celebrity gossip, academic style

Did you know that Baz Luhrmann, he of Strictly Ballroom, Romeo + Juliet, and Moulin Rouge fame, has been filming an adaptation of The Great Gatsby? You didn’t? You’ve obviously not been following me on Twitter or Facebook, because I’m nuts for it.

Luhrmann can be an acquired taste — some are alienated by his fearlessness when it comes to excess. (I’ve been writing about German Expressionism lately, and in some ways, he’s the perfect collision of German Expressionism and postmodernism, combining the surreal, the squalid, and the pure — and coming up with something sneakily political). Some dismiss Luhrmann as pastiche, but they are blind to the massive, pulsing heart that structures and motivates all of his work.

And he’s perfect for Gatsby. If you haven’t read Gatsby since high school, you need to return to it. I’ve returned to it twice in the last three years — one for a class I was taking, once for a class I was teaching — and its magic endures. It’s beautiful, heartbreaking, mournful — a knowing harbinger of the America that was to come. And at its core: excess, regret, love, and a reverence for surfaces. Luhrmann’s forte.

When the trailer for this Gatsby went live earlier this week, there was, of course, much ballyhoo.

Anxiety, judging from the trailer, that it’s going to be one long music video. (My guess = the beginning scenes of the trailer are clips of a big, bombastic opening number — a Luhrmann trademark). Complaints about casting, dormant since the initial decisions were announced, were given new life. [My favorite casting quip from The Hairpin's lengthy discussion: "I want [Kan]Ye As Gatsby, Rick Ross as Nick Carraway, Amber Rose as Daisy Buchanan, and Wocka Flocka as Tom Buchanan].

And no small amount of disdain for DiCaprio as Gatsby:

I’m betting it’s all DiCaprio’s choice. Homie wants that Oscar so bad he can taste it’s smooth golden skin and he angstily reasons that history=GRAVITAS.

I like Leo just fine, but just still don’t think he’s that great an actor. He is very good at having a nice face to look at, and very good at furrowing his brow and looking concerned, but that’s about it. The fact that he’s been cast in SO MANY really excellent movies and hasn’t won an Oscar yet suggests that others share my point of view.
Again, I don’t think he detracts from movies or anything, he’s just never been the one to make a movie really sing for me. But I’m happy to keep looking at him!

He’s not that great! I mean, I understand he’s Marty’s new golden boy, but Leo, even Scorcese didn’t get an Academy Award until The Departed.

Ugh! Leo is going to way too brow furrowing to be Gatsby! Gatsby was cool, collected, understated. That’s what made it so crazy when he did show emotion-and it was basically all of his mysterious sexiness. Leo is going to over dramatize this role to death! Gah!

I WAS the girl with the Leo posters, I will admit. I love me some floppy haired blond boys. But he was the only crush that stuck because, in my opinion, he is an excellent actor. But you’re right about the brow furrowing, and I sort of feel like he’s trying to hard to be Serious Actor, Not Hearthrob?

I admit: DiCaprio is quite the brow-furrower. And as my friend/former colleague Colin Tait has pointed out on this blog, he’s just emerging from a period of serious “beard acting.” I’m sure he wants an Oscar. He does choose he roles very deliberately, and seems to value the dramatic over the light or comedic. He’s become a very particular and very serious sort of actor.

Which is part of what makes him UNBELIEVABLY PERFECT FOR GATSBY. Here’s the truth: DiCaprio’s star image bears remarkable, if imperfect, resemblance to that of Gatsby, one of the most well-known (if often misunderstood) literary “stars” of our time.

Let’s break it down.

Gatsby is:

A self-made man (nouveau riche) who has eschewed his initial image (a nice Midwestern boy) because it was too boring, too flatly attractive, to win the interest of the thing (Daisy) he desired.

DiCaprio is:

A self-made man (movies stars are totally nouveau riche) who has eschewed his initial image (teenage heartthrob) because it was too boring, too flatly attractive, to win the interest of the thing (talented directors) he desired.

 

Gatsby is:

Preposterously wealthy because of success in a business he wishes not to remember, beautiful, stereotypically-American-attractive.

DiCaprio is:

Preposterously wealthy because of success in a business he wishes not to remember (heartthrob days), beautiful, stereotypically-American-attracive.

 

Gatsby is:

Obsessed with clothes, but only when they serve his purpose. A means to an end. Looks exquisite in a tux.

DiCaprio is:

Dismissive of clothes (please, I beg you, see his go-to frat outfits in all candids of him ever) but recognizes how his fan base appreciates him in nice ones. A means to an end. Looks exquisite in a tux.

 

Gatsby’s name:

Is known throughout New York, but no one knows who he is. He is a concept more than an actual man.

DiCaprio’s name:

Is known throughout the world. But apart from some advocacy for the environment, very, very little is known about his private life. He is a concept more than an actual man. (You could say this for all stars, but it’s particularly true of DiCaprio. You need a big, monster star to play this part — someone with charisma, tremendous fame, but something missing).

 

Gatsby attracts:

Beautiful, perfect women in droves, but seems unsatisfied with them all.

DiCaprio attracts:

Beautiful, perfect women — models! more models! Blake Lively! — but seems unsatisfied with them all.

 

Gatsby desires:

Affection and adulation from the object of his desire (Daisy) — the driving force of his life.

DiCaprio desires:

Affection and adulation from the object of his desire (Scorsese, Eastwood, The Academy) — the only (visible) driving force of his life.

Gatsby is best friends with Nick Carraway (played by Tobey Maguire)

DiCaprio is best friends with Tobey Maguire (played by Tobey Maguire)

As emphasized above, the role Gatsby is not meant for a good actor, or even a character actor. He must, must be played by a super star — but a superstar whose private life is elusive. Robert Redford was, at least on the surface, a perfect fit for the role - he had the same tan, blank Americanness. But that film fell flat, in part because it was bloodless, and the script was a hack job. This adaptation does not run that risk.

What remains to be seen — and, in my opinion, what will make or break the film — is if DiCaprio can pull off the underlying insecurity that so pains Gatsby, that bubbles up from beneath the calm, controlled exterior when Daisy comes around.

We see that perfect, controlled Gatsby several times in the trailer, most exquisitely at right about the 1:10 mark — and approximated in the production still below.

We have to see Gatsby in his element to understand how out of it he is when he enter’s Daisy’s world. We have to see him with the same swagger and gravitas as he has in, say, Catch Me If You Can, so that we can see him disassembled, brought to the point of confusion and near-delirium of Teddy Daniels in Shutter Island. We need an actor who can be both at once.

And for those of you who think DiCaprio is a bad actor. Maybe he is. But that’s even more perfect, because Gatsby himself is a bad impersonation of a Jazz Age man, a Midwestern con artist posturing as a blue blood. His bad acting is what makes him so tragic, so iconic.

I, for one, think DiCaprio is an amazing actor — good enough, I think, to be a bad actor at life….and a perfect Gatsby.