Brick

I knew a Jay Gatsby.

We were in grade school in Fort Smith, Arkansas, and stayed close through high school. It prob­a­bly wasn’t until junior high when I saw this trait of his — sim­ply put it’s a per­son sure he can buy friends with money. But that is so sim­ple it sounds socio­pathic, when it’s the most nat­ural impulse, encour­aged by the praise heaped gen­er­ally on the virtue of gen­eros­ity. I’ve spot­ted it in other peo­ple, either full-onset or the tendency.

I don’t recall tying the per­son­al­ity to the clas­sic novel by F. Scott Fitzger­ald any time that I have read it or the sev­eral times I’ve attempted to sit through the earnest Robert Red­ford vehi­cle. But the real­ity of the psy­cho­log­i­cal impulse is obvi­ous in the unusual yet suc­cess­ful approach taken by direc­tor and co-screenwriter Baz Luhrmann.

The Great Gatsby is a great motion pic­ture this spring.

Those who crit­i­cize it, those I’ve read at any rate, have a film shot in their minds from the vivid but reflec­tive lit­tle book, and this isn’t it.

The vol­ume is quiet, a noisy story told in hind­sight by the third wheel, Nick Car­raway — the other wheels being Gatsby and Daisy Buchanan, Nick’s cousin whom Jay loves but whom World War I and ambi­tion separated.

This movie is loud, with decid­edly non-Jazz Age music used. Maybe music writ­ten 80–90 years later would be jar­ring to review­ers with sen­si­bil­i­ties as ten­der is the night.

I’m not sure how rap star Shawn “Jay-Z” Carter, who scored the film, suc­ceeds, but he blends the lat­est pop tunes with stan­dards writ­ten by Gersh­win and oth­ers of the 1920s — some “per­formed” by a looka­like of a young Cab Cal­loway, (Gersh­win mod­eled the drug dealer Sportin’ Life in his Porgy and Bess on the band­leader).

The musi­cal smor­gas­bord gives authen­tic­ity, not to the times but to the time­less story of youth and lust and love and greed. This most Amer­i­can novel is taught as hav­ing painted unique Yan­kee char­ac­ters, espe­cially that com­ing out of the 19th cen­tury, but Charles Dick­ens or Vic­tor Hugo would’ve known them.

Mad Men’s Don Draper is very much this century’s Jay Gatsby, set a half-century ago. We may see our­selves most clearly with a lit­tle distance.

If Gatsby the book is a clas­sic it is because of the eter­nal­ness of its story and char­ac­ters. Thus, Hollywood’s choice is to honor the pre-Depression glitz, but as the actors and audi­ence are us, and get today’s soundtrack.

The script acknowl­edges the time gap by hav­ing char­ac­ters see Gatsby’s habit of call­ing any­one “old sport” as being behind the times, theirs or ours.

The look of this motion pic­ture is that of Fran­cis Ford Cop­pola, not so much the God­fa­ther movies but The Cot­ton Club and even Apoc­a­lypse Now — the color palette, long and tight shots, and cuts. I saw the 2-D ver­sion because of the day and hour I chose, but I under­stand the inten­tion of why it was shot 3-D. This story com­prises a com­plex fable, which should have that larger-than-life magic that the 3-D look provides.

Luhrmann’s wife, Cather­ine Mar­tin, deserves Oscars for both cos­tumes and pro­duc­tion design. There won’t be better-dressed movie sets or actors this year.

What gives Gatsby real­ism isn’t the lone­li­ness implied in gain­ing friends-at-any-cost, but his shy­ness. Daisy has her lay­ers, too.

Have I known any Daisys? That may be the point of the book and at least this film ver­sion, a proof-text of the care­less­ness of the rich and the dif­fer­ence between rich­ness and wealth. Gatsby is merely wealthy (1st-generation nou­veau riche).

Is Nick an authen­tic stereo­type? Sure. I’m a Nick. Lots of writ­ers are.

Car­raway in the book and cer­tainly this mov­ing pic­ture, and per­haps the pre­vi­ous film attempts, has scant com­plex­ity. He is Fitzgerald’s vehi­cle through which the romance can be told.

Thus I am not both­ered by the biggest change from the book, plac­ing Nick in “Perkins San­i­tar­ium,” for alco­holism treat­ment a few years later, telling his ther­a­pist — Dr. Perkins — the saga first orally then at the doc’s sug­ges­tion in writ­ing — mak­ing the show a series of flashbacks.

A novel’s nar­ra­tion can just hap­pen; in a movie there needs to be a rea­son. Big deal — it gives Luhrmann a way to bring out Fitzgerald’s stately prose out­side of dia­logue. Plus it hon­ors Scott’s famed edi­tor Max Perkins. Heck, this doc­tor in a late scene arranges a sleep­ing Nick’s pages — edit­ing, in other words.

In between is know­ing of the bits of auto­bi­og­ra­phy that Fitzger­ald planted here and in some other sto­ries. Luhrmann shows echoes both of South­ern belle Zelda in Daisy and a whis­per of their daugh­ter Scottie.

The other allu­sion is nearly a dis­trac­tion, the water motif played against the actor who plays Gatsby, Leonardo DiCaprio. After all, he was the tragic hero of Titanic from 1997. DiCaprio dis­ap­pears in this vul­ner­a­ble performance.

Tobey Maguire is the per­fect Stingo of this story (Peter MacNichol’s nar­ra­tor in the 1982 screen ver­sion of Sophie’s Choice).

Carey Mul­li­gan more than matches the men, so strong as Daisy in that her weak­ness — not obvi­ous for quite a while — also was hid­den to Gatsby. Or is that fault evil?

I don’t often see movies twice, Old Sport, but I’ll spring the extra $3 for those 3-D glasses to see the Luhrmann Gatsby again.