The Great Gatsby

Such a weird way of twisting the opening of that book too -- it's all about how NICK is the quiet, unwittingly receptive person who everyone unloads on, iirc, so very awkward to have him being the one talking to a therapist. Also, I really hope this isn't some kind of bookend framing device where in the end it turns out he had a nervous breakdown because of his experiences with Gatsby or some bullshit.

Also, I really hope this isn't some kind of bookend framing device where in the end it turns out he had a nervous breakdown because of his experiences with Gatsby or some bullshit.

It sounds like it is, though.

Which means unreliable narrator, right?

wish it featured a Redford cameo as "old Gatsby"

wait how would there be an old Gatsby

Sade/Pacific

― Huston we got chicken lol (Phil D.), Monday, May 6, 2013 3:49 PM (37 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

wld pay to see this

xp well, not that old

The lacuna in the narrative regarding Gatsby and Daisy’s relations that summer saves Fitzgerald the trouble of writing dialogue for them that would have underlined their shallowness (one of the reasons why Daisy’s line about Gatsby’s beautiful shirts works: it happens just once)

that is kind of the greatness of the book, that it's a tale about Gatsby that has epic qualities but really he's just trying to fit in and seduce the most vapid people

That aspect ... might translate!

:)

that is kind of the greatness of the book, that it's a tale about Gatsby that has epic qualities but really he's just trying to fit in and seduce the most vapid people

― mh, Monday, May 6, 2013 12:35 PM Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

actually just the existence of this remake is sort of making me think about the book a little differently -- it's all about strivers partying with new money people.

For sure, Tom Buchanan is old money but still a midwesterner like the rest of the main cast, but they're attempting to blend into the NY social scene, none of which shows up to Gatsby's funeral.

me speak english

wait how would there be an old Gatsby

I could see Baz Luhrmann changing it so that he lives, this movie seems that goofy.

obi-wan-style ghost gatsby

Has anyone read this?
http://www.amazon.com/Trimalchio-Version-Cambridge-Edition-Fitzgerald/dp/0521890470/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1367859678&sr=8-1&keywords=trimalchio

well, he could be Gatsby's father (Gatz) who shows up to the funeral

the remake should have Gatsby as a multi-millionaire from an herbalife style scheme. He could be a positivity-preaching crossfit junkie. Maybe Carraway is a would be app-designer seeking VC funding or something.

let's not

this framing story enrages me more than any other stupid thing about this movie.

I heard Gatsby's going to be in the next Avengers

Tbh though, i dont care about "faithful" adaptations. The book exists, it's its own thing, and this is something different.

yeesh @ that schulz article. i mean no one's obligated to like anything, but when someone trots out the 'there aren't any likable characters!' line, you know it's time to run for the hills.

Yeah I didn't quite get her bug -- ok, you don't like the book, but what does Edward St. Aubyn have to do with anything? Is caustic satire the only way rich people are supposed to be written about? High moralistic melodrama can make for a great read!

I'm surprised ppl still get away with the "likable characters" criteria.

the characters in Edward St. Aubyn's books are all horrible, including the narrator

agggh I just read about that stupid framing device ...

I liked Strictly Ballroom, I liked Romeo & Juliet, hell I didn't mind Moulin Rouge. Australia was duuuumb and a snooze. But this is a bridge too far. I knew it would be horrendous just from the trailer. But now with this new information...this is like Sandra Lee 'reimagining' Julia Child's Mastering the Art of French Cooking. Baz Luhrman IS the Sandra Lee of movies.

nick carraway is a likable character!

so is gatsby, for that matter

except when Sam Waterston played him

Gatsby is likeable but you end up pitying or loathing him because he's accomplished so much and all he wants to do with it is chase after Daisy

damn, dude, I get your single-mindedness but you have to get over it

Or maybe he just likes green lights?

"Darling, Tom has cornered the market and I need to complete my Christmas lights portfolio."

i find gatsby very likable and sympathetic. one of the saddest things about the david michaelis book about charles schulz was learning how deeply schulz identified with gatsby.

i agree. gatsby's a dreamer more than anything. to call him "materialistic" is to simplify things: his understanding of status, as an outsider, is the fathest thing from "worldly." i always thought the tragedy of gatsby is that he is a determined guy of enormous imaginative capacity who wasted these gifts on such a superficial version of the american dream.

always considered Reagan a Gatsby figure: born in a nothing Midwestern town; a blank, forced to recreate himself.

so all Midwesterners are blanks now huh

the one thing reagan seems to be lacking is the kind of insane, blind, driving passion that motivates gatsby. unless his 'daisy' was the laffer curve.

i don't think that's that far off. reagan's america was a fantasyland where hard work always pays off and the government doesn't need to messily step in and stop the egregious harm that comes from very un-perfect market dynamics, which do not necessarily benefit the public good. like his voters, he might have bought into the dream.

sorry for all those adjectives.

I've made the analogy before. The guy was a nullity -- even to his wife -- who cared only about a blinkered if powerful vision of America.

Charles Foster Kane too.

do you think gatsby was a nullity though? i always assumed a guy like that must have a rich inner life. you don't see it because all of his creative energy is devoted to maintaining the mystique of his self-invented personality.

a good update on the gatsby myth is the movie rushmore. i always assumed that behind gatsby there is a creative little max fischer he has slowly refined out of existence.

It's Nick telling the story, of course, but he doesn't he call him an elegant young roughneck or something?

hm, it's been a while since i've read the book. my impression is that gatsby was -- to nick -- very cool, detached, and elegant. it's only by closely observing him that nick realizes that gatsby has this obsessive, blinding ambition to realize a dream version of his life he made up for himself long ago, and that most people would have long since moved past

but my point is that it takes a certain personality to cling to your dreams that fiercely, and refuse to adapt your expectations in accord with changing circumstances.

http://sallykohn.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/06/reagan.jpg

Red light! Red light!