The Great Gatsby 2013 version

[Gimpy]

Another book I've never read. Took my niece to this one, as we'd agreed to go see it since she liked the novel.

This was made for 3D, and even the 2D version made me sick in a few spots. My niece says its a faithful adaptation, though its been criticized in reviews for the use of rap music over the 20's period kind. That didn't matter to me.

Its one of those movies that, if you know anything about stalkers or psychopaths, you don't need to see it. I didn't care for either of the male leads' as far as characters went...the husband 'Tom' and 'Gatsby' left me disgusted, the 'heroine' was a spineless idiot, and the ending felt like the movie ran out of film.

Bear in mind, the visuals made me sick, which tends to sour observations. ;)

 

[PerihelionX]

The book isn't really any better. Once you get over the "Ooohhh Gatsby is like America in the 20s" insight it's rather flat and uninspirational.

 

[wmu9]

If they issue a new version with a real soundtrack, I might watch it.

 

[Aliana]

I saw it last weekend and thought it was horrible and way too long. I was not actually expecting it to be good, but thought it might be an interesting period costume piece with music and dancing at the very least.

Well, it was overdone in every way possible. The soundtrack was too modern for a period piece and everything seemed garish - more like a very dark graphic novel. The "dancing" was just creepy and perverse - particularly in the scenes in the underground bars.

One thing I have to say it that it certainly gives a good overall view of the pathology of the elites and the general pathology of the times. There is no escaping it! So - I guess it could be instructive in that sense, but I certainly would not recommend it .

 

[Redrock12]

Thanks for the heads-up everyone. It's playing in the local theater. Guess I don't have to bother now.

 

[shellycheval]

It was an interesting visual adaptation of the text, but for me it was "overwrought," trying too hard to "sex-up"
and "punch up" the pace to keep a contemporary audience's attention.

I enjoyed the jazz-rap "fusion" and have no problem with using current music in period films.

It is the characters that are the worst part for me--all of them missed the mark and are flat, superficial, and vapid compared to
their rendition in the book. I like DeCaprio's work in Blood Diamond and The Departed but there is no inner-Gatsby
channeled in this film as there is with Redford--the quintessential :"Old Sport."

While it tries to address the "corruption of the American dream theme" it is too focused on a badly rendered love triangle and
misses making any point.

But, again if you are interested in visual effects its worth a look.

 

[griffin]

There's this: http://www.counterpunch.org/2013/05/14/the-real-gatsby/

It tells the story of Owney Madden, a gangster in NYC during Prohibition. He eventually 'retired' to run a hotel in Hot Springs, Arkansas. It's possibly just a coincidence, but that's also the thoroughly rotten, licentious, mobbed-up town where Bill Clinton grew up. Read "The Clinton Chronicles" to understand.

The author of "The Great Gatsby", F. Scott Fitzgerald and his dipsomaniac wife Zelda were arguably tragic figures in the first half of the 20th century in the US. They were latecomers to the degenerate turn of the 19th century "fin de siecle" party that foreshadowed the excesses of Prohibition in the US, but they made up for their late arrival on the scene by plunging headlong into ruinous dissipation both in Paris and at home. There's volumnious extant documentation and commentary on both of their lives, so it would be presumptuous to attempt to summarize them here. Start with Wikipedia and read further.

My private assessment is that "The Great Gatsby" has been considered and rejected as the (or a) great American novel precisely because it confronts topics and themes that the American academic literary establishment finds inconvenient and uncomfortable, somewhat like Samuel Clemens' (Mark Twain's) literary masterpiece, "The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn" is similarly disqualified for its frank confrontation of racial prejudice in a border state during the period following the US Civil War. As a result, Herman Melville's "Moby Dick" and Nathaniel Hawthorne's "The Scarlet Letter" remain, by default, severe exemplars of American literary achievement inflicted upon our oppressed youth.

I don't think "The Great Gatsby" is all that great, actually, but it has its place in American literature.

Although it's set during Prohibition, it echoes the excesses of the Gilded Age at the end of the 19th Century in the US, though the hollow reverberation of highly leveraged "success" seems quite tinny compared to the unrestrained money power of that earlier time. The difference, perhaps, is that in the interim the European banksters had recaptured control of financial power from US government.

That has made all the difference.

 

[griffin]

Here is a review of the movie written by Kim Nicolini: http://www.counterpunch.org/2013/05/17/lives-of-the-rich-and-careless/

It's excellent, in my opinion. One charmingly notable thing about this review is that she nails Gatsby as a narcissistic sociopath... without ever using the term.

 

[PerihelionX]

Here is a review of the movie written by Kim Nicolini: http://www.counterpunch.org/2013/05/17/lives-of-the-rich-and-careless/

It's excellent, in my opinion. One charmingly notable thing about this review is that she nails Gatsby as a narcissistic sociopath... without ever using the term.

A narrator's effort to idolize Gatsby always disgusted me because there's so very little about him worth emulating.