Great Gatsby? Or Great Extraneous Extravaganza?

Having the background of a Creative Director in several creative ad agencies I’ve had the good fortune to be involved in the creation, design and production of many TV commercials. Some award winning some not, but it has given me insight into story-board design, casting, production techniques, and special effects. In other words, the inside appreciation of complicated art direction and optical ingenuity that is needed to pull off some breathtaking on-screen moments.

The point? Gatsby has a million of these! So many moments, so many scenes. Like a beautifully choreographed camera move; from over the shoulder, of someone gazing from inside a window, to zooming outside and seeing the expanse of spectacular manicured mansion-esque grounds, then flying beyond a dock across the waters to another mansion, right into a symmetrically perfect room where the person at the other end of that gaze, is unaware and sits and reflects, or the descent of hundreds of dressed to the nines, 1920’s jet-setters (way before jets) parading into the Gatsby grounds, serenaded by singers and musicians, all so perfect looking as if part of a dream sequence, all moving and acting in a way as to be noticed, but somehow not felt as quite real.

Every scene was a stereotype of our minds eye view of wealth and decadence, and even the lowest poverty of the 1920’s. Like the scene where a run down gas station is in the “poor” part of town, where every person seemed filthy with ripped clothes and soot all over them; stereotype, or cartoon? I’m not sure.

Orgy-esque sequences; the spinning camera, as if it took a twenties camp poster and brought it to life, but life as caricatures, compared to being there with real people.

A beautiful wood tiled floor in a fantastic spiral pattern was the stage for a perfectly symmetrical dinning room, where 6 beautiful doors, in 6 arched doorways opened at the exact same time so as to allow 6 butlers to deliver dinner totally in synch, like a water ballet.

The visual impression was amazing, a true feast for the eyes, but sometimes you get to that point where you feasted beyond capacity. Or was it like being presented with dish after mouth-watering dish, but no silver ware to dine with? Where was the story? The complicated scenes were stretched to the nth degree. I wanted some simplicity, some meaningful dialogue.

In the first half of the movie, there were hardly any simple scenes that had the simplicity of just 2 characters talking and learning about each other, or the audience learning about them for that matter.

Yes, the story is told through Nick Carraway, writing for the sake of therapeutic purposes (encouraged by a psychiatrist), and eventually there are scenes with Nick & Gatsby alone talking, but cryptic at first and only minor hints of anything of substance or truth. We learn that Nick is studious and ethical and moral, even as a stockbroker in the booming twenties.

Yes, after awhile you learn why this Gatsby tries to be anonymous, and that the lavish partying with no invitations are means to try to get his real love Daisy (who is Nicks Cousin), to come to his mansion and see the man she was in love with, before he went off to war, and how well he had done.

Why would a man that has everything, more money than “God” as they say, be so obsessed with a woman who didn’t wait for him and has a life and kids with a Polo star (who is somehow, also wealthy beyond wealthy-but unexplained).

Why did he go to such lengths to get her to find him? Why did he need Nick to con Daisy into coming to have “Tea” with Nick, and then for Gatsby to surprise her by showing up there? And after this is set up, Gatsby with all his confidence and money gets scared and almost bolts? It all didn’t quite compute to me.

There were other things that didn’t quite compute. Like why spend so much time and effort and “money” duplicating the houses, the landscapes, the city, cars, clothes, signage, and the language of the golden twenties, only to throw-in “hip-hop’ songs and ‘”R&B” songs of today, into those scenes of yesteryear??? A total disconnect for me. Was this an attempt to lure the younger audience to liken itself to an era that they know nothing about? It felt like cheap lore, a snippet of Gouda on the trap for a field mouse.

