I don't know what the protocol is when you literally get hit by a truck. No, I don't mean "I'm in my car and the truck collided with me". I mean "I'm on my bicycle and the truck literally hits me". German brawn and some heavy dose of dumbass Irish luck are the only two factors I'm playing in this equation that kept me from a funeral pyre or several weeks laying contentedly on a hospital bed waiting for something worse to happen.
Alas, fortune shines upon me. And no, this wasn't an elaborate tale to evoke sympathy from your dear, sweet hearts. Yes, my esteemed readers, I am living proof that exercise just might kill you. Stay on that couch. Turn on the television. Watch some lame action movie stamped and approved by the blind members of the 1980s Motion Picture Association of America. How in all hell Rambo made it past pre-production I will never know.
As I rest before a vibrant computer monitor sipping my handmade whiskey sour, several thoughts race through a calmed conscious. What movies would I have missed? What games? Television shows premiering in the coming weeks? Would I eventually read the increasingly large stack of comics collecting dust in the vast abyss I care to call a room? Fate knew my constant desire for cinematography must be sated on a monthly basis. The universe, God, destiny, whatever the f*ck you want to call the mess knew I had to partake in the consumer end of the entertainment industry.
While the above ramble is all true (I honestly did get hit by a truck), let's move onto more interesting matters.
Baz Luhrmann's The Great Gatsby hit theatres yesterday and I have witnessed his wonders. Critics have been going through the motions accusing the film of being more "style over substance" than dragging out the story with character development in order to convey more sympathy to viewers. I can agree on only a fraction of the statement. Luhrmann's work has included some of my least favorite adaptations (Romeo+Juliet) to one of the best musicals (Moulin Rouge) and an incredible extremely-loosely-based-on-a-true-story films (Australia): the Japanese bombing of Darwin.
Allow me this tangent to help bolster my following point. The Lost Generation has been one of the key influential literary periods in world literature. I would clarify American literature to that end, but who on this earth hasn't heard of Hemingway, Fitzgerald, Stein, or at least Eliot? Their descriptions of life before, during, and after the Great War brought definition to a generation burdened by death, pain, suffering, and of all things, alcoholism. For our group of American expatriates including Ernest Hemingway, F. Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald, Gertrude Stein, John Dos Passos, and Thomas Stearns Eliot, they owned this golden era. The 1920s belonged to writers, singers, dancers, musicians, painters, and artists of any genre. Through drinking and dancing to fighting and writing, these individuals sought to dive into the worlds that troubled them in order to hopefully escape them.
Fitzgerald penned The Great Gatsby in 1925, the heyday of the Roaring Twenties. Parties clamored every night. Liquor, beer, wine, and champagne flowed in rivers down the streets of New York and Paris. Socialites swarmed to any area teeming with fellow night owls prowling for the next luminescent oasis. The Charleston crowded dance halls world-wide. Paris lit up the night sky. New York rarely shut off its welcoming nightly glow. We, as the unfortunate readers of this modern era, are introduced to these extravagant evenings by narrator Nick Carraway, a World War One veteran and bond broker living in Long Island, New York. Fitzgerald takes his novel as an opportunity to visualize the American image of the 1920s. In his other short stories and novels, he sheds light on the Parisian side of the coin where one could say the Twenties shined immensely.
Carraway immediately takes an interest in his mysterious neighbor who hosts nightly parties with no apparent cause for celebration. Daisy, Carraway's cousin, and her old-money husband, Tom Buchanan reside across the bay in the fictional neighborhood of East Egg (Nick lives in West Egg). On the Buchanan dock stands a lone green spotlight shining out onto the bay. Quite often, Nick spots a figure standing on the dock reaching out to the light as if he's longing for something lost. This man of mystery is none other than the enigmatic Jay Gatsby, a man of new money and in constant desire to surround himself with curious company. Carraway is eventually invited to one of Gatsby's extraordinary soirees where he finally encounters Gatsby himself. The pair recall serving together in the war as part of the same machine gun battalion. As Nick quickly descends into this company, he finds his life taking a turn for the surreal.
And that's where the story spoilers come to a screeching halt. If you didn't read this in Junior-level English.......well, let's say it should've been on your priority reading list for the following summers. I promised a point would be made out of the above paragraphs.
Fitzgerald grasped what he knew from the Twenties and molded them into what we read as The Great Gatsby. Parties, alcohol, romance, domestic abuse, fast cars, and the freedom to do whatever the f*ck anyone wanted stormed rampant across the globe. Needless to say, finding the right cinematic elements to portray this lifestyle would take a hefty sum of creative thought. The 1974 version starring Sam Waterson as Nick Carraway, Mia Farrow as Daisy, and Robert Redford as the titular Gatsby performed admirably for its time. I viewed the film years ago and felt only a fraction of the emotions as when reading the novel. Baz Luhrmann comes along thirty plus years later to breathe life back into the filmed adaptation genre of movie-making.
