El gran Gatsby
The Great Gatsby
Director:
Baz LuhrmannCámara:
Simon DugganMúsica:
Craig ArmstrongReparto:
Leonardo DiCaprio, Tobey Maguire, Carey Mulligan, Joel Edgerton, Isla Fisher, Jason Clarke, Elizabeth Debicki, Jack Thompson, Amitabh Bachchan, Gemma Ward (más)Streaming (4)
Sinopsis(1)
Cuenta la historia ideada por Fitzgerald de un aspirante a escritor, Nick Carraway, que deja el medio oeste y llega a Nueva York en la primavera de 1922, una época de relajamiento moral, deslumbrante jazz, reyes del contrabando y en la que la Bolsa sube como la espuma. Nick, que busca su propia versión del sueño americano, tiene como vecino a un misterioso millonario que da muchas fiestas, Jay Gatsby, y al otro lado de la bahía están su prima Daisy y el mujeriego marido de sangre azul de ésta, Tom Buchanan. Así es como Nick se verá inmerso en el mundo cautivador de los súper millonarios, sus ilusiones, amores y engaños. Nick, mientras asiste a sus vidas como testigo, dentro y fuera del mundo en el que habita, escribe una historia sobre un amor imposible y sobre sueños incorruptibles, y contempla una tragedia de alto octanaje, reflejo de nuestra época moderna y sus dificultades. (Warner Bros. España)
(más)Reseñas (15)
Un triángulo amoroso teatralmente sobreexpuesto, con un aspecto visual animado, pero con un alma aburrido. Luhrmann usa lo que funcionó Moulin Rouge, pero a la profundidad de sentimiento de amor trágico ni siquiera se acerca. Al personaje de Gatsby vamos muy lentamente, con grandes expectativas, y Leo luce bien en los trajes pálidos (como todos los demás), pero, paradójicamente, el elemento más despersonalizado y controvertido de la película resulta ser su personaje. Pero su personaje ya nos da igual, siendo lo más importante de la película justamente la historia de él y como va detrás del sueño de su vida, que es la bella Daisy. Mulligan es solo un adorno, y Edgerton, como su duro esposo, resulta ser más significativo que Gatsby de Leo. El único personaje natural aquí es el «representante del pueblo» interpretado por Maguire. A Moulin Rouge le daban la vida las canciones originales enérgicas o emocionalmente atractivas. El Gran Gatsby saca a relucir los hits cien veces escuchados de Jay-Zi (identificación con Nueva York) y el cautivador hit de Lana Del Rey intenta en vano añadir una dimensión romántica al libro de acordeón de imágenes opulentas. Un tema tan fuerte, tantas ideas grandes... Y los ojos de los espectadores permanecen secos. ___ Vi la película por segunda vez: La escena de la confrontación de los personajes en la habitación del hotel, es que si toda la película se hubiera hecho como esta escena, es decir, de cámara, y de manera psicológicamente concentrada y dramatúrgicamente sensible, es decir, sin excesos formales innecesarios; y la música hubiera ayudado solo en escenas clave con Lana Del Rey, podría haber sido una película *excepcional*.
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It starts as intoxicating kitsch, then it becomes a tiresome mess stumbling on both feet. As far as gimmicky camera tricks and image wizardry go, Luhrmann is confident, but he fails in simple meaningful storytelling and in trying to get under the skin of the characters. I've mentioned kitsch – all those lavish parties make you feel like you're looking at a big garden dwarf, festooned with colourful ribbons and flashing light bulbs. But when it comes to feelings, it's like a shallow story in a girlie magazine, kind of plucking the daisy "He likes you, he likes you not, he likes you, he likes you not, he'll leave with you, he won't leave with you.....". Thank goodness for at least two things: Edgerton's manly Buchanan, the only full-blooded character in the entire panopticon, and the reunion scene between Gatsby and Daisy – the only moment in the entire film where you can feel any emotion. Luhrmann is getting a little stale.
