December
19The Great Gatsby Trap
MEMO:
TO: Baz Lurhmann
FROM: Peter Bart
As you complete your final promotional lap on “Australia,” Baz, you’ve let it be known that you now intend to take on another tough subject: A movie based on F. Scott Fitzgerald’s novel, “The Great Gatsby.”
My advice (unsolicited) on Gatsby can be summed up in two words: Think again.
Gatsby has been the basis for three movies, a play and even an opera and it never works. Having lived through one of the movies in 1974, I have some theories on why. I’m sure you don’t want to hear them but here they are:
There’s no story. Gatsby is an ill-formed character. Fitzgerald’s gorgeous writing doesn’t translate to the screen (neither did Hemingways).
The upshot: The 1974 project (which starred Mia Farrow and Robert Redford) ended up being a sell in search of a movie. Time Magazine picked up on this with its 1974 cover story entitled “The Great Gatsby Supersell.”Pauline Kael, the heralded critic, once wrote: “Though the dreamy crushes of Fitzgerald’s doomed heroes are very appealing on the page, they don’t come across the screen.” Her comment was in response to another failed Fitzgerald epic, “The Last Tycoon,” directed by Elia Kazan.
The folks who shot “Benjamin Button” were smart enough to veer sharply away from the Fitzgerald short story on which it was based. They apparently “got” the Kael critique.
Fitzgerald projects always start with a dream. Ali MacGraw, then a superstar and Robert Evans’ wife, loved the novel and wanted to play the lead. Evans wanted to make it. His boss, Frank Yablans, was hesitant. At the time, Yablans was an innovative distribution man who had risen to the Paramount presidency, but he and Evans (who had once played Irving Thalberg in a movie) were often at odds. As Yablans remembers it, Evans promised a cast of Warren Beatty, Jack Nicholson and Ali.
Evans remembers it differently. He says (and Time Magazine stated it, too) that Beatty wanted to direct and asked Evans to play Gatsby. In any case, that plan didn’t work, nor did the Nicholson gambit.
Truman Capote was hired to write the script. All he did for his $100,000 payday was type the novel. I called Francis Coppola to start over and his draft was superb. I assumed we would go after Brando to play Gatsby – after all, Coppola and Brando had proved a damned good combination on “The Godfather.”
But things got weird. Ali MacGraw, who’d started the whole thing disappeared into the hills with Steve McQueen. Suddenly the Gatsby cast consisted of Redford and Mia Farrow and the director was a Brit named Jack Clayton.
The final movie was brilliantly marketed, but it was all style and no substance. The film grossed $20.6 million in the U.S., roughly $85.6 million in today’s dollars, which was better than the paltry $2 million grossed by “The Last Tycoon.” But it was like a rich souffle that lacked flavor and didn’t quite rise to expectations.
Baz, you may do better. You bring a great verve and flair to your films. But Gatsby can be a trap. An expensive trap.
Give it another think.
(Australia Photo by Evan Agostini AP)
Subscribe to Peter Bart's Blog Feed
Commenter J P THILGES:
Those ads you describe are from malware programs on your computer.
Since anybody that has been a regular on these sites knows the ad would read "For your consideration, try Vimax for an Oscar worthy performance."
Posted by: Lurker | 12/29/2008 6:21:40 PM
Loved Gatsby, Redford and Farrow were luminous and compelling. Sorry it didn't make all the money Hollywood expeced, but it was a GREAT novie!
Posted by: Dallen | 12/29/2008 1:35:53 AM
Dear Pete
Thoughtful bit but I disagree with yur summary of Gatsby being an ill-formed charachter. He was vain, shallow and wealthy. What's so ill-formed about that?
Posted by: roccoco | 12/28/2008 4:15:14 PM
Talking about subtleness...
and yes, I am off topic,
how comes everytime I surf onto Variety's excellent site,
you want me to surprise "her" with a bigger "p...s." (Sorry, your site doesn't allow this expression in readers' comments).
I do not mind advertising on the net or, for that matter, on Variety, but this is getting a bit tiresome...I cannot believe that Vimax is the only advertiser you can find for your site.
Posted by: J P THILGES | 12/28/2008 2:53:27 AM
Typical Bart. "I failed, and I'm great, so you will fail." Baz Lurhmann has creative vision; no one knows yet how he plans to create this movie.
