[Quinn Wright]

Baz Luhrmann’s The Great Gatsby (2013) is a bombastic film in every sense of the word. With an A list cast of Hollywood actors and a very elaborate visual style, it’s easy to see why some think of it so highly, and I will consent that I believe it was a decent film with a connection to and appreciation for the F. Scott Fitzgerald novel, but I am certainly not without my criticisms.

With regards to visual appeal, this film has a definitive style all its own, capturing a dream-like decadence the likes of which has never been seen in a mainstream film. No one is richer than Gatsby, it seems, and this unbelievable wealth is portrayed with finesse, giving the film an air of the impossibly fantastic. Through the elaborate use of CGI, the audience is treated to estates, cars, and a representation of 1920’s New York and Long Island that is beyond decadent. Even the grizzled and dirty valley of ashes has this sense of deliberate composition to it, an expanse of Long Island that is perfect in its filth when compared to the lavish Buchanan or Gatsby estates. Needless to say, the film is visually impressive. That being said, I do heartily believe that something important is lost when the attention is set entirely on visual splendor. One of the great charms of the book is the sense of unreliability you feel in your narrator as well as the ambiguity in the central characters. Everyone is having an affair while claiming to love one another, and when you read this on paper, it becomes this wonderful tapestry of the complexities of human emotion. Very little of this subtlety made it into the film, as the film itself is anything but subtle. Perhaps it’s just me, but I found it difficult to get swayed up in the emotions and interpersonal dynamics of these people with the constant visual assault of computer generated decadence. In pivotal scenes of internal retrospection, while Nick Carraway narrates the film, we zoom through miles and miles of CG cities and landscapes, careening between buildings that have no root in physical reality, like watching a cut scene in a video game. The narrative of the film calls for humanity at its most emotionally complicated, which is an intention that cannot survive the inhuman and unnatural perfection of these CGI settings and locations. It is simply too perfect, bordering on completely inhuman. In short, it’s all sugar, a visually sweet film that claims to have substance, but in reality lacks any nutrition by form of human subtlety. This comes away in the acting as well, at least, in my opinion. Dicaprio seems to be playing the same character he’s been playing since Titanic, not for one second going beyond the “look like you care” sort of expression he wears in every film he’s in. I did not care for Carey Mulligan as Daisy Buchanan, as she seemed to be playing the basic emotionally aloof female character. She could pretend that she loves Gatsby, and you can see her fake it on screen, but much like everything else in this film, it just didn’t feel real to me, emotionally, physically, all of it was just too fake.

Now it is clear that a lot of talent went into making this film, both technical and directorial. Everyone did their homework with regards to style and design, making sure to get every detail right while rendering these locations and props on a computer. The costuming was superb, embodying the sensibility of the roaring 20’s with the flourish of old money and incomparable wealth. In terms of shot composition, the film captured this sort of drunk and dreamy sense of camera motion that I believe worked really well given the content of the narrative and visual style. In terms of Gatsby’s emotional complexity, it was all just a dream anyway, while everyone else stumbled around drunk and laughing as background characters in the story of his love and inability to let it go.

There are reasons to enjoy this film greatly, maybe even love it, but for myself as a film watcher and admirer, I must confess that I felt underwhelmed by the visual spectacle in light of my criticisms stated above. Though I can recognize the talent that went into making this film, I can only feel as though the modern Hollywood obsession of style over substance worked against the human complexity of its source material. Sure it’s enjoyable, sure the music is catchy, and sure it’s all just so gosh darn pretty to look at, but that is simply not enough for me.

[AJ Smith]

I’d like to disagree with some of what you said about the visual style of the film. While I agree that the degree of elaboration makes the film seem unrealistic, I don’t think that this is a bad thing. I would even say that the film’s goal is to appear unrealistic and outlandish, which reflects Gatsby’s character perfectly. Ultimately, The Great Gatsby is a tale about someone whose entire identity is a fallacy. His guests all hear different stories about him and then once we (and Nick) think we’re getting the truth, it turns out to be fake as well. The visual style, in all its grandeur is simply emphasizing that point – that we can’t believe everything we see or hear.

One of my favorite moments of this movie is when Gatsby has Nick invite him and Daisy over for tea. He goes completely overboard in decorating Nick’s house. There are flowers everywhere and then there’s a perfect moment when butterflies flitter across the screen. This whole scene screams fake, which might be why many people that I’ve talked to didn’t like it. But, it represents the most fundamental aspect of Gatsby – he’s a fraud. Everything he does is to convince people that he’s genuine. Such behavior ought to cause suspicion. It should make us feel like what we’re seeing isn’t real. The visual style of the film is constantly reminding us of this fact.

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