A Look Back, Old Sport

You have probably seen an ad for, or at least heard about, the new movie adaptation of The Great Gatsby that's coming out next Friday. The publicity machine has been ramping up over the past month or so; next week Carey Mulligan (who plays Daisy) is scheduled to appear on The Daily Show, and the movie's director, Baz Luhrmann, is scheduled for The Colbert Report.

The movie was actually supposed to be released at Christmas but was postponed, probably due to production issues related to Mr. Luhrmann's decision to make it in 3-D. Yes that's right, a 3-D version of The Great Gatsby. Does that not make sense to everyone? (Don't worry, there will also be a 2-D version. There always is.) After all, this is the guy who made Moulin Rouge, and I'm sure he would have done that in 3-D if it was an option at the time.

Anyway, I'm very interested in seeing this movie, even if it's a complete disaster (which is a distinct possibility, and one which provides its own distinct sort of pleasure). It's one of my favorite books, and you may recall that I went to New York last year to see a six-and-a-half-hour play in which the entire text of the book is recited onstage.

With the release of the new adaptation, I thought it might be interesting to revisit the 1974 version starring Robert Redford and Mia Farrow. When it was released it was considered a flop; the director did not make another movie for almost a decade afterward. I saw it once, maybe 30 years ago, but I didn't really remember anything about it other than the cast, and that much of the filming was done in Newport, RI; as a child growing up in RI at the time, a movie production in the state was a big deal and it was covered pretty extensively in the media.

Conveniently, the movie is on Netflix streaming, so I sat down to watch it one afternoon last week. (Still one of the best things about being unemployed: you want to watch a movie at 2 pm? Go right ahead.) It's kind of long, about 2 hours and 20 minutes, and it kind of bogs down about an hour in, right around the point in the story that Gatsby and Daisy are getting reacquainted. This is probably because their relationship has zero chemistry, and because the Daisy of the book, a passionate and impulsive wild card, comes across onscreen as a vapid, vain airhead.

I think some of the blame for this has to be directed at Francis Ford Coppola, who adapted the book for this screen version. The story plods along, feeling much slower than the book, and the sense of this world, which is supposed to come across as a giant money-filled playground, ends up as tedious and antiquated.

On the positive side, Sam Waterston gives a nicely understated performance as Nick, the narrator and moral filter of the story. Karen Black goes in exactly the opposite direction in her portrayal of Myrtle Wilson, the doomed mistress of Daisy's husband Tom, and succeeds beautifully in her excess.

One other detail worth noting, especially for those interested in style: the production design is suitably sumptuous, and the clothes in the movie are uniformly fantastic. All the outfits for both women and men were designed by Ralph Lauren, and you can tell just by looking at them. (Whenever I watch a period movie like this, I can't help but wonder how men were able to stand wearing three-piece suits with stiff shirt collars in the middle of summer.)

I'm very ambivalent about the choice of Leonardo DiCaprio as Gatsby in the new movie. I've never been that big a fan of his work, and I was going to complain that he's too old for the role, but then I checked IMDB and Robert Redford was basically the same age, maybe a year younger, when he played Gatsby. But he comes across as younger onscreen, so we'll see if the same is true for Leo.

Although they are lesser characters, I am looking forward to Isla Fisher as Myrtle and Jason Clarke as her husband George, mainly based on the other work of theirs that I've seen. As for Tobey Maguire as Nick and Carey Mulligan, I'll have to reserve judgment until I've seen their performances.