The Great Gatsby : 1/10
I read The Great Gatsby to avoid discovering one of the greatest classics of American literature through the prism of Baz Lurhmann's film, which, while it has an interesting visual universe, isn't exactly the best storyteller around.
The outrageous aesthetics of Lurhmann's cinematography seemed to me apt for the luxurious debauchery of Gatsby's parties, but I was afraid that the film would simply tell Gatsby's story, forgetting the universal dimension of the novel.
A lot has been written about Francis Scott Fitzgerald's masterpiece, by people who certainly understand it infinitely better than I do, and what comes up most often are the references to the American Dream, the Lost Generation and jazz.
I doubt it's possible to transcribe Fitzgerald's novel to the big screen in all its depth and to turn The Great Gatsby into a flashy film, content to tell the tragic love story of a young millionaire with a penchant for partying, would certainly be a waste.
For me, the strength of Gatsby lies not in the characters, who are after all a little superficial, but in the atmosphere, the style, the subtext... And I doubt all that could be transposed to the screen, especially by Baz Lurhmann.
So I went to see Gatsby very skeptically. And, unsurprisingly, I hated it. I can't see anything salvageable in this film, apart from Leonardo DiCaprio's acting, impeccable as always.
I don't even know where to start listing everything that's wrong with it.
In theory, Gatsby's story is respected. The only major change is the contextualization of Nick Carraway's character. The film opens with Nick Carraway undergoing psychotherapy at a sanatorium for “advanced alcoholism, anxiety, depression”. His psychologist advises him to write, to exorcise his demons. This is Baz Lurhmann's very subtle way of explaining that Francis Scott Fitzgerald = Nick Carraway (which is the only possible explanation for the choice of Tobey Maguire for the role of Nick...).
Apart from this change, all the scenes from the book are repeated, in order, and every detail from the book is shown as it is on screen. On the afternoon that Nick, Tom, Myrtle and the others spend in the apartment, the book states that Chester McKee has a piece of soap on his cheek, and that Nick “uses his handkerchief to wipe away the little bit of dried soap that decorated his cheek and had troubled him all evening”. In the film, Nick is clearly seen removing a piece of soap from the photographer's cheek. It's the same for many “ details ”.
For me, this is the film's main problem. The book is retold rather than adapted. It's not enough to have the characters recite whole sentences from the book to respect it. Having the narrator say half the book's descriptions in voice-over doesn't mean that the essence of the book has been taken over. This approach can produce a passable result on a “simple” text, on a novel whose only interest is the story, where only the actions of the characters count, without any symbolic significance or subtext. But for Gatsby! Baz Lurhmann has clearly understood nothing of the work he has massacred.
That left the possibility of a love triangle set in the 1920s, against a backdrop of jazz and Prohibition. Yes, but no. Anachronism, musical or otherwise, when well used, is a very interesting tool, which I appreciate. Here, all the musical choices were ridiculous and prevented any immersion. I didn't understand the song choices, the remixes or the audio mix. Gatsby is a kind of continuous sound mush, in the middle of which you sometimes recognize a few notes or a voice. I haven't been this bothered by a soundtrack since Sherlock Holmes 2 last year.
Visually, Lurhmann goes all out. For Gatsby's first appearance, he tried to illustrate the word “magnificent” with backdrops, grandiloquent sets and fireworks (the quality of the special effects reminded me of Raimi's massacre in Oz...). The result? Ridiculous. Jay Gatsby is a mythical character, he exudes a kind of aura, a mystery... And this doesn't come through at all in the film. DiCaprio's performance is fine, but he's completely suffocated by the debauchery of vomitous, tasteless visual effects. The direction is pretentious and pompous, and the quality doesn't even come close (some of the camera movements frankly shocked me - I remember a tracking shot from Tom & Daisy's house to Gatsby's pier, during which the camera “stalls” twice, in a movement that is anything but natural). I'm not even going to mention the stereoscopy, as I only saw the film in 3D because of the screening schedule.
Lastly, Lurhmann's Gatsby is full of visual tics and raunchy effects, all of which are poor adaptation choices: the inlay text effects, to remind us that he's following the story to the letter and that he thinks Nick Carraway is a Fitzgerald double, are heavy-handed, unnecessary and in bad taste (whereas, for example, in the BBC's Sherlock, they're a very good idea that's well exploited); and, most of all, the numerous shots showing the green light at the end of Daisy's pier are unbearable. This light pulsing through the fog is a symbol of Gatsby's love, an image; it's a very strong element of the novel, and to take it at face value, to foolishly show us a lantern at the end of a pier, is to admit publicly that we've completely misunderstood The Great Gatsby.
