A few quick observations about the most recent Gatsby remake. More like leads for further analysis than conclusions of any sort.
First 20mins were somewhat annoying,I thought, as the film starts off on a very clip-like note, and does not really shift pace till more than a quarter hour through.
Will definitely need to rewatch, but can easily say that 70% of any merit in the movie comes from Leo DiCaprio, and another 10% or more from the set and costume designs.
When examining any cultural text, the viewer has to consider two main questions:
- What makes the text possible
- What makes the text necessary
The former refers to the founding narrative - if a true story, then the fact of its having occurred would be what makes the text as representation possible. For example, with no 1972 Munich Olympics terrorist attack, there is no Spielberg's Munich.
The latter refers to the reason or the need behind the text - to continue in the same vein, why did Spielberg "need" to make a film about the Munich attack in 2005? Why is it required, in terms of the societal/symbolic force that necessitates a treatment of the bygone event? And why specifically at that time and place - what current or recent events chime and resonate with the preceding event?
But back to Luhrmann's Gatsby.
The basic idea of the-Poor-killing-the-Poor (mechanic shooting Gatsby to avenge death of his Poor wife) while the rich and morally corrupt are left to indulge in their vices, is an obvious link to post-2008 economic crisis realities. Having said that, I'll definitely need another viewing and some further analysis to understand how, exactly (is Buchanan as a symbol of Old Money an allegory to big business, like the car industry and banks, who got bailed out post-2008 and thereafter were left unreformed? By that same token, who is Gatsby/New Money in the current 2000s settings?)
I also have to wonder who is Luhrmann's Indian-looking Jewish bad guy Wolfshiem? Is that an allusion to Bernie Madoff? Hmm.
Many explicit mentions of Afro-Americans taking on airs, which I assume come from the novel (I'll have to read that then... GASP! No, I've not read it). However, so many images of "uppity" Afro-Americans,and such heavy use of current "black" music in the score - I have to wonder how much of this is Luhrmann, and what he was trying to say by including such content.
Are these references to the 1990s and 2000s, with the factual increase in social mobility of African-Americans, accompanied by the rise of African-American entertainers to the apex of popular culture in the US, conquering a big piece of symbolic capital? Not sure I can fully elaborate quite yet on how Luhrmann links this to the moral decadence of the times, or the consequences of the moral decadence - the financial/economic crisis. Will have to give this more thought.
One interesting motif is the broken pearl necklace.
A clear libidinal signifier (one needs only consider the sexually charged slang meaning of 'pearl necklace'), it is given a dialectical twist by Fitzgerald - in as much as a necklace is not phallic.
Tom Buchanan seals the fate of two of the significant women in his life - by giving them a pearl necklace (very much like a leash around their necks); Daisy has to marry him in exchange for it, and Myrtle gets in trouble with her caveman husband, when he finds the necklace Tom's given her.
Specifically, Daisy's necklace breaks when she refuses to marry into money over true love - only to be meticulously rejoined by her cold and calculating mother. And Myrtle dies as she's hit by Gatsby's car, at the same time breaking the necklace.
Ignoring the burden of more thorough interpretation, at least for the time being, I have to quote another broken pearl necklace that signifies death to the woman who received and wore it - Bruce Wayne/Batman's mother.
Attaching shots from Frank Miller's legendary The Dark Knight Returns, depicting the torn pearl necklace.
The motif appears in Nolan's Batman Begins, and I understand that Batman fanatics have detected a recurrence of the same necklace on Anne Hathaway's/Catwoman's slender swan-like collar too.
