Last week, I had a conversation with a friend about my expectations going into The Great Gatsby. Neither of us had seen the movie yet, but I had read the book in tenth grade English class, as has much of American youth. Scholars, teachers, and great writers have said all there is to say about the everlasting greatness and importance of F. Scott Fitzgerald's masterpiece - nothing I could add about the text would add anything new to the volumes of praise heaped upon its 192 pages. And so these were the expectations director Baz Luhrmann and executive producer Jay-Z faced as they attempted to re-tell the classic to fit the tastes of contemporary culture. Personally, I believe Luhrmann to be one of the most polarizing directors working in Hollywood today - he is loved or hated, very rarely does any critic hold and opinion of him in the middle of the two extremes. I happen to be on the "love" side of the argument - Moulin Rouge and, to a lesser extent, Romeo + Juliet (starring Leonardo DiCaprio on the brink of stardom) are two films I can always return to with great joy. Luhrmann is unapologetically avant-garde, and will throw highly stylized color and camera movements at you from start to finish. His characters are bold, nearly as colorful as the sets they stand upon. Simply put, there is no auteur quite like Luhrmann, a position he seems to relish.
And so I told my friend I would enjoy The Great Gatsby going in, because it would be a Luhrmann film, regardless of how closely he kept to the story of the book. And, plot aside, the setting of Gatsby is a perfect set-up for Luhrmann. The '20s was the most colorful, highly charged decade of the history of the United States - at the very least, in upper-class culture, which is precisely the subject matter. The story of Gatsby - what with the bootlegged alcohol, jazz music, and over-extravagant new money houses, was begging to be directed by Luhrmann from the very moment it was published.
Not only did Luhrmann show exactly how over-the-top this story really is, he ended up following the book extremely closely, with the exception of giving the narrator, Nick, a frame story for telling the story. This frame, a stay at a sanitarium in which a doctor convinces him to write, was kept decently to the side of the main action and never once got in the way of the emotions of the plot. In fact, as Nick begins to write, Luhrmann actively incorporates the words of the book with the action. Fitzgerald's prose is as much a character in the film as Nick or Tom Buchanan. Luhrmann truly makes the viewer pay attention to the text itself, understanding that there is a deep importance to the aching, blind hope of Fitzgerald himself.
This deep emotion is fully enhanced by brilliant performances by the main cast - especially DiCaprio as Gatsby and Carey Mulligan as Daisy Buchanan. DiCaprio fully captured the iconic literary figure in a way that eluded Robert Redford some time ago, and his passion on screen was astonishingly exact to what I believed the character of Gatsby to contain. In addition, his youthful bravado shines through on screen in a way I haven't seen since Titanic - an exceptional feat considering that film came out some sixteen years ago. Mulligan, as if she hadn't already with Drive, cemented herself as one of the prime young actresses of our generation, providing Daisy with a level of sympathy I wasn't even aware was there in the first place. Joel Edgerton, as Tom Buchanan, masterfully holds his own against the powerful DiCaprio, and while I have never been a fan of Tobey Maguire, his awkwardness as an actor seemed to perfectly fit the character of Nick Carraway.
These performances are strongly assisted by the trademark color and pizzazz of Luhrmann's backdrops and camera movements - two elements that when combined, give the feel of a moving painting throughout the whole of the film. Another extremely important part of this film that must not be overlooked is the soundtrack. If there is a soundtrack with songs that more accurately fit the culture of both the characters in the film and the audience members watching them, then I would greatly enjoy hearing it. Luhrmann exclusively uses songs from the last decade or so, but each of them are stylized just enough to perfectly encapsulate the 1920s. Lana Del Rey, and her song "Young and Beautiful", in particular, is a fantastic choice to include. "Young and Beautiful", the lead single from the soundtrack, like most of Del Rey's music, is quite jazzy, yet is privileged with a fair amount of production and electronic background to make it listenable for modern day audiences. "A Little Party Never Killed Nobody", my personal favorite track, is also clearly a contemporary pop song, but is infused with elements of swing, providing a superb sound to the colorful Gatsby parties shown in the film.
By the credits, I felt fully satisfied with the film and Luhrmann's directorial choices, and never once did I feel that there was anything pointedly wrong with it. I do understand that the style is not for everybody and thus, the 50% Rotten Tomatoes rating seems a perfect fit for its polarizing, take-me-or-leave-me boldness. The film never once felt slow, even at a length of 143 minutes. I highly recommend it for both fans of the book and movie fans in general, and I hope that DiCaprio can possibly break his Oscar curse with another legendary performance to add to the record books.
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