Tobey Maguire's casting as Carraway had me worried. I found Waterson's performance dry, emotionless, and above all, boring. However, when paired with Leonardo DiCaprio's Gatsby, I quickly became as much a believer as Carraway did an alcoholic. His narration of the events both in 1929 and 1922 (we first meet Nick in a sanitarium as he recalls the events seven years prior) felt as if I was turning the pages again. You can hear the change in tone as the film goes back-and-forth in time. Carraway's burned-out narration quickly shifts to vibrant and youthful as he begins writing his story. I loved that part especially. Luhrmann and his team of graphic designers literally took excerpts from the novel and displayed them throughout the movie as part of Carraway's narration. Make no mistake. This is Baz Luhrmann at one of his finest moments in film direction.
I have to get onto DiCaprio's performance. Here's an actor I could not bare for the sake of anything holy. Titanic, The Beach, please no. But Catch Me If You Can, Blood Diamond, The Departed, Shutter Island, Inception, Django Unchained, and now his portrayal as Jay Gatsby has me thoroughly impressed. His accent which I can only put at a mid-west meets New Yorker sells Gatsby as a believable character. The famous words "old sport" come up more times than the f-bomb in a Tarantino flick. One might get overly annoyed at the use, but coming from DiCaprio everything works fine. When I think of Gatsby, Tony Stark comes to mind: billionaire, playboy, not so much philanthropist, but you get the idea. We see this image of Gatsby, but you know there's another character beneath. You see James Gatz, the man he was and couldn't continue living under a nothing-name. Through hope, as Carraway described Gatsby (the most hopeful man he ever met), he sought to re-invent himself as means to win back parts of the life he lost as result of the war. DiCaprio took this character and could've done anything. Gatsby's suave demeanor, his cool swagger were embodied by DiCaprio and helped to compliment the cast as a whole.
Joel Edgerton as Tom Buchanan was a flawless casting. The triangle between his character, Carey Mulligan's Daisy, and Gatsby could not have been played out better. When he finally voiced his frustration over a certain matter in an undisclosed hotel room, DiCaprio boomed with gusto. Joel's Tom can easily be set as the novel and film's main antagonist, but I've developed my own theory over time.
Each character becomes their own antagonist. Nick begins as a modest broker starting out in New York. As the story progresses, his decision to fall in with Gatsby and the party scene start weighing him down emotionally, mentally, and physically. He lives this rambunctious life to the point in which he becomes disgusted by the scene and those who partake. Gatsby's obsession with restarting the past by reconnecting with Daisy ultimately brings him down in the end. Daisy's inability to cope with pressure leads to a climatic accident. Tom's infidelity nearly comes to a head until Daisy inadvertently silences his problem. Even George Wilson, the poor gas station clerk/mechanic succumbs to revenge while his wife, Myrtle, also pays for her carelessness. Case in point: no one gets out clean.
In this argument over style over substance, I can see how the critics viewed the decision as a flaw. However, a story like Gatsby needs that type of insomnia-inducing vibe. Don't turn out the lights, play the music louder, toss confetti relentlessly, and let the champagne bottles burst like fountains. Parties in the Twenties weren't casual get-togethers. They were as full of life as the people who attended them. Some were war veterans, some were bond brokers, some were bloody rich, and some were bloody tired of their mundane lives. These parties allowed anyone of any financial or social standing to express themselves without fear, concern, or worry of what will happen tomorrow. Luhrmann made damn sure to show this in every scene Gatsby threw a party. And yet, no matter how many random attendees, open liquor bottles, or wildly danced Charlestons, one individual would always feel unfulfilled: Gatsby.
The City of Ashes was one of my favorite settings in the novel. This mid-point between East and West Egg was plagued by constant industrialism. Nothing but ash and machines and, of course, George Wilson and his modest garage. The "eyes" on the optometrist billboard were a warming touch to see. I would've felt a sense of incomplete had those eyes not been present.
My final note in what must seem an almost endless ramble is the soundtrack. Composed by Jay-Z of all people, the sounds of the 1920s jazz blends well with modern hip-hop. Some would say (myself included) that the combination doesn't sit well together. This was not the case. I went along with the film tapping my foot all the while.
In a post script, Isla Fisher and Elizabeth Debicki as Myrtle Wilson and Jordan Baker were rather enjoyable in their parts. While Myrtle's role in the story isn't show-stealing, Fisher worked in her sex appeal to show why Tom had an interest. Jordan Baker, Nick's "love" interest, didn't really play out fully enough for me to believe any connection would be present. These minor characters still represent major points in the story, but not enough time went into developing their integrity.
I'm quite exhausted at the current time, so if anything sounds completely and utterly incomprehensible, my deepest apologies are sent your way. Baz Luhrmann's The Great Gatsby does indeed give precedence to style over substance, but still allows the story to unfold without a hitch. Performances from Maguire, DiCaprio, Edgerton, and Mulligan push each conflict to its extreme to show viewers the immensity that was the Roaring Twenties. From the rich, vibrant parties of Gatsby's West Egg mansion to the dull, grimy industrialism of the City of Ashes, Luhrmann has done justice to Fitzgerald's most reputable novel and American literature's best celebrated work. If you love the Lost Generation as much as this kid does, take my advice.
Get the f*ck off the couch and see this damn film.
The Great Gatsby, starring Tobey Maguire, Leonardo DiCaprio, Joel Edgerton, and Carey Mulligan, earns an eight of ten.
Goodbye, old sport.
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