I Dreamed of Gatsby
Wednesday, May 8, 2013 at 10:01AM Last night I had the wildest dream (with spoilers). Baz Luhrmann had delivered a Moulin Rouge! remake with vampire characters set in the world of F Scott's Fitzgerald's "The Great Gatsby". No matter what happened to the characters -- whether they were shot, or run down by custom cars, or what have you -- they just kept getting back up good as new like genetically modified super soldiers or like, well, vampires.
One should never say that 'this = that', emphatically, with dreams since they're often inscrutable but the last three movies I watched were Kiss of the Damned, Iron Man Three and The Great Gatsby so perhaps this nightmare was inevitable.
When I woke up I knew it was only a dream... except for the part about Baz sucking Moulin Rouge!'s blood.
Reader Comments (23)
Ohhhhh...so Luhrmann's Gatsby was exactly the movie we thought it was based on the trailer. Still, that probably means, for someone who can get behind Luhrmann's style, it was a better film than Australia, at least.
Baz one of the most gifted and sumptuous visual stylists working in cinema, but sometimes it's hard to appreciate the delectable production design when it's all been chopped up and edited as if Lurmmann was on a coke-Red Bull-Rock Star-triple espresso bender. (He and Michael Bay should be locked out of editing suites.)
Dback -- agreed. The Great Gatsby REALLY needs moments of rest which Moulin Rouge! didnt need as badly since the style fit that substance so well. and even in the quiet moments he's tricking things up it's like STOP. BREATHE.
How was "Kiss of the Damned"? I won tickets to a screening, but I haven't seen the most favorable word on the film.
I am so, so, so very worried about this movie. i cant wait for it, but I´m still very worried. I think, like many others, that "The great gatsby" is one of the greatest novels ever written and probably the greatest american novel ever written. I´ve read it countless times and know some passages and parts by heart. The last time i re-read it was just last week. I do not know if the movie will portray all the sides and angles and contradictions and complexities and layers of the novel, and Fitzgerald´s incomparable way with words cannot be fully translated to screen.
There are so many ways and layers to that story: the love story itself, the story of capitalism, the psychological portrayal of upper class, the search for wealth, class system and acceptance- its full of Max Weber, that novel-class distinction, the search for status and social climbing, expectations of success, morality-or lack of, what money can or cannot buy, wealth as "be all end all" no matter how it was achieved, racism, dreams of the past, the possibilities of re-living the past and healing open wounds, and how the rich can get away with murder- literally.
I´m worried about the casting. Some people think Daisy should be stunning, out of this world, a knock out, a "once-in-a-generation" kind of beauty. Like. Audrey Hepburn/Grace Kelly beautiful. The only actress under 35 that I currently see as THIS stunningly beautiful is Natalie Portman (over 35 there are a few- Angelina, Charlize, Jennifer Connelly, Weisz-but Daisy should be small, frail, delicate, not a uber-goddess like Angelina or Charlize) Carey Mulligan is not. And I´m not sure she has the glamour, the glitz, the natural sophistication that lets say Keira has. Carey reads, at least as far as it seems to me, as too "normal", too ordinary, too "everygirl" for Daisy. But apparently Baz auditioned every actress under 35 under the sun, Portman and Knightley included, and the final two were Mulligan and the great Rebecca Hall, who at first would, at least for me, "look" more Daisy but I´m sure they knew what they were doing.
Obviously, the case of Daisy´s beauty and glamour has to do with Gatsby´s projections of her, her dreans and memories and the idea of her, more than with who she actually was, there was the idealization not only of her but of her life style, her social circle, her house, her clothes- of wealth and upper class living, represented bu her. She could never live up to Gatsby´s dreams and idealizations of her, Carraway says so himself. But still, Daisy was a very popular and sought-after debutant who managed to marry uber-wealthy Tom, so I think there should be something more there. Her voice was full of money, after all.
Di Caprio looks much older and Mulligan which should not be the case. Maguire looks silly in the trailers and apparently the girl who plays Jordan Baker is amazing but the part has been reduced- even more so than in the books. I hope we get the "break up" scene between Nick and Jordan, that is such a beautiful complex, melancholic, sad scene, where she tells him she is engaged, he does not believe her, they discuss careless driving and he is "half in love with her" , so full of bitterness, pain, deluded and grown.
And, hello, casting directors and costume designers in EVERY SINGLE VERSION OF GATSBY: DAISY WAS NOT A BLONDE. STOP IT. SHE WAS NOT A BLONDE. It says so in the books. With all that discussion about the nordic race and Tom not sure if she-Daisy- should be considered nordic and Gatsby kissing her dark shiny hair I thought they would have noticed.
Plus, Mulligan looks miles better in her natural brown color than she does in that fake blonde she´s been wearing for a while now.
Amanda -- let it all out! ;) And yes, sadly, Jordan Baker's part is reduced but the actress playing her is F-A-B.
I cant wait to see her, nathaniel. I have only read great things about her.
What about the others?
Nathan, is she better than Lois Chiles? LOL. Seriously though, I thought Chiles did an OK job. But I really loved Farrow, Wilson, Waterston and especially Karen Black, who won a Golden Globe, but mysteriously did not get an Oscar nomination. Conway's version had the look, just not the soul.
Amanda--Please read Maureen Dowd's column in last Sunday's NYTimes, Sunday Review section. The title to the article, "In a Gaudy Theme Park, Jay-Z Meets J-Gatz", says enough. I would be curious to hear your review of the movie.
