The Great Gatsby (2013 film)

I've read the book and seen the movie. I don't much like the book because of how pessimistic it is, but I can recognize its cultural importance. I don't much like the movie either but I don't like Luhrman's directing style and the parties in the movie look so awesome that deconstructing the "20's were awesome" is kind of an afterthought.

It is funny (in kind of a sad way) how many people think the Green Light from the book is the type of goal that is achievable. I had to write a paper on that when the book makes it blatantly obvious that the green light clearly is an unattainable goal that is a waste of time and effort.

This is random, but I found it funny; when I went to see the movie, the lights on the auditorium walls were green. I think it might've been intentional.

That is, I think, very wrong. Striving for unattainable ideals is only a waste of time if your win conditon is to actually attain them. If instead your goal is to improve yourself for its own sake, or experience interesting challenges for their own sake, and so on, then unattainable but clear ideals are like a beacon of guidance in a turbulent drifting world. Saying that pursuing the green light is a waste of resources is kind of like saying there's no point to having a moral compass. You need guidance in your great race towards nowhere. My own "unattainable" ideal is "the option of immortality for all, forever". I do think we could actually pull it off.

edited 14th Jul '13 2:09:52 PM by TheHandle

That's the exact line of reasoning Fitzgerald disagreed with. His American Dream had died and withered a long time ago, and he now saw how hollow it was.

Okay, let's not start criticizing each other's personal ideologies here.

Personally, I thought the movie could have been more over the top in its partying. Your thoughts?

edited 14th Jul '13 3:10:28 PM by Mort08

More plastic in the rich people stuff would make it work.

I was expecting some crazier camerawork.

I thought it had just the right balance of "this is awesome" and "this is stupid". It's basically the sort of parties Barney Stintson would organize if he had the budget, with both Epic Win and Epic Fail being on the table as far as outcomes go.

I suppose I was expecting more because of everything I've heard about Baz Luhrmann and his style.

"Don't believe everything you hear." Go watch William Shakespeare's Romeo + Juliet; it was my first contact with the play as a child, and it made me cry hot tears. Nowadays, after having seen a couple other adaptations, I have a new appreciation for it. I think it's pretty damn awesome, silly gun fetishism aside.

Honestly, I thought Romeo+Juliet was sub par and difficult to take seriously at all. It was an interesting experiment, but one that led to more narm than a movie entirely acted by Tommy Wiseau. The wedding scene was especially bad with this—as soon as I heard that cherub choir was singing Prince's "When Doves Cry" (not even close to being thematically appropriate), I could no longer take anything seriously in the movie at all.

It was stylistically interesting, but "interesting" is not always "good." It was visually nice, but that's only one part of the whole.

(Personal side note: I have never been able to take Leo screaming seriously at all in any movie he's ever been in, not a single thing from his famous Titanic scene to his screams of anguish and despair in Shutter Island. He's much better at expressing subtlety than he is at expressing big, loud emotions.)

I thought Angry!Jay was pretty damn convincing. Poor fellow. Why was it such a big deal that he lost his temper? Well, at least it wasn't as pitiful and pathetic as in the novel.

Also, it's very hard not to do Romliet narmy because it's pretty much designed as a sympathetic, tragic Black Comedy that is a Black Comedy nevertheless.

edited 14th Jul '13 4:58:16 PM by TheHandle

It's not so much a black comedy as it is a satire. One does not necessitate the other. And even if it did, comedy =/= narm. Harm is not intentional.

Regardless of intention, if you take the text for a comedy and try to play it seriously, some people are bound to laugh whether you intend them to or not. How much of their laughter can be blamed on you, really?

edited 14th Jul '13 5:02:55 PM by TheHandle

If it's due to the way you decided to play it, it's pretty much all your fault.

Seems like a bit of a Morton's Fork here, no?

Don't see how it would be.

If you play a comedy as a comedy, they will laugh, as intended. If you play it as a tragedy, they will be unable to take it seriously, and laugh, as intended by the author but not by you. Either way, they will laugh.

edited 14th Jul '13 5:33:54 PM by TheHandle

The laughter is not what matters, though. What matters is how you intend for the audience to take your film, and if you intend for the audience to take the subject matter seriously and they laugh at the moments that are supposed to be dramatic, you have done a poor job as a director.

There will always be a wide range of reactions to your work, and no matter how well dramatic works are done, there will almost always be someone to find them laughable in one way or another. What matters isn't doing a good job on everyone, but doing a good job overall.

I do agree on that—it will always be something subjective in the eyes of the public. But there are certain elements of the way it is executed that can be judged very objectively. This is why we have film schools, to teach people and give them experience in learning how to go about doing these objective techniques in ways that work to bring about the reaction they wish to as many people as possible.

The only thing objective about those techniques is their statistically-evaluated efficacy.

No, it's things like extreme closeups being uncomfortable for the audience if you overdo it. Where film techniques are used for a specific feel, but other directors don't get it and use them in the wrong place.

Battlefield Earth. Dutch Angle. Tropes Are Tools.

edited 14th Jul '13 6:16:01 PM by TheHandle

Yes, those are certainly some movies/tropes.

But you're really only proving their point. Sufficiently skilled directors can break the rules and make it work anyway. If they can't, that's their own fault.

edited 14th Jul '13 6:17:56 PM by CorrTerek