The Great Gatsby (2013)

I agree with you 100%. I thought it was extremely well done. Much louder and more bombastic than the book really is, I think, but at the same time he took very few licenses. I think the thing is on the page the story comes across as a quiet chamber piece with essentially 4/5 characters, but when you want to recreate the mania (not that that has to be a goal in telling this story, but if one wants to) you have to go big. What I loved so much was the music and was stunned by so many people hating the anachronistic flavour of it. To me what it did was explain the nature of jazz in context of its time. To us now jazz is quaint and has an old fashioned nostalgic vibe. But back then it was dangerous and new, pushed boundaries etc. So mixing the music from the 20s with musicians doing similarly now (or then when the film was made I guess) had a great effect of reminding the viewer of how edgy jazz actually was then. Of making the story more current, more relatable.

I thought the acting was wonderful, one of the best things Leo has done in ages. And when it was just the main characters it almost felt like you were watching a play. Then the film became that chamber piece I'd expected it to be all along.

Now that being said I love me some Baz so I love the weirdness and the over the top he does, it's glorious and a little dirty and dangerous and always kind of scary absurd. I adore that. But it's certainly not to everyone's tastes. So I get why so many were not well pleased with this interpretation. And I'm also not sure if the framing device of Nick being in the sanitarium really was necessary.

But yeah. I really loved it. It took me a few viewings to get there, but I kept wanting to re-watch it over and over. So I sort of realised . . . wait . . . I think I like this, lol. Also I am a huge fan of the novel and I think it's one of the most accurate versions of it brought to the big screen.

So yeah. Totally agree with you in other words .

As The Great Gatsby is my favorite novel, I thought the movie was great on its own and comparing it with the novel I'd say it was over-stylized and a bit rushed in pacing. The novel always felt far more somber with lots of flashes, where the movie focuses mostly on flashes with somber details.

I actually liked just how much Luhrmann put the "roar" back in the roaring 20s. It was a decade of excess, and I think his over-the-topness was actually a good approach to really driving home to modern audiences just how decadent that decade really was, when America was on a rocket to the top of the world and no one could possibly conceive of a global financial crisis that would wipe out all the good times and good fortune. It's important for the current generation to really understand that they didn't invent the party, and that just because we view the past through scratchy, jittery black and white films, that doesn't mean that's how the past actually was.

I know a lot of people took issue with Toby MacGuire's role as the narrator, but I think you really needed someone as grounded and awestruck as he was to understand just how bizarre the lives of the rich and ambitious can be.

My opinion on the movie can be encapsulated into one specific scene; and it is the scene in which we're first introduced to Gatsby. In the book - if I recall correctly, Nick's sitting on the bench or whatever, talking to a man who turns out to be Gatsby. I like that scene.

Obviously, the movie audience would know it is Gatsby so there'd be no surprise there, but that's okay, that's perfectly okay by me. The film does it slightly different: Nick's also talking to a random man who turns out to be Gatsby, but we don't see his face, and when we do see it, the music explodes and the fireworks do too.

That was over-the-top, bordering on obnoxious. The entire film is like that; and if you've seen the director's other works, its a similar bombastic style.

See I thought the way they did that, though yes totally over the top which is why above I commented that there are many who don't enjoy Baz's style and that's totally cool, it's very distinct, was brilliant. Because of course we all know Leo is playing Gatsby so the second we see him we know that that's Gatsby. So I thought it was rather brilliant that the conversation with Gatsby starts with the audience not seeing his face even though Nick is. So that when Gatsby reveals who he is, he also reveals himself to be Leo. For a moment, for those who don't know the story, everyone is Nick in that moment not knowing who he's talking to (it helps too that Leo is doing an accent and it hides his voice a bit too).

I thought that that was VERY clever.

I saw it in the theater. It looked great, but I felt like I could have walked out halfway through and not missed anything.

I've loved other of Luhrmann's films, but not this one.

I'd forgotten about the anachronistic music. Really.

What I remember is DiCaprio's performance. Tobey Maguire impressed me also. He's one of those rare actors I find repulsive and off-putting, except when seeing him in a role. Then I forget how repulsive and off-putting he is. Some scenes were very pretty... I remember one at the little guest cottage, where it was raining and tons of lilacs were blooming at the same time. Other scenes were too much, like all those endless parties. As when I first read the book, I still thought, Why can't Gatsby just send Daisy a damn invitation?

Still, it was great eye candy and gave you something to mull over.

One of the best films I've seen in several years. Fitzgerald is a hero of the genre, and I love seeing his work still holding up even in film adaptation. The music was perfect, even if I usually hate anachronisms, and visually creative. The entire movie had weight to it.

Toothpaste said:

Because of course we all know Leo is playing Gatsby so the second we see him we know that that's Gatsby. So I thought it was rather brilliant that the conversation with Gatsby starts with the audience not seeing his face even though Nick is. So that when Gatsby reveals who he is, he also reveals himself to be Leo. For a moment, for those who don't know the story, everyone is Nick in that moment not knowing who he's talking to (it helps too that Leo is doing an accent and it hides his voice a bit too).

I thought that that was VERY clever.

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I do understand where you're coming from; doing grand introductions can be fitting in some places. I don't recall what I thought first watching this. I probably knew. But regardless, I do rewatch certain films, even though I know the entire plot. And that's because its irrelevant whether I know the plot or not; I'm here to watch great scenes, great scenery, great execution of action and so on. The better scene would have been the one from the books, where Gatsby just sits next to Nick and they start talking, Nick being unaware who he's really talking it. The audience is then in on the joke, anticipating when Nick finally learns that he's been talking to the host the entire time. No need for fireworks or amped up music.

See you call that the better scene, but that is a matter of taste. I like that the audience was in the same position as Nick and got to experience the same moment of "Oh holy crap THAT'S GATSBY!" And I have always been the kind of person who thinks that a book is a book and a movie is a movie, and that if one is too rigid in copying the book to make a movie it loses magic and spark (witness the very accurate but very dull Narnia films). I like that the film makers thought to themselves, "How can we create this experience for Nick AND the audience?" I like that they understood that doing it the way the book does it doesn't work when you have a famous movie star as the lead.

I also like how big the moment was because there was something in the over the top that made it very self aware. It was a bit of a joke in and of itself with both a "And now here's Gatsby who you've all been waiting for!! Fireworks!!" and also "And now here's Leo who you've all been waiting for!! Fireworks!!" Like I almost felt the team when writing the screenplay were all joking around "And then we meet him and there's fireworks and music and time stands still" and they all laughed and then stopped and went. . . "But what if . . . "

I felt it worked on many levels. And at the very least it appealed to my personal sense of humour .

Anyway all this to say, I don't think that this is necessarily the best way to do it, but it was a very good way that I enjoyed and prefer to your version of the best way. And I think it's important to acknowledge that taste varies for everyone, and while you wanted to be in on the joke, I enjoyed not (though, okay, obviously I was as I've read the book, but I liked the idea that people unfamiliar with the book would get to have that experience) .

I still think of the 1949 film as definitive, because I saw it at an early age. The scenes with the optometrist glasses billboard was very evocative.

I do have the new one on 3D Blu-Ray. I (and my extended family) enjoyed that, too.