The Great Gatsby

[SteveB]

I caught the last ten minutes of the movie while I was waiting for another movie to start. From what little I saw of it, it looked pretty good. I remember reading the novel when I was really young, but I don't remember pretty much all of it.

So, really I don't know why I'm even writing. Maybe this post is empty and meaningless just like the American Dream!

[Rum]

Well I went to see this today - in 3D no less. Rotten Tomatoes don't on the whole like it but possibly the most knowledgeable movie critic I know, Mark Kermode (http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/markkermode/) sort of did.

As Hades said, if you liked Moulin Rouge you will get some idea of the style, though it wasn't as wildly over the top in terms of the look.

Personally I loved it. DiCaprio was excellent and the sense of period (despite using modern dance music in some of the party scenes!) was on the nose. The melodrama was well done, if a bit over acted in one or two places. . And although a few liberties were taken with the plot - particularly the narrator the story was faithful to the book, especially its sense of loss and the hollowness of things. My only real criticism was the casting of Daisy. She didn't seem right.

Made a real change from the Iron Mans (Men?) and Science fiction of late.

Go see it!

[Audley Strange]

Don't fancy it, don't like Luhrmann's work so far, never seen any version of this or read the novel. Never read any Fitzgerald, which I'll have to remedy at some point. I've read some of the usual contenders of the "Great American Novel" but personally my own choices for contenders would be either Cormac McCarthy's Blood Meridian or Tom Wolfe's Electric Kool Aid Acid Test. Still since I'm not American I guess I don't get a vote.

Such a thing always peaks my interest, is there a novel that can define a soul of a nation?

[klr]

I remember seeing at least some of the 1974 version, which certainly had a strong cast - Robert Redford, Mia Farrow, Bruce Dern & Sam Sam Waterston.

[hadespussercats]

Don't fancy it, don't like Luhrmann's work so far, never seen any version of this or read the novel. Never read any Fitzgerald, which I'll have to remedy at some point. I've read some of the usual contenders of the "Great American Novel" but personally my own choices for contenders would be either Cormac McCarthy's Blood Meridian or Tom Wolfe's Electric Kool Aid Acid Test. Still since I'm not American I guess I don't get a vote.

Such a thing always peaks my interest, is there a novel that can define a soul of a nation?

Of course you get a vote.

I like "To Kill A Mockingbird" for that one. But you all probably knew that already.

Oh, and I love Luhrmann. Unabashed, in your face emotional manipulation through over-the-top visuals and nostalgia. Iz good.

[Seabass]

Such a thing always peaks my interest, is there a novel that can define a soul of a nation?

Nah. I reckon the "Great American Novel" is whichever American novel is being made into a blockbuster movie at any given time.