On this pickup episode of Not Just a Movie, Timmie talks about director Baz Luhrmann’s (2013) film, The Great Gatsby, and the long history of Gatsby adaptations as cinematic flops.
Topic(s)
I. Book by F. Scott Fitzgerald
II. Film Adaptations
A. 1974 version by Jack Clayton: Starring Sam Waterson, Mia Farrow, and Robert Redford, and written by Francis Ford Coppola
B. 2000 TV adaptation by Robert Markowitz: Starring Toby Stephens, Paul Rudd, and Mira Sorvino
III. Critic and Public Receptions
A. Is this story “un-filmable?”
IV. My Rating of the Newest Adaptation
V. What I liked
A. Casting
Leonardo DiCaprio as Jay Gatsby
Carey Mulligan as Daisy Buchanan
Joel Edgerton as Tom Buchanan
Tobey Maguire as narrator, Nick Carraway
B. The Decadence of the fantasy world that Gatsby creates for Daisy
C. Music: A combination of modern and traditional tracks
D. The Story
VI. What I Didn’t Like
A. First look at NYC
B. Setting Carraway in the institution
C. Overuse of fast/action camera work throughout the film
D. Excessive driving scenes
E. Hitting the audience over the head with symbolism
F. Tobey Maguire’s hair part
VII. Why Do Critics Hate This Adaptation?
VIII. Why the Critics Are Being Too Harsh
III. The Out(tro)
Audio Editing
This show was edited by Ryan Jacobi. Follow him on Twitter.
N-JAM Team
Timmie is a vocalist, pianist, and teacher that podcasts and
writes about media in her spare time. She’s hoping to incorporate both of her passions in an endeavor she’s calling Lost: The Musical. Official release date TBD.
Michael, always thought to spend too much time watching TV, reading books, playing video games, and looking up random facts on the internet, has finally decided to put his plethora of seemingly useless information to good use in audio format. He co-hosted a very successful 10 episode run of a video game show called the Go!Cast and loves to get involved in long-winded and deep discussions on media. He lives alone with his turtle, Squirt, and they play Cranium every Thursday night. Michael always wins.
Ryan is a picture/sound editor. You can see some of his work over at Scruffy.TV as well as two documentaries in progress, We Breathe Again and American Communion. When he isn’t editing, Ryan enjoys watching films with his canine and feline sons, Ewan and Figaro. He becomes frustrated when they choose to screen Glee over Godard.
