{"id":35479,"date":"2013-05-10T09:12:22","date_gmt":"2013-05-10T16:12:22","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/uprisingradio.org\/home\/?p=35479"},"modified":"2013-05-10T09:12:22","modified_gmt":"2013-05-10T16:12:22","slug":"rethink-reviews-the-great-gatsby","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/uprisingradio.org\/home\/2013\/05\/10\/rethink-reviews-the-great-gatsby\/","title":{"rendered":"ReThink Reviews: The Great Gatsby"},"content":{"rendered":"<ul class=\"inline-playlist playlist\" title=\"\"><li><a href=\"https:\/\/archive.org\/download\/THEGREATGATSBYKPFK12\/THE%20GREAT%20GATSBY%20KPFK_1-2.mp3\">Listen to this segment <\/a><\/li><\/ul>\n<p><a href =\"http:\/\/www.rethinkreviews.net\"><img decoding=\"async\" align=right width=55% src=\"\/home\/graphics\/rethink_reviews_small.jpg\" alt=\"Rethink Reviews\" \/><\/a><strong>Taking a deeper look at current and past films and how they relate to the world today. <\/strong>  <\/p>\n<p><em>Jonathan Kim is an independent film critic who writes and produces film reviews for Uprising and other outlets. He is a former co-producer at Brave New Films. <\/em>  <\/p>\n<p> Read his reviews online at <a href=\"http:\/\/ReThinkReviews.net\">ReThinkReviews.net<\/a>. Watch his videos at <a href=\"http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/user\/jsjkim\">www.youtube.com\/user\/jsjkim<\/a>, and follow him on Twitter at <a href=\"http:\/\/twitter.com\/ReThinkReviews\">twitter.com\/ReThinkReviews<\/a>. ReThink Reviews&#8217; theme song is by <a href=\"http:\/\/www.myspace.com\/restaurantmusic\">Restavrant<\/a>.    <\/p>\n<p><strong>THE GREAT GATSBY<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>F. Scott Fitzgerald\u2019s book \u2018The Great Gatsby\u2019 is considered one of America\u2019s greatest novels. It\u2019s been adapted for the big and small screen with limited success, with many claiming it to be unfilmmable due to Fitzgerald\u2019s conspicuously artsy prose. So there\u2019s a lot of potential in the idea of Baz Luhrmann, a director known for over-the-top spectacle, tackling this story and attempting to translate Fitzgerald\u2019s words with the color, vibrance, quick pace, and glamor Luhrmann became known for with his period mash-up musical, \u2018Moulin Rouge!\u2019 Or all that glitz and style, in 3D to boot, could be a distraction to this tragic, uniquely American tale of greed, love lost, pasts hidden, and the emptiness of wealth. And that\u2019s what I think happened with the 2013 version of \u2018The Great Gatsby\u2019.<\/p>\n<p>Set in the roaring 20s, the story is narrated by Nick Carraway, an aspiring Wall Street bond salesman played by Tobey Maguire. Nick rents a cottage on Long Island next to a mega-mansion owned by Jay Gatsby, a millionaire with a mysterious past played by Leonardo DiCaprio who\u2019s known for throwing extravagant parties every weekend attended by the toast of New York. \u2018Moulin Rouge!\u2019 fans will love these early party scenes, which are filled with era-mashing dance music, beautiful period outfits, confetti, and wild dancing. However, they\u2019re short-lived, since it\u2019s learned that these parties are only thrown to lure Daisy Buchanan, Nick\u2019s second cousin (played by Carey Mulligan) who lives across the bay from Gatsby in a mansion owned by her husband, Tom, an old money polo star, philanderer, and white supremacist played by Joel Edgerton.<\/p>\n<p>Turns out that Gatsby and Daisy fell in love years earlier, with Gatsby vowing to return from World War I and marry her when he had enough money. To do this, he fabricated a new identity and back story to hide his humble roots, becoming so consumed with amassing greater and greater wealth that he neglected to return to Daisy, who eventually gave up on him and married Tom. Nick and Daisy\u2019s friend Jordan (played by Elizabeth Debicki) help reunite Gatsby and Daisy, setting up a love triangle between Gatsby, Daisy, and Tom, with Gatsby urging Daisy to move into his mansion and pretend that her marriage to Tom never happened.<\/p>\n<p>A lot has been made about the fact that \u2018The Great Gatsby\u2019 is a \u201cserious\u201d 3D movie for adults, and in case you\u2019re wondering, yes, it is a distraction, as is a lot of the signature style Luhrmann brings to the film, which is constantly drawing attention to itself and away from the story. The soundtrack \u2014 which features rap, old-timey-sounding covers of recent hits, techno club music, and new songs \u2014 seems more designed to sell the soundtrack than inform the scenes, where you\u2019ll find yourself pulled out of a moment wondering, \u201cWait, is that an old-timey cover of Beyonc\u00e9\u2019s \u2018Crazy In Love\u2019?\u201d The 3D and the widespread use of computer-generated scenery gives the movie a feeling of unreality, which might help if \u2018The Great Gatsby\u2019 was more of a fable. But the story of Gatsby is an idiosyncratic, distinctly American one, whose themes fit with modern times but are not well served by the film.<\/p>\n<p>In many ways, Gatsby embodies the American dream, disowning his past and reinventing himself in pursuit of wealth, ostensibly so he can marry Daisy. But is the dark side of that dream the fact that Gatsby seems to have become consumed by his money, unwilling to give it up or stop pursuing more for the woman he\u2019s supposedly amassing it for? Or that the upper crust Gatsby has struggled to emulate are largely portrayed as jerks who contribute nothing to society? Is Gatsby\u2019s confidence that Daisy will disavow her marriage a function of naivety, being a romantic, what Nick calls Gatsby\u2019s \u201cextraordinary gift for hope\u201d, or that Gatsby was successfully able to ignore his own past? Or has Gatsby been in the bubble of wealth so long that he simply expects to get whatever he wants, an indictment of the dehumanizing effects of wealth and power? While DiCaprio does a great job and reaffirms himself as perhaps the most watchable and intense actor of his generation, Luhrmann\u2019s adaptation feels like too much style for those wanting substance, and not enough pizzazz for those wanting \u2018Moulin Rouge! 2\u2019.<\/p>\n<p>&#8216;The Great Gatsby&#8217; is rated PG-13 and opens today.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Taking a deeper look at current and past films and how they relate to the world today. Jonathan Kim is an independent film critic who writes and produces film reviews for Uprising and other outlets. He is a former co-producer at Brave New Films. Read his reviews online at ReThinkReviews.net. Watch his videos at www.youtube.com\/user\/jsjkim, [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[33],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-35479","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-rethink-reviews"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/uprisingradio.org\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35479","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/uprisingradio.org\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/uprisingradio.org\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/uprisingradio.org\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/uprisingradio.org\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=35479"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/uprisingradio.org\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35479\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":35480,"href":"https:\/\/uprisingradio.org\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35479\/revisions\/35480"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/uprisingradio.org\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=35479"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/uprisingradio.org\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=35479"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/uprisingradio.org\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=35479"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}