There are some films Baz Luhrmann should leave alone

Rating: 1/10 (16 March 2014)

First some disclaimers: I am a professor of English and Film Studies and during my 30+ years of teaching and schooling, I have taught the novel and shown various versions of "Gatsby" (the film) over 25 times; "Gatsby" is one of the novels I have read at least once a year for the past 56 years, ever since I read it in high school; while I enjoy Baz Luhrmann's transformations of "Moulin Rouge" and "Romeo and Juliet," Scott Fitzgerald's novel is way beyond his reach; in fact, I am of the opinion that "Gatsby" is a novel that does not translate well to the screen at all.
As to this particular version of "Gatsby": DeCaprio is as miscast in the role of Gatsby as Alan Ladd was in an earlier version. The rest of the cast in the 2013 version is totally miscast, given the insights, attitudes, and revelations from the novel, to-wit: Jay Gatz's relationship with Dan Cody is hardly discussed in the novel (Dan Cody being nominally a figure representing the "wild west" historical values impressed on the young Gatz--Daniel Boone/Buffalo Bill Cody---and which he ultimately betrays through his association with Meyer Wolfsheim--played by an Indian actor no less--who represents Arnold Rothstein, the man who "fixed" the 1919 World Series and removed the luster from America's sport)--yet Cody has more than just a cameo role in this film and that clown who plays Wolfsheim is neither American nor Jewish; Daisy Fay (does anyone get the pun on her name?) is sooooo vacuous a character that one wonders what Gatsby desires her for, except the social standing he so desperately craves and the money her voice represents (remember what he tells Nick?--"Her voice has the sound of money")--and yet Luhrmann casts an actress who then tries to make something out of Daisy--why????; Nick acts not only as narrator but also as Greek Chorus in the novel, but "Peter Parker" (yes, I know the actor is really Toby McGuire) has neither the sophistication of someone who had gone to Yale with Tom Buchanan nor the cynical yet strangely sympathetic vision of the Nick Carraway who is telling this tale some years after it actually happened and who has the benefit of hindsight. Well, I could go on and on with the miscasting and the gross misinterpretations attributable to Luhrmann, but why bother? Bad enough he re-writes Fitzgerald's wonderful prose (compare how the novel opens--first three pages-- with the butchering job Luhrmann does in his script); what is worse, he has no idea what to do with the Valley of Ashes, Myrtle Wilson and her nutso cuckolded husband, and the ultimate mistaken identity murder that is the beginning of the end for Nick's sojourn from the Midwest to Long Island. And finally, it is bothersome that Luhrmann, who has such a wonderful sense of humor in both "Moulin Rouge" and "R&J" should be so clueless about all the humor in "Gatsby." From the novel's title (think circus or magic show introductions) through the comedy of the list of guests at Gatsby's party (see Nick's written parody of the Homeric catalog in the novel) to Klipspringer and other clownish characters throughout, the novel's story line suggests there there is a decidedly comic strain to the proceedings here, something which Luhrmann's film misses completely. There have been four film versions of this novel and not one them comes close to capturing the nuances and multi-faceted aspects of the novel. While it is true Scott Fitzgerald spent time in Hollywood writing story ideas and screen-plays, that was long after "Gatsby" had been published. His novel was not written with a cinematic vision; rather, if there is a novel that truly depicts the serio-comic aspects of the American character (we take ourselves far too seriously and make too much of things that the rest of the world laughs at), that novel may well be "The Great Gatsby." Luhrmann just lacks the sensibility to see or feel that quality in the novel. His screen version, from casting to scripting to tone, is just plain wrong. And to that reviewer who wrote that DiCaprio "nailed" the part of Gatsby, you really need to take a well-taught course in Scott Fitzgerald and another one in film studies.