Ya freakin' me out Nathaniel! I can't believe we have to wait until May 30. Here. In Sydney. Where it was filmed!! I'll have to confiscate my phone and lock myself out of the Internet until then. I really want to experience this on my own terms but I just can't help following online. I'll read your review Nathaniel ( whatever it may bring) then I'll go black until May 30.
Thanks Pam I'll read it.
An interesting casting choice for Daisy would be 90's Winona. Maybe Amanda Seyfried looks the part a bit but I still dont see her as perfect for the part. At least she is pretty and a natural blond, so they wouldnt have to dye her hair. But she looks and reads too contemporary.
Who would you cast as Daisy, Nathaniel?
So, apparently the following actresses auditioned for Daisy:
Amanda Seyfried, Rebecca Hall, Rachel McAdams, Keira Knightley, Blake Lively, Abbie Cornish, Michelle Williams, Natalie Portman, Eva Green, Anne Hathaway, Olivia Wilde, Jessica Alba Scarlett Johansson.
Jessica Alba??? Really? As pretty as she is she does not look WASP. Much less old money, blue blooded wasp. She looks to caramel, to contemporary, too "hot girl", too warm and sexy and curvacious and approachable.
Olivia Wild I think is too sexy and reads older, more "woman" and not so much "girl-woman".
Abbie Cornish could have been a good choice, and Eva Green would be unexpected but what would they do about the accent?
Michelle Williams as Daisy would have been perfect.
Also, no offense to Elizabeth Debicki but I wish they did not go with another newcomer for Jordan Baker in yet another Great Gatsby adaptation. Eva Green or Anne Hathaway as Jordan is somebody I could see. Hearing that the role is reduced is sad to read.
Ryan Gosling for Nick Carraway was something my sister threw around when she was so annoyed hearing that Tobey Maguire would be Nick. I can see it. I can even see Affleck, supposedly the first choice, as Nick.
And while I hope Isla Fisher is great, Myrtle in the books is somebody who looks nothing like Isla Fisher. She needs to look like the run-down, poor woman from Queens plain Jane.
I really like the idea of Michelle Williams as Daisy, but for some reason she was
Not chosen.
I know Ben Affleck was the first choice for Nick but I think he is too old
By now. Nick is thirty.
i actually liked Carey Mulligan as Daisy quite a bit.
I always thought from the book, and also from the portrayal by Sam Waterston, that Nick was gay, and hoped Baz would explore that dynamic in the film. From what I've read from early reviews, it sounds like he didn't take it in that direction, but I think it would've added another layer to the relationship between him, Gatsby, and Daisy.
Apparently, I wasn't the only one who felt this way..http://www.salon.com/2013/01/09/was_nick_carraway_gay/
Joel V -- no, there isn't a hint of gayness (other than Baz's visual flamboyance... but that's not homosexual so much as Gay!) and I absolutely believe that Nick had sex with men. I think the book is very clear if blink and you miss it on this point.
nathaniel is it the part with Mr.Mckee?
I never took that scene as proof that Nick was gay. Mr. McKee was terribly drunk and high as a kite. I think Nick was, at least at first, in the beginning, more naive than the others. he educates himself that summer. He learns about society´s motions and movements, he educates himself in matter of class, status, parties, social segregation and exclusion. That scene for me portrays excess, randomness- of that time and of life in the big city-lack of consciousness and fragile social ties.
I think Nick´s so-called infatuation with Gatsby was not sexual- Gatsby was, after all, a con artist. A man with an invented past, an invented biography, deeply thirsty for status, acceptance and belonging. He was, at the end of the day, a criminal. He had people fooled. He had a lot of charm. he seduced people- that´s what highly charismatic people do. he was, I think, a bordelrine sociopath- who are sometimes deeply charismatic and charming people who, because of that, get people trapped in their nets of lies, cons and scheming.
Gatsby was not a romantic hero in the traditional sense of the word. He was not a good person per se. So wasnt Daisy- she was scum, just as much as Tom. Fitzgerald is not one to shy away from writing deeply unlikable characters- every single character in "The beautiful and dammed" is horrific, nasty, disgusting and they have no reddeming qualities what so ever- its highly depressing.
I think Nick grows a lot during that summer and looses his innocence in a way- and the discovery of Gatsby was a part of it.
the whole think about Nick´s sexuality is ambiguous. he was engaged to a woman before. There´s the whole Jordan thing. He persued her and even considered a future with her at one poiint. She left a bitter taste in his mouth. He broke up with her due to her attitudes regarding Myrtle´s death and everything she came to represent.
maybe Nick did have sex with men on occasion but its not the same as being 100% gay (if you think of sexuality as a continuum) or having a gay identity and seeing oneself as such or presenting one self as such to the world- it was 1922 after all. "Gay" was not a social construct and a form of social identity as it is today.
Lets not forget that at the end of that infamous party they were all deeply drunk and high on drinks which were, after all, illegal. They were doing something illegal and immoral, but they were all indulging on it anyway. Nowadays, for it to have the same impact, the characters would have to be, I dont know, maybe doing crack, because even cocaine I think would be too "mainstream"- but ok, maybe cocaine would do, one of those parties where people gather at some random apartment to do blow and get high together.
But I think the point of the party was again about immorality- what they were doing was illegal and they couldnt care less, Tom was there publicly displaying affection for a woman who was not his wife and said woman also happened to have a husband and Tom ended up punching said woman and breaking her nose.
What a lovely party it must have been and what a pleasant bunch they were!!!!