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The more problematic the film, the more you expect a standard adaptation of a classic book. The world of New York high society simultaneously disgusts and attracts Nick. He is aware of his ambivalent position as a person both on the inside and on the outside, a person who simultaneously wants and doesn’t want to be part of the story being told, and he is not only able to reflect that position, but he has to reflect it in his own interest. The narrator’s deeply personal relationship to “his” story and to the characters is emphasised by the fact that for Nick, retrospectively reconstructing who Gatsby actually was is a form of psychotherapy (similarly to the way that the search for the meaning of the word “rosebud” was an attempt to find the truth in Citizen Kane). Given the obvious hints that Nick is Fitzgerald’s alter-ego, writing (or rather retelling) as a form of therapy becomes one of the key motifs of the film. Also, the storyline involving the relationship between Nick and Gatsby (which strikingly lends itself to a queer reading) is ultimately the most authentic aspect of the film and, together with the therapeutic level of the narrative, rationalises the film’s double ending. ___ Like the narrator, Luhrmann sympathises with the characters, yet he places them in the surreal Technicolor world of major studio films, thus turning them into mere abstract ideas. In this rendering, Gatsby is merely the essence of the American mentality (the tenacious, self-destructive effort to achieve a particular ideal) and DiCaprio plays him accordingly. ___ Highlighting the narrative framework in comparison with the book (in which Nick simply tells the story, and why and to whom he is telling it are not important) is not a gratuitous attempt to bring a bit of tabloid subtext into the story – it rhythmises the narrative (“stepping out” of the story occurs at regular intervals) and influences its style. At the beginning, Nick speaks rapidly, as he is fascinated by all of the new stimuli and feels the need to quickly express all of his impressions. The cuts are abrupt and unexpected, and the shots are so short that it is difficult to find one’s bearings in them (it almost seems that there is a separate shot for every sentence). The camera never stops moving and, more so than later in the film, Luhrmann uses lap dissolves to create the impression that one shot blends into the next. The images sparkle, dazzling us with intense colours and CGI effects. We later become aware of the significance of the Sirk-like excessive work with colours, when it becomes clear why Myrtle was characterised in red and Gatsby in blue, or why it is important to know what colour Gatsby’s car is. The soundtrack is just as boisterous as the visual component of the narrative. ___ The choice of songs is the most striking (or rather loudest) link between today and the period in which the narrative is set. The soundtrack’s producers succeeded in selecting songs that can be imagined as contemporary alternatives to the music that was popular in the Roaring Twenties, though there is again a certain exaggeration (the shot of a car full of black people is accompanied by gritty gangsta rap). With its genre diversity, the soundtrack serves as an effective way to map the changes in mood that the film undergoes. ___ The film settles into a calmer, more classic style only after Nick’s story stabilises and focuses on Jay Gatsby as a man who personifies the limits of the American desire for success. The shots are longer, the narrator’s vocabulary is more colourful (which is also connected to the fact that Nick starts typing instead of speaking) and the lighting of the scenes is more natural. Together with the slowing of the film’s pace, the primary sources of inspiration also change. Whereas the noisy and flamboyant first third takes inspiration from the musicals of Busby Berkeley (and, I would venture to say, from the extravagant French epic productions of Marcel L’Herbier and other poetic realists), the film gradually progresses through excursions into gangster, adventure and war movie to a combination of social drama (The Crowd) and melodrama. Due to the doubling of the romantic storyline, however, it is rather an ironic commentary on the genre of melodrama (a sign that Luhrmann was not entirely serious is the pool shot in the film’s climax, which makes reference to the opening minutes of one of Hollywood’s most biting satires). ___ Because of the lifeless characters and excessive care taken to ensure that viewers understand exactly what is happening in the story, The Great Gatsby is an emotionally apathetic and laughably simple film. However, it is not a nonconceptual patchwork for lovers of pretty, shiny objects and expensive champagne (of one particular brand), though it does at first deceptively seem to be just that, even more so than Luhrmann’s earlier attempts to make the past present. 80%
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Two and a half stars for the soundtrack, which is not even properly used. The film itself didn’t do for me, but I will give it another chance after some time. The first time I watched it, it irritated me in a similar way as the beginning of Moulin Rouge! … But whereas Moulin Rouge got better as the story progressed, Gatsby irritated me throughout. Maybe next time.
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The make-up and lighting make Gatsby look like a leaked Madame Tussaud model. Luhrmann's lust for the most effective imagery neuters the sketches of everyone else, making The Great Gatsby the most poorly narrated (and subjectively longest) blockbuster of the season; a good party ends without a hangover, but here you're dragged to the sidelines with a queasy stomach before its climax.