Posted by: yomama | 12/25/2008 9:12:16 PM
This year's season of "Californication" used a very Gatsbyesque plot structure (with the Rockstar Lew Ashbey in a role very comprable to that of Fitzgerald's Gatsby). That worked well enough, especially as a modern parallel (though obviously comparing a showtime comedy to a literary masterpiece is bit of a stretch). Nevertheless it worked. Not saying it will work as a feature film though.
By the way, what is this sudden fascination with Gatsby? Its mentioned in "Entourage", the "Californication" parallels, now this?
Posted by: Vic from Seattle | 12/25/2008 12:40:16 AM
I have to disagree with you all; Clayton's Gatsby, and particularly Mia's performance, remain among the most vastly underrated cinematic masterpieces of the last few decades. I'm transported every time I view it (and I've viewed it many times). It is that very rare adaptation that doesn't cheapen the source material.
Posted by: Joe | 12/23/2008 1:14:23 PM
A bit off the topic, but I am so annoyed that people keep dumping on Australia. Because of the bad reviews I didn''t rush out to see it and now I realise that was a mistake. Its not a masterpiece but it is a good movie, a different movie. Most of the people on the net who think they know how to review movies are so programmed into the type of movies they are supposed to like that they support completely boring, unenthusiastically shot, everyday oscar-bait films. I think a good example would be Michael Clayton, a waste of a time film that was not worth the admission fee, supported by online critics. Anyone who has not seen Australia yet take the risk and suspend your disbelief because you will see a film that will live far longer than the Michael Claytons and Capotes of the world.
Posted by: Rogers | 12/23/2008 4:10:55 AM
Fitzgerald always fails? Maybe, but we'll never know whether the 1926 version is as sterile as 1974's. Only the trailer remains--it's on the Treasures from American Film Archives DVD set--but it looks spectacular.
Posted by: JDConor | 12/22/2008 10:17:15 PM
Pete, sorry to be off subject, but all the best of the Season to you and Your Family!
Jack
Posted by: jack | 12/22/2008 8:04:53 PM
Luhrmann would be a horrifying choice. He's a flashy, sledgehammer director--exactly wrong for a story that's all about what goes unsaid, is taken for granted, et al. "Gatsby" has taken enough abuse already.
In recent years the 1974 film's cinematographer said that the late Jack Clayton's original three-hour cut played much better, even faster--but Paramount insisted on cutting it down to fit in more showtimes per day. With the nuances and careful pacing lost, it then played like an empty, sluggish pictorial exercise. Damn, I wish it were possible to see that original cut.
Posted by: snerk | 12/22/2008 6:56:47 PM
If Baz does a Fincher and tries to make a visual equivalent to F. Scott's beautiful words, he may have a movie on his hands. He need to unlearn all the tricks and methods he used in "Australia" and just go back to telling visually vibrant stories on film.
Basically, I think Baz is more than capable if he keeps his head on straight. He needs to not do everything he did in "Australia".
Posted by: Rosko | 12/22/2008 1:58:10 PM
I completely agree. Fitzgerald's text is too subtle to display on film. It is an internal story. Regardless of casting, direction & promotion. It is pure arrogance and folly for Baz Lurhman to think with his hyperactive style to capture the depth and complexities of the story. Some things are better left alone.
Posted by: M | 12/22/2008 10:39:01 AM
'The Last Tycoon' may have been a box office flop, but the film shimmers with a special light, and grows in stature with each viewing. It is well worth re-visiting. Fitzgerald's undercurrents, and his fascination with an industry that rejected him, are all there. Even Mitchum's tough Mayer-like character rings true.
The film is a minor masterpiece that deserves re-discovery.
Posted by: Arye Michael Bender | 12/22/2008 9:44:16 AM
Does anyone have the Coppola adaptation or know how to get it?
email me a pdf or similar at bald-eagle@roadrunner.com and I'll send you a Urth Cafe giftcard!
Posted by: Sean from LA | 12/21/2008 8:06:21 PM
In his book "Which Lie Did I Tell?", William Goldman says he still believes that Francis Coppola's 1974 Gatsby screenplay is "one of the great adaptions." He believes that director Jack Clayton's approach and attitude to the material is one key reason for the failure. I would add the miscasting and mishandling of Mia Farrow.
Posted by: roy from canada | 12/19/2008 7:55:20 PM