listened to the soundtrack and
watched every morning and late
night show interview with
Leonardo, Tobey and Baz. Some
even re-read the book for the
occasion. And now, “The Great
Gatsby" is finally at a theater near
you. But this is not just a movie.
The movie is just part of "The
Great Gatsby" experience. It's
clothes, jewelry, music and so
much more. Why now? To
examine this collision of literature
and cinema, movie critic Ann
Hornaday, and book critic
Jonathan Yardley, weigh in on
the greatness (and not so
greatness) of Gatsby.
Image
Leonardo DiCaprio as Jay Gatsby,
Carey Mulligan, as Daisy Buchanan
and Joel Edgerton as Tom
Buchanan in Warner Bros.(AP
Photo/Warner Bros. Pictures)
What does the current
state of Gatsby mania say
(if anything) about the
book and movie?
AH: That it’s been brilliantly
promoted, through all manner of
product tie-ins, music, etc. and of
course also that the original novel
still has an enduring hold on our
collective imagination.
By no means is "The Great
Gatsby" a disaster: Even at
its most shallow, the film
rescues Jay Gatsby as a
largely sympathetic,
romantic figure rather than
a cynically ironic one. But
neither is it necessary.
Childlike, fetishistic and
painfully literal, Luhrmann's
experiment proves once
again that it's Fitzgerald's
writing -- not his plot, his
characters or his grasp of
material detail -- that has
always made "Gatsby"
great. (Read the full
movie review)
JY: I did a Second Reading piece
on Gatsby several years ago. I may
have talked in that about the
impossibility of making “The Great
Gatsby” into a film.
Reading it now for the
seventh or eighth time, I am
more convinced than ever
not merely that it is
Fitzgerald’s masterwork but
that it is the American
masterwork, the finest work
of fiction by any of this
country’s writers. To say
this is not to call “The Great
Gatsby” the Great American
Novel. (Read the full
book review)
Which plot themes are
relevant today that could
be responsible for the
current resurgence of
"Gatsby" mania?
AH: Certainly the setting of pre-
Crash New York speaks to a
society still coming out of our
2007-2008 economic crash…
Because the film and its marketing
effort have focused so much on the
“stuff” - the costumes, jewelry,
cars, home furnishings - it also
speaks to consumerism that seems
only to have grown since the book
was first published.
Image
View Photo Gallery --Baz
Luhrmann's adaptation of
F. Scott Fitzgerald's
classic "The Great Gastby"
has peaked fascination
about the decadence of
the Jazz Age, with a chain
of 1920s themed parties
for the premiere, capsule
collections from clothing
lines and jewelers --
including Tiffany & Co. --
marketing campaigns and
magazine covers.
It seems to me, though,
that no American novel
comes closer than “Gatsby”
to surpassing literary
artistry, and none tells us
more about ourselves. In an
extraordinarily compressed
space — the novel is barely
50,000 words long —
Fitzgerald gives us a
meditation on some of this
country’s most central ideas,
themes, yearnings and
preoccupations: the quest
for a new life, the
preoccupation with class, the
hunger for riches and “the
last and greatest of all
human dreams; for a
transitory enchanted
moment man must have
held his breath in the
presence of this continent,
compelled into an aesthetic
contemplation he neither
understood nor desired, face
to face for the last time in
history with something
commensurate to his
capacity for
wonder.” (Read the full
book review)
Ann, was there anything
you noticed about the film
you weren't able to fit
into your review on "The
Great Gatsby"?
AH: I was really struck by
Luhrmann’s treatment of race in
the film. On the one hand, he
underlines how Tom Buchanan is
reading white supremacist tracts,
putting the unexamined privilege
Fitzgerald was examining firmly
within the context of race and
racism. On the other hand, I found
his treatment of African American
supporting players to be
problematic. They’re objectified as
servants, symbols of Jazz Age
decadence and exotic Others (or, in
one instance, a Madonna figure),
which seems objectifying and
troubling. They’re treated like
bodies rather than people.
What are the pluses and/
or minuses for audiences
when doing a stylized
interpretation verses a
more traditional
adaptation?
AH: Sometimes a stylized version
of a great novel can do surprising
justice to the music and meaning of
the original work. I don’t think “The
Great Gatsby” succeeds as
completely, though; for being so
stylized and anachronistic, with the
3-D photography and the modern-
day music, it’s actually quite a
literal illustration. I’m not sure any
movie, literal or stylized, could ever
capture Fitzgerald’s artistry,
psychological insight and language.
JY: I will say that based on what
I’ve read so far, not a team of wild
horses could drag me to see this
piece of exhibitionist trash.
Maybe it's because I was
the target demographic
for "Romeo + Juliet," but
it seems like "The Great
Gatsby" is for the R+J
audience that's grown up -
Leo, a soundtrack, which
is so 90s, - do you think
that's who Baz Lahrmann
is hoping the movie will
speak to?
AH: That’s probably exactly right!
We’ll see if it works!
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