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For a long time, I didn’t even want to see The Great Gatsby. I didn’t like the director who made it. I didn’t enjoy any of his films, and I didn’t expect this one to be any different. However, it was an exception. Mainly because, although no one would expect it, the creators decided to add a ton of absolutely breathtaking and beautiful digital effects to this richly decorated movie from the 1920s, which suddenly makes the film into a fairy tale. Not to mention the dance music, which in a rather strange way combines the 1920s with the present. However, this fairy tale had so much speed since the beginning that I waited for a moment when it would exhale for the last time and not breathe again. I haven’t seen such fast pace in a movie for a long time, it was almost brutal. Eventually, however, after about half an hour Leonardo Di Caprio entered the scene and fortunately everything slowed down slightly. As typical for Leo, he showed a proper performance. But that can’t salvage the film’s absurd narration, so I have no other choice than give it three stars. Still, I have to admit that this was the best Baz Luhrmann’s movie I’ve seen so far.
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What part of it makes us more crazy? That, according to Luhrmann, Fitzgerald is a superficial mannerist from the garrulous red library? That the 1920s look like a forgettable industrial dystopia mixed with the extravaganza of a lifestyle magazine? That the "glamor" aesthetic of the film is so ostentatious that it is annoying? That the characters are without exception flat and the most superficial is, coincidentally, the narrator? That the film has a totally nonsensical dramatic construction? That there is nothing left of the elegance and decadence of the "before the great fall" epoch but a flood of confetti and digital sterility? I don't even know and I really didn't care after a few minutes. A silly experience that is best described to me by Rex Reed's words: "This is one of the most maddening examples of wasted money ever dumped on the screen".
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From the first pages of the book, I knew that The Great Gatsby was the perfect material for Baz Luhrmann. And for me, as a person who 12 years ago couldn't catch a breath during the audiovisual musical version of Paris, the first half is a dream that I thought would never come true. A naive narrator, a perfect modern soundtrack, and captivating camera tricks that made me want to melt into the screen and stay there forever. Luhrmann simply knows what he's good at, and when his characteristic (sometimes almost carbon copied) narrative tricks are supported by the noble Leonardo DiCaprio, there is no doubt that the words "The Great" in the title are fully deserved. I am disappointed with the last act of the story just like I was with the book; F. Scott Fitzgerald stumbled a bit with the ending. And while it became somewhat bitter in places in light of the greater emphasis on the societal aspect, Luhrmann does not deviate from the opulent form for a moment. His storytelling is not a general social warning, but rather cautiously interhuman on a much smaller scale. And this more restrained approach far more aptly fits the story of love that was worth all the effort and suffering.
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I don’t like the beginning. The cursory, while strangely long-winded introduction to the atmosphere of the time (full of image fade-ins and fade-outs and fragments of conversations), along with Tobey Maguire as the narrator, which didn’t please me much. At the moment that Gatsby shows up, the tempo relaxes and we get to the main plot. Personally, I made sure that I didn’t find out much before seeing the movie, because as someone who hasn’t read the book (which I now intend to get my hands on) I didn’t have a clue who Jay was. There are about as many parties in the movie as in the trailers, but most important are the very intellectual sounding dialogs or monologs about people in general. The outcome is momentous and I expect (and hope) that Fitzgerald delivered it similarly intensely. Baz Luhrmann this time didn’t really succeed in presenting the period differences between the illustrated and the contemporary (represented by modern music and references to contemporary life) and mainly failed to emphasis the social aspects of the story. All of the romance was first-class. The same as the after-effect. In terms of acting, DiCaprio is outstanding, but his co-stars put on a damn good performance too. Armstrong’s music is captivating, so I hope it’ll be in the soundtrack. Right, old sport?
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The time arc of 1922/1929 (or richer, as the flashbacks chart Gatsby's entire life) did not disappoint. That's what I call a film that I experience inwardly. A formal and dramatic orgasm. The overall production design alone is perfection (this isn't just any 1920s movie, this is the exact 1920s that I live for). ___ The flawless soundtrack has me undulating to "Young and Beautiful" (Lana del Rey), "Love is Blindness" (Jack White), and the searing "Bang Bang" (Will.i.am).
