Reflections on filming The Great Gatsby

**IndyMan123** · 04-15-2011, 08:02 PM

I think it can be filmed but it should be a long movie. I hate it when Hollywood ignores major points in the book for time and money's sake.

Or when they concoct something because they think it works:
I remember the 2000 version where Meyer Wolfsheim tells Nick that he met Gatsby aboard Dan Cody's yacht. Untrue to the book.

Daisy messing up Gatz' name and calling him Gatsby, and having him just agree to be called that by her. They should have flashed back to Gatsby rowing out to Cody's yacht as a young man...hit that side story for a minute, and then bring us back. I'd really like to lose myself in the movie like I do the book.

Stick to the book. Of course, I realize that they want to make a movie that people besides English majors will see.

For casting, I think Dicaprio can pull it off. He did well as Howard Hughes. I also think Toby McGuire can play the meek Nick Carraway. I'd read rumors about Affleck playing Tom Buchanan. I think it would work. Interesting to see who they cast for Wolfsheim....Pacino? De Niro? They'd be good, but too expensive.

**Trask** · 07-18-2012, 05:22 PM

Just updating this, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rARN6agiW7o

**Emil Miller** · 07-18-2012, 06:03 PM

I have already seen the trail for the film and it doesn't look promising, the trashy musical(?) accompaniment is totally irrelevant to Fitzgerald's masterpiece and hopefully it is only there to attract the morons who like trash and not a feature of the film itself. There are some interesting touches missing from previous versions and it's really a question of wait and see what happens.

**aj47** · 07-20-2012, 12:09 PM

.....

**Mutatis-Mutandis** · 07-20-2012, 05:30 PM

Money aside? There is no other reason.

**Emil Miller** · 07-20-2012, 05:38 PM

Originally Posted by Mutatis-Mutandis

Money aside? There is no other reason.

So artistic endeavour is solely about money. Don't let stlukes hear you say that or he will rap you across the knuckles with a ruler.

**Mutatis-Mutandis** · 07-20-2012, 06:28 PM

In Hollywood, it's about money.

**Emil Miller** · 07-21-2012, 06:54 AM

Originally Posted by Mutatis-Mutandis

In Hollywood, it's about money.

I agree that may be the case today but the great producers of the past such as Louis B. Mayer and Sam Goldwyn were also concerned to make quality films; they had to because of the strong competition between different production companies.

**Mutatis-Mutandis** · 07-21-2012, 08:27 AM

Oh, I'm sure they're concerned with making a quality film, but of you're working in big-budget Hollywood, money is the number one motivator. Just look at the preview for the new Gatsby film--noisy, super colorful and active, tons of CGI, crappy contemporary music, and it's even in 3D. All stuff to try and get the average movie goer through the door.

**kev67** · 07-21-2012, 09:25 AM

I read an essay by Carlyle V. Thompson who had a theory that Gatsby was passing for white. I only picked up on a couple of clues: that he looked tanned and that his hair was shaved short and tended to curl (iirc). I think there was something in that theory, because one of the characters is very racist. Everyone thinks Gatsby is hiding something, with his Oxford University expressions and mannerisms, but it's not that he didn't really go to university or have a glorious war career, but that he is mixed race. It would be an interesting angle for a film, but blown out of the water if you cast someone like Robert Redford or Leonardo di Caprio in the lead role.

**Emil Miller** · 07-21-2012, 09:48 AM

Originally Posted by Mutatis-Mutandis

Oh, I'm sure they're concerned with making a quality film, but of you're working in big-budget Hollywood, money is the number one motivator. Just look at the preview for the new Gatsby film--noisy, super colorful and active, tons of CGI, crappy contemporary music, and it's even in 3D. All stuff to try and get the average movie goer through the door.

As I said, that may be the way Hollywood works today and the trailer for the film doesn't look promising for anyone wanting a sincere attempt at filming the novel. The financing of films today is very different to that of the past. Nowadays, most of the money raised goes, not on the film, but on publicity because the marketing of the film is on a scale much greater than in the days of the studio system. Bankers and private investors will only put up the money if there is a guaranteed ballyhoo factor attached to the film. Here's what the noted film critic Judith Christ said about the 1974 version of Gatsby : "Leaves us more involved with six-and-a-half million dollars' worth of trappings than with human tragedy."
If it were true 38 years ago it's massively more so now.

**Emil Miller** · 07-21-2012, 10:09 AM

Originally Posted by kev67

I read an essay by Carlyle V. Thompson who had a theory that Gatsby was passing for white. I only picked up on a couple of clues: that he looked tanned and that his hair was shaved short and tended to curl (iirc). I think there was something in that theory, because one of the characters is very racist. Everyone thinks Gatsby is hiding something, with his Oxford University expressions and mannerisms, but it's not that he didn't really go to university or have a glorious war career, but that he is mixed race. It would be an interesting angle for a film, but blown out of the water if you cast someone like Robert Redford or Leonardo di Caprio in the lead role.

Well it's already blown out of the water anyway as it's just another ludicrous attempt at racial engineering. Simply Google the Medgar Evers college mentioned in the link and there's the proof of the usual wishful-thinking that is the hallmark of such people.
We've already had Gatsby the homosexual and I fully expect that he's being lined up somewhere as a closet transvestite. Don't worry though, because we have the same sort of people over here with one well-known loony lefty wishing that James Bond was black.