[on screen in print on scene]
THE QUINTESSENTIAL ARTS REPORT
JAZZY REMAKE Leonardo DiCaprio Presides Over Opulent “The Great Gatsby” t’s a tricky business, this idea of remaking a film, but director Baz Luhrmann’s version of the Jazz Age classic, “The Great Gatsby,” is accomplished in grand style and with advantages that weren’t around at the time of the 1974 version. Leonardo DiCaprio, who graced Luhrmann’s 1996 “Romeo + Juliet,” is as compelling a Jay Gatsby as Robert Redford was, and Carey Mulligan matches Mia Farrow’s pampered and irresolute Daisy Buchanan. In the film, Luhrmann creates a visually stunning (if computer-generated) version of New York City and the moneyed enclaves of Long Island at the height of the Roaring Twenties, and sprinkles it with subtitled passages from American author F. Scott Fitzgerald that give it a literary anchor amid the raucous excesses of the age. Fitzgerald’s classic portrayal of the stark contrasts between decadent bluebloods of New York high society and the grimy misery of the impoverished working class is narrated by Nick Carraway (Tobey Maguire), the naive young stockbroker enthralled by the mysterious millionaire Gatsby, who lives in a Long Island Sound mansion and throws lavish parties where the city’s upper crust rubs shoulders with its wild fringes and the revelry lasts into the night. Mulligan is well cast as Daisy, Carraway’s married cousin and the ob-
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ject of Gatsby’s obsession, as she goes about her life on the other side of the bay from his ostentatious mansion. She’s torn between the memories of her past love of Gatsby and loyalty to her philandering husband, Tom Buchanan (Joel Edgerton), who unearths some unseemly facts about the enigmatic Gatsby and the source of his millions, and utters the line that defines the bigotry and class-consciousness of the age: “You are not one of us.” Fitzgerald’s voice is never far from the surface as Luhrmann regularly employs an interesting device of typed words onscreen that convey the novelist’s poignant passages, and uses a flash-forward to show Carraway typing the story as it unfolds.
In the end, of course, it is a tale of class division and the easy breakdown of moral resolve among the rich and powerful, and scenes of the frantic greed of Wall Street are a reminder of our own recent experiences with that segment of the workforce. The decadence of the age is emphasized by big flashy cars, huge water-
front manses and Gatsby’s constant wild soirees. With a soundtrack that ranges from George Gershwin to Jay-Z (one of the executive producers), the film maintains a somewhat ambiguous period authenticity, smacking of computer imaging but breathtaking nonetheless, enhanced by cinematic touches such as ascending aerial views, fog and fireworks, and lone saxophone players on fire escapes, that elevate the emotional moments with a dreamlike quality. O
RATED PG-13: contains some violent images, sexual content, smoking, partying and brief language RUNNING TIME: 2 hours, 22 minutes
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