Nick (Tobey Maguire), Jay (Leonardo DiCaprio), Daisy (Carey Mulligan), and Tom (Joel Edgerton) are caught up in matters of the heart in THE GREAT GATSBY
THE GREAT GATSBY (Baz Luhrmann, 2013)
Pier I, Riverside Park South at 70th St.
Wednesday, July 22, free, 8:00
www.thegreatgatsby.warnerbros.com
www.nycgovparks.org
Baz Luhrmann’s sumptuous version of The Great Gatsby is a dazzling reimagining of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s 1925 novel of old and new money and the American dream. The Australian director and his wife, costume and production designer extraordinaire Catherine Martin, have turned the classic tale into a lush spectacle without losing focus on the main story of life and love during the Roaring Twenties. Leonardo DiCaprio, who played the male lead in Lurhmann’s contemporary take on Romeo + Juliet, is superb as Jay Gatsby, the mystery man previously portrayed by Warner Baxter in 1926, Alan Ladd in 1949, Robert Redford in 1974, and Toby Stephens in 2000, adding a compelling level of vulnerability to the character. Gatsby has built a magnificent palace for himself on Long Island, hosting wild parties that he doesn’t care about; all he truly wants is Daisy (Carey Mulligan), a former love who has married successful businessman Tom Buchanan (Joel Edgerton) and lives in a mansion right across the bay. The villainous Tom is having an affair with the lower-class Myrtle Wilson (Isla Fisher), whose unaware husband, George (Jason Clarke), runs a gas station and garage in the Valley of Ashes. Although a loner, Gatsby befriends his neighbor, Nick Carraway (Tobey Maguire), a young, innocent bond trader who rents a modest home at the base of Gatsby’s enormous estate and whose cousin just happens to be Daisy. As Carraway is sucked into this glamorous, debauched society, which also includes wild and elegant golf champion Jordan Baker (Elizabeth Debicki), he is forced to reexamine his own hopes and dreams as he tries to find his place in the world.
Baz Luhrmann throws one helluva party in his reimagining of THE GREAT GATSBY
Luhrmann and cowriter Craig Pearce have framed the tale by putting Carraway, the narrator of the book and film, in a sanitarium, where a doctor (Jack Thompson) convinces him that writing down what happened with Gatsby will help him overcome his alcoholism and depression; the device, which is not part of the novel, is based on Fitzgerald’s own time spent in a sanitarium. Luhrmann and Pearce, who did extensive research for the project, also include elements from Fitzgerald’s Trimalchio, the first draft of The Great Gatsby, which will certainly anger purists. Purists are also likely to be furious at the soundtrack, which features songs by Jay Z (one of the film’s producers), his wife, Beyoncé, André 3000, will.i.am, Lana Del Rey, Gotye, and the xx alongside Jazz Age re-creations by the Bryan Ferry Orchestra of Beyoncé’s “Crazy in Love” and Roxy Music’s “Love Is the Drug.” But this is not your high school English teacher’s Gatsby; instead, it’s F. Scott Fitzgerald for the twenty-first century, not meant to be seen through the billboard spectacles of oculist Dr. T. J. Eckleburg but through 3-D glasses that invite viewers into the oh-so-fashionable goings-on in eye-popping ways. “Is all this made entirely from your own imagination?” Daisy asks Gatsby at one point. In this case, it’s made from the minds of two wildly inventive men, Luhrmann and Fitzgerald, who together throw one helluva party. Nominated for two Academy Awards (for costume and production design), The Great Gatsby is screening July 22 as part of the free Summer on the Hudson Picture Show series in Riverside Park, which continues Wednesday nights through August 12 with Beasts of the Southern Wild on July 29, Moonrise Kingdom on August 5, and Dr. Seuss’ The Lorax on August 12 before concluding with The Fantastic Mr. Fox on August 13.