Monday, September 16, 2013

Gatsby


Gatsby awaiting the arrival of Daisy

Here are my thoughts on Gatsby, the most recent remake of F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby.  I was very skeptical going into watching this movie.  The director is known for crazy camera action, and explosions of visual splendor.  I thought this would capture the party scenes and opulence of Gatsby quite well, but I never imagined it would also help emphasize the desperation of Jay Gatsby.

Leonardo DiCaprio was amazing in his role of Gatsby.  I wasn't sold the first time the audience was introduced to the man, but as the movie progressed I realized he brought something to the screen that Robert Redford never did... paranoia, desperation, and longing.  Robert Redford was so golden in his charm that the utter despair that was expressed in the novel never made it onto the screen across a vapid Mia Farrow.  DiCaprio brought tears to my eyes in his anxiety upon seeing Daisy Buchanan for the first time in five years.

The story of Gatsby has always haunted me.  A boy who grows up penniless only to find himself introduced to a woman above his position during the war.  The two fall in love.  Upon hearing that he has no wealth, she marries another.  He remains blindly hopeful that she will come back to him and believes his true stature will never be attained until she is at his side.  No other woman will do.  It has to be her.  This drives him to do anything to be rich, and in the time of the roaring Twenties, that meant getting involved in bootlegging or organized crime.  Redford was far too cool to believe he would sully his hands, but DiCaprio had an edge to his charm.  A side that said, "Don't fuck with me."

Daisy and Tom Buchanan could not be more useless human beings, but I feel that Carey Mulligan was almost too likable for the role.  She appeared weak, but she didn't capture the selfishness that Mia Farrow did years ago.  I disliked Mia Farrow as an actress for years because of that role, not understanding that it was just a role.  Now I respect her more as an actress for being so off-putting.  How fickle women are!

The narrator, Nick Carraway, played by Tobey Maguire, brought a vibrancy to the movie that the Redford version lacked.  It brought the story to life to understand how dramatically the destruction of Gatsby and his reputation affected another.  Maguire managed to make Carraway look confident, yet curious.  He was always outside of the situation, and he was very aware of it.  The narration through out the film was true to the novel and really directed the flow of the film.

I thought the remake was great, and mostly in part to the acting chops of Leonardo DiCaprio.  He was simply stunning.