Thursday
Dec182008
Thursday, December 18, 2008 at 2:02PM Baz Luhrmann Takes On 'The Great Gatsby'
I was so looking forward to
Australia, as any regular Big Picture reader
knows, but man, was that thing a disappointment. The story ran amok, and it
could have been great had it chosen to be about one thing instead of three. The
ending felt ladled on and supremely unnatural. And I question director
Baz Luhrmann,
showing the beauty of his homeland, resorting to soundstages and digital effects
to alter the color of the sky.
But Baz is moving on, and according to Nikki Finke at Deadline Hollywood Daily, the next project on the horizon for Luhrmann is The Great Gatsby. If you've never read the book, you're not as enlightened as you should be. And in a way, F. Scott Fitzgerald was laying the tracks for a great movie, even if he didn't know it at the time. The same could be said of his short story that has become The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, which couldn't be made properly for decades.
They've tried Gatsby before, with Robert Redford and Mia Farrow, and it was a bit like Luhrmann's Australia, actually, more in love with itself than its characters or story. I didn't know that Francis Coppola wrote the screenplay for the 1974 film. Damn, he was busy that year, with Godfather II and The Conversation vying for Oscars at the same time. There are a few other adaptations, but none I've seen.
Anyway, it's an ideal project for a guy like Luhrmann, who purchased the rights that somehow just happened to be laying around. How does a producer worth his salt not already own this? Strange. The story could be updated - not that there's an indication that Luhrmann would - but I'd prefer to see it as a period piece, which is closer to the director's modus operandi.
Finke reports that Luhrmann is looking for a young actress to play Daisy, and she even throws out the name of Amy Adams, which is a pretty solid choice.
There needs to be a definitive version of this novel, so let's hope Luhrmann gets it done.
Reader Comments (4)
I guess you can't hit one out of the park every time, so let's hope Baz gets back to form. In addition to your less than favorable review, I had no fewer than three people call me on Thanksgiving to tell me that they saw Australia and it ruined their Turkey-Day.
I guess word of mouth can kill a movie in a hurry. I know I was looking forward to this movie as much as you were, but now I think I'd rather go see Delgo instead.
Oh, and as an after thought, what's with the F. Scott Fitzgerald kick in Hollywood? Sounds like Fincher has awakened something...are we going to start seeing a bunch of bankrolled pictures now?
If so I'd like to see "This Side of Paradise", perhaps his rawest novel. I'd say we need that more than Gatsby, again.
Still, if the 30's are back (and why shouldn't they be?, all things considered), then Keira Knightly, Nicole Kidman, and Angelina Jolie should be thrilled with all these adaptations coming down the pipeline.
Keira's making a kind of softly-factual Scott and Zelda biopic next year. The Beautiful and the Damned or some such thing.
Well, there definitely has to be a more updated version of this classic, I agree with you. But, I have to say, I am quite fascinated with the Robert Redford version, which I think captures the spirit of the novel beautifully. There is a lot of interesting trivia available online about the film. (You could check out Shmoop - literature study guide for across the board references to the film and the novel). For example, did you know that Warren Beatty, Jack Nicholson, and Steve McQueen were all approached to play Gatsby before settling on Robert Redford? Truman Capote was the original screenwriter for the film, till he was chucked out and Francis Ford Coppola took over. In fact, Coppola lived in “West Egg” while writing the screenplay (this was also the former residence of F. Scott Fitzgerald).