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Much more depressing and striving for heavy art than I expected. We've known that Luhrmann is a kitsch director since the times of Australia, and I haven’t liked his theatrical dialogues and starched romance ever since. Here, the suffering continues. DiCaprio's character is unfortunately not nearly as positive as it may seem at first glance, I think there was a gross misunderstanding of the source material, and the intention to have fun somehow didn't work. The Great Gatsby as a film is visually very opulent, almost dreamlike. Some of the visual finesse worked excellently, but some of it is terrible (those WTF camera shots?). The whole thing feels pompous, monumental, refined, and cold, just as cold as the main characters felt to me. I didn't believe many scenes, and if I did, it was rather the bad ones than the good ones. The effort for perfect audiovisual execution (collaboration with Jay Z brings a feeling like a leash, visual effects) is evident and definitely a plus. However, it felt like the 1920s imagined by a person living in 2148. A slightly "future retro style" that didn't sit well with me and left a strange taste in my mouth. Even the attempt at an artistic affair is out of place.
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Unfortunately, the film is so (over)stylized for my taste that I didn't believe the story at all, despite the good cast, lavish sets, direction and great music. I did watch The Great Gatsby, yes, but I don't feel like I saw it.
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Luhrmann has done a good job again. The Great Gatsby may have been overhyped by the media, but it fulfils almost everything that makes modern films successful and popular. It has a stellar (and quality) cast, an energetic soundtrack that blares in my headphones almost every day, awesome lifelike costumes, and a polished period setting that absolutely suits the diversification with contemporary musical hits and visual flourishes. The grand romantic storyline, for all its tremendous efforts at palpable emotion, doesn't work as intended (if it weren't for Lana Del Rey, I don't know), and I felt almost mechanically compelled to root for Edgerton's idiosyncratic hubby, but otherwise I thoroughly enjoyed this unconventional excursion into an 80-year-old American disco, and I can only find fault with it with great compulsion – the film certainly doesn't deserve criticism. 80%
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Baz Luhrman brought one of the ideas from the book into reality: "That we can't repeat the past? Why, of course we can." Luhrman repeats it differently, according to his own beliefs, and in my opinion, it's not a method that will sit well. It doesn't sit well with me. Additionally, I was more captivated by the trailer, thanks to its excellent editing. The film definitely doesn't offer such an atmosphere. Underneath that flashy surface, there's actually almost nothing hiding. More: http://www.filmovy-denik.cz/2013/05/velky-gatsby-2013-35.html
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This "fatally colorful" film could, of course, be read on two levels – either as an attempt at the most perfect audiovisual orgasm of recent times or as a tale of unhappy love, which logically also contains some criticism of society as a whole, especially hypocrisy, opportunism, and cowardice. What I personally found most striking, and what I readily applaud Luhrmann for is the fact that he manages to present these two levels in such a way that they both end up generating the same emotional pleasure – ironically, perhaps, the level of longing for an audiovisual orgasm is even more emotionally compelling. It strikes me as a kind of silly fashion nowadays to talk about the visual sophistication of some films "at the expense of script quality, character credibility, or some sort of resonance", because I just hear it over and over and the essence remains and sticks somewhere else (in my humble opinion). The formal perfectionist Luhrmann does take his time before launching into a "play on emotions" and on feelings, but what precedes it is so impressive that it is impossible to get bored with it, plain and simple. As a result, this modern adaptation of The Great Gatsby is more of an audiovisual kaleidoscope than a "pure drama", but it should also be taken into account that we have moved on in time and that such "modernized" adaptations of classic literary works will increase in the future. Instead of the jazz and music typical of the period in which Fitzgerald's novel is set, Luhrmann opts for a soundtrack of mostly hip-hop and R&B hits, which combined with the impressively filmed parties, provide a truly delightful experience for the eyes and ears. Everything goes as it should: the lights, the music, the sound, the sets, all the actors look fantastic in period costumes and do what they need to do. What most of the viewing or reviewing community seems to have a problem with (that when the "real plot" kicks in, it feels disjointed, and as a result fails to honor Fitzgerald's premise and comes off as something completely different) wasn't apparent to me in any way, and I even read the novel twice. But as I wrote earlier, Luhrmann simply took his own take on it and somehow preserved the most essential ideas that Fitzgerald imprinted on his famous novel. As I mentioned in the introduction, it worked for me on both levels. Perhaps because I approached it in a way that it was definitely not a "pure" adaptation and that it just needed to be approached a little differently. And that Lana Del Rey made me cry. WILL YOU STILL LOVE ME WHEN I'M NO LONGER YOUNG AND BEAUTIFUL?
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