What of the main character “Nick Carraway”, the character telling the story about Gatsby. How did he get there (because of his cousin?) Not clear. Just by chance he moves into a little cottage that is in the shadows of Gatsby’s huge mansion? Why, even though he was at endless wild Gatsby parties that he was invited to and the singular Tom-Buchanan-orgyesque-get-together he was forced into but eventually enjoyed…why had he showed no interest in any relationship with women. Yet obsessed with knowing more of glowing almost naïve positivity of Jay Gatsby. Even after finding out that Gatsby’s wealth was from a long involvement in the underworld of speakeasies and bootlegging, he does not distance himself from him…Nick was the opposite. Why the fascination? Was he attracted to him?

All he talked about was Gatsby. Discussed nothing about himself.

Well, after hooking Daisy back up with Gatsby, and letting this torrid renewed but hidden love affair not only take place but gain steam, now Nick has to hear of Gatsby’s obsession of having Daisy tell Tom she never loved him and is leaving him for Gatsby….

The most meaningful scene where all the hidden affairs, the who loves who, and the truth about Gatsby’s wealth comes out. Is when the blow-up happens in the Plaza hotel, where Daisy feels the 5 of them, her, Tom, Gatsby, Nick and Jordan, can have a great time…and divert Gatsby from his insistent “tell all” to Tom about their hidden love.

It’s the culmination of all the obsessive behavior of Gatsby, who finds out that Daisy did not love him always and that she did love Tom for a time, and Tom gloats and Gatsby gets steamed, and Tom comes out with the illicit way that Gatsby got his money and that Gatsby’s tales of being born into a wealthy mid-west family were all lies. Gatsby becomes enraged to the point of nose-to-nose confrontation and the almost bludgeoning Tom. This was a powerful scene. This was frightening to Daisy, Gatsby’s obsession that she could not love Tom even in the past and that Gatsby could almost kill someone who talks about his poor beginnings, this seem to draw the line for Daisy. She asks Tom for them to leave.

Why is Jordan there?

Who was Jordan Park, the modelesque-female-golfer, and friend of Daisy Buchanan. She was always around Daisy and Tom. Did she live with them? Was she just Daisy’s friend??? Why was the first time you saw her was in this zoom into a room, covered in sheer white flowing curtains that first look as if it was hiding furniture and everything in it and then through blowing subtle winds somehow disappear into the corners of the scene as flow over Jordan’s and Daisy’s beautiful legs revealed in the air from behind an elegant couch. All as if a prelude to a lesbian tryst…yet it’s just a way to introduce Daisy to us all.

As a climax that follows the Plaza scene, Tom tells Daisy & Gatsby, with confidence of her being true to their marriage and that she won’t run away with Gatsby, that they should take Gatsby’s car home. Then there’s the accidental killing of Tom’s lover Myrtle, and we’re supposed to believe that Daisy was driving. Why? Because Gatsby said, “she felt it would calm her nerves”. Really, most people that are upset usually the last thing they want to do is to drive at night on dirt roads.

If she did run Myrtle over, she was not the type of person that would run from a scene of the crime that she committed.

Yes, Tom convinces Myrtle’s husband that it was Gatsby who ran her over and who was having an affair with her. So as Gatsby waits for Daisy to call, to agree to runaway with her, he’s shot by Myrtle’s husband. Daisy was never going to call.

Why he would think she would at that point is beyond me too.

Then his funeral where only the press came, for gossip sake, (hundreds of people came to his parties but NO friends at the funeral, or to see the body?? Absurd! And why did Daisy never even come to Gatsby’s funeral? Yes, you can decide not to run away with someone and stay with your husband, but you were to his parties with your husband and there’s no suspicion now. Not to come the funeral?

OK, I understand that Nick has gotten to know Gatsby and is upset that he was shot, but to such an extent to be distraught and even angry that he had no-friends that came the funeral? He was used by Gatsby to set up an affair with his cousin. Gatsby was the opposite of himself, but was he someone that Nick wanted to be? Or be with?

So is a movie good if it entertains the eyes and makes you wonder about some of the events and conclusions of a story? Or is it bad if it’s self indulgent and frustrating if you feel things don’t line up the right way, or end on a cloudy unclear note?

Just had to put this out there.