BEFORE: Sticking with DiCaprio, but finally a film that was released last year, so I feel like I'm getting more current. A large portion of the list is now made up of the films of 2013, so it's time I started chipping away at those. Plus, I could use a trip out to the Hamptons after the horrible vacations witnessed earlier in the week.
THE PLOT: A Midwestern war veteran finds himself drawn to the past and lifestyle of his millionaire neighbor.
AFTER: Every once in a while, I like to give back - and it's time to start on that summer reading list, kids, because September's just around the corner. So don't read the Cliff's Notes, teens, because your teachers are on to that scam. They know what the synopsis says, and they're prepared to ask you questions beyond that - things that are ONLY in the book and not in Cliff's Notes. (That Cliff guy got me in trouble more than once when I was back in high-school...) Sometimes I liked to read the front cover of a book, and then the summary on the back cover, and wondered if I could get away with telling my teacher I read the book "from cover to cover".
Hmm, perhaps I should back up a bit. Before there was a Wikipedia, we used to have these things called "Cliff's Notes" - you would go to the bookstore and buy this little pamphlet for 3 or 4 dollars, and it told you all the themes and symbolism in a novel's plot, so you wouldn't have to read it. You wouldn't be able to ace any test on the book, but perhaps you'd get an acceptable score. Of course, you could also go and watch the movie version of a book, but then you'd be taking a chance that Hollywood retained all of the significant dialogue and the idioms that your English teacher wanted to make sure was penetrating your noggin. A longshot, at best.
These days, all you have to do is make a couple mouse clicks to visit Wikipedia, where you'll discover that "The Great Gatsby" explores themes of decadence, idealism, resistance to change, social upheaval and excess, creating a portrait of the American Jazz Age, aka The Roaring Twenties that has been described as a cautionary tale concerning the American Dream. (Oh, how I wish I could do high school over - I mean, I did well, but with the internet's help, I'd totally kill it...)
If you want to go for bonus points with your teacher, I'm here to help: the two male leads in "Gatsby" both represent author F. Scott Fitzgerald, in the same way that when you have a dream, you play all of the characters. The difference in Gatsby and Nick Carroway shows how conflicted Fitzgerald felt about his times, and being a successful author - he could have been as rich as Gatsby, but inside he felt like Nick's simple everyman. He idolized the rich, but never completely felt like he was part of their world. Fitzgerald hailed from Minnesota and attended Yale, just as Carraway did. And he fell in love with a young woman while serving in the military, just as Gatsby did. So Daisy Buchanan represents Zelda Sayre (later Fitzgerald), who would not marry the author until he was successful - and Fitzgerald was driven by his love for a woman who represented everything he wanted, but she led him towards a lifestyle that he hated.
And this tells us everything we need to know about Jay Gatsby - he would have done anything to be successful, because only success could bring him into Daisy's world and make him worthy of her. But since there are questions about HOW he became successful (Did he buy drugstores? Inherit money? Or was bootlegging involved?) we then have to wonder if he cheated his way to the top, and therefore not worthy, a idol with feet of clay. And even though he throws lavish parties, always smiles and calls everyone "old sport", is it possible that inside he's filled with self-loathing, disgusted by not only who he's become but how he got there?
Furthermore, even though he appears devoted to Daisy and the idea of getting back together with her, is this a realistic goal, or even a good idea? She's moved on, gotten married, has a daughter (though I think we never see the daughter in the film), can he offer her a better life than the one that she has, or is his presence in her life going to ultimately just be destructive? This is something of a conundrum, because Daisy's husband, Tom, has a mistress, so it seems at first that he's unworthy as well - but can this really justify Daisy's affair with Gatsby? Do two wrongs make a right, or just a pair of wrongs in the end?
Should Gatsby even be pining for a woman who may just break his heart all over again - hope is great, but sometimes hope is misplaced. People aren't perfect, therefore Gatsby isn't perfect - he's misguided and mistakenly optimistic. Daisy isn't perfect either, she's shallow, selfish, cowardly and deceptive, so why should Gatsby expect her to make the "right" choice and choose him?
All that should keep your English teacher happy, now let's move on to this particular filmed version. (I would like to watch the Robert Redford version as well, and I kind of figured that TCM would run it sometime in the past year, but they haven't. I'll have to follow up with that version later, just like I'll have to also catch the Nicholson version of "The Postman Always Rings Twice". The 2013 "Gatsby" doesn't skimp on anything - music, special effects, giant parties that look like Busby Berkeley finally got the money and space to do everything he ever imagined. And all of that fits perfectly with the reported excess of the times, and the themes of indulgence and decadence.
You can do all this now with digital technology - make Gatsby's mansion as big as it needs to be, beyond what's humanly reasonable. You can also restore the Manhattan skyline to the way it looked in 1922 - I appreciate all that, however:
NITPICK POINT: I'm not even going to harp on how the film is set in 1922, and "Rhapsody in Blue" wasn't composed until 1924, or how people are seen dancing the Charleston, which didn't take off until 1926. You might as well take issue with the fact that characters are seen driving a 1929 car, or listening to a model of radio from 1936. But I have to call foul on including modern music from Jay-Z, will.i.am, Kanye West and Amy Winehouse. Sure, I get that this makes the kids interested and puts asses in the seats, but I think this turns off as many people as it turns on, and just comes across as mysteriously anachronistic. It's the same reason why I've avoided the film "Moulin Rouge", from the same director. It just pulled me out of the reality I was trying to watch.
NITPICK POINT #2: If Nick and Daisy are cousins, why didn't he know about her prior relationship with Gatsby? Were they cousins that had fallen out of touch? You'd think if she almost married Gatsby 5 years ago, he would have at least heard about it, or gotten an invitation to the wedding that almost happened, or something.
NITPICK POINT #3: So there's just 1 gas station between outer Long Island and Manhattan? That must have been a very busy gas station at the time. Of course, this is Fitzgerald relying on coincidence to facilitate his story. He never really says WHERE on Long Island West Egg is - we can assume it's really the Hamptons, but it could just as easily be on the North Shore. Also, I love how someone in the Theater District in Manhattan got into a cab and said this destination: "Long Island, please." Are you kidding me? First off, Long Island is HUGE. Secondly, where on Long Island? Hauppage, Patchogue, Shirley, Port Jefferson? Doesn't matter, because a taxi driver from Manhattan won't drive out to any of those places TODAY, so he certainly wouldn't have done it in the 1920's. With those cars, it would have taken a week to get there!
NITPICK POINT #4: The framing device of showing Nick Carraway in rehab, where he writes the novel that becomes "The Great Gatsby" - I've warned you about this before, Hollywood, but you didn't listen, so now I have to start taking points off for this. Once again: There is nothing, NOTHING more boring than watching writers write - doesn't matter if it's long-hand, or (worse) on a manual typewriter. It's not a process I want to see on film, which should be all about action, people DOING things rather than writing about them. And it's even worse when the story that the writer is writing turns out to be the exact one I've just seen on film - just show THAT story, there's no need to show someone typing it up, that's a given! (Anyway, it's contradictory, since Nick Carraway did not write "The Great Gatsby", F. Scott Fitzgerald did...no, wait, I forgot Carraway essentially was Fitzgerald. Never mind - but my complaint still stands!)
Also starring Tobey Maguire (last seen in "Seabiscuit"), Carey Mulligan (last seen in "Shame"), Joel Edgerton (last seen in "Zero Dark Thirty"), Isla Fisher (last heard in "Rango"), Jason Clarke, Elizabeth Debicki, Jack Thompson
RATING: 5 out of 10 flappers
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