bash the lofty ideals that today’s filmmakers
work with. They make pessimistic, artistically unambitious films, and we
love them for it. Most of their accomplishments can boast merely of
dollars and cents but where is the human spirit? Consequently Oscar bait
films make so much money now, because the rest of the year is devoid of
actual human stories told by actual humans. Resulting in directors like
the
Coen brothers,
David Fincher, and
Darren Aronofsky
have a devoted fanbase and have enjoyed recent financial success,
because their films do not appear to be motivated by monetary goals
alone.
Back to Jay, in his fervor to attain Daisy’s love, and his
unbridled attempt to belong to the upper echelon of society, he amasses
huge amounts of wealth, fame and seemingly power, all through nefarious
means. He is fixated on winning Daisy’s affection, so much so that his
achievements mean nothing unless he can share them with her. However her
love is not enough, he must possess her, wholly, and this is where the
truth comes. He not only wants to take her from her wealth-born husband,
he wants to embarrass Tom, he wants to show him up. Gatsby must have
Daisy, but she must renounce her love for Tom, she must say that she
never loved him. Then and only then can Jay be happy, however this is
not love, and this is why he loses her. For Jay it was never about love,
it was about showing the rich and privileged that he is better than
they are, and this is his downfall.
Some have said that this
represents a self-realization, as Jay got what he thought he wanted but
really he never wanted it at all. I think this is a false criticism, I
believe he fails because his motivations were askew. He was motivated by
revenge, not love, and for this he must pay the ultimate price. He
gained his power and his wealth through nefarious means; he sacrificed
his soul, not for love, but for vengeance. A vengeance he sought in the
name of love, and for this betrayal of truth he had to pay with his
life. The moral here is be true to thy self and you shall receive all
that you truly want. Here I am reminded of a film that many compare this
novel to,
Citizen Kane:
“If I hadn’t been very rich, I might have been a really great man.”
Some critics have said that
Citizen Kane is
the best adaptation of Fitzgerald’s masterpiece that has ever been
made, or is likely to ever be made. I’m not sure if that is true,
however Orson Welles’ words apply unequivocally to Mr. Gatsby.
If Mr. Lhurmann and co-writer Craig Pearce were going to make any
alterations to Fitzgerald’s work, it should have been the ending. The
roaring twenties, during which the ratio of wealth was collecting in the
hands of the few, while the masses scraped by on nothing, ended with
one of the most epic failures in the history of Western society. This
was a time of great excess and decadent spending. It was a decade of the
amassing of great wealth and simultaneously the fabrication of paper
empires. Fitzgerald foresaw the matches lying at the base of these paper
skyscrapers. Matches that the wielders of wealth were too busy in their
indulgences to notice. They built towers atop these paper foundations,
which once were set ablaze they were too high up to smell the smoke. As
the towers, the monuments of wealth fell, so did the men as they jumped
from their windows. Fitzgerald saw this fall, perhaps not to the extent
or nature but he saw men living well beyond their means, lofty and
arrogant. The higher the living, the harder the ground.
This
should have been juxtaposed with Gatsby’s fall, the film is already over
the top and outrageous, why not make the fall doubly so? A movie whose
beginning is so audacious and awe-inspiring ends in a whimper, and
quietude. They obviously had no problem altering the text; why not go
out with a bang? They, rather ham-fistedly, had juxtaposed the wealthy
men with the poor throughout the film already, I say take the final
plunge; the actual history supports the drama.
Regardless of
this odd and fairly obvious omission, the screenplay is well written,
and the dialogue expertly delivered by all involved. Perhaps Leonardo
DiCaprio’s finest and most nuanced performance. While I loved his
portrayal of a slave master in
Django Unchained, I found his Jay
Gatsby to be more insightful. Candie was a sneering caricature, a
character far outside Leo’s perceived range that he nailed perfectly. A
comedic villain whom he fully committed to and clearly enjoyed
inhabiting. However his work in Gatsby seems more accomplished in my
eyes, as it is a character he has played time and time again, yet he
still brought something new, something fresh to. I was impressed by the
variance from prior roles in a performance of a character that is in
many ways similar to many of his prior roles. I enjoyed Carey Mulligan’s
performance in this film, which is not always the case. I’ve seen five
of her other major releases and she just doesn’t seem to get what being
an American actually means. Here she is portraying a character far
enough removed from contemporary Americanism to be believable. The
always-reliable Joel Edgerton is again reliable. Despite the terrible
decision to use voice over, Tobey actually does a fine job as Nick,
although it would have been nice to seem him developed a bit more as his
own character rather than a glorified cipher, or stand in for the
audience.
There are shots in this film that seem like
paintings on the giant canvass, the film is quite beautiful to look at,
from beginning to end. The 3-D is unnecessary, a word that describes
much of this film, but not a distraction and certainly helps to engross
the viewer by insulating peripherals.
3.5 out of 5 stars.
Up Next:
Part IV: Star Trek: Into Darkness – Edge of Anger
