Gatsby Gliteratti

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By: Cynthia Litman

Pearl of the film: Fools Gold

I remember turning the pages of  F. Scott Fitzgerald's literary classic "The Great Gatsby" in high school but didn't recall much of it as I passed the flapper girls at the Gold Coast Film Festival's pre-screening of Baz Lurhmann's cinematic spin on "Gatsby" in the newly refurbished Soundview Cinemas in Port Washington.  

Gatsby illuminates Fitzgerald's pearl “No amount of fire or freshness can challenge what a man will store up in his ghostly heart.”

For when you lose your true love, especially a golden girl like Daisy Buchanan, sharply portrayed by Carrey Mulligan, your heart is haunted with memories of the past and pain of an empty future. Yet Gatsby held the space of hope for his parted love to slip effortlessly back into his life when he could properly present himself to her in grand old gilded age fairytale fashion. 

Gatsby himself a mystery cloaked in other's perception of what's desirable.  Inside Leonardo DiCaprio's Jay Gatsby was a boy, child like almost, portraying himself as a legend.

Hope remains a dangerous game. Gatsby is a gambling man with lofty ambition trapped inside an illusory world built for the sole purpose of feeling worthy - in a very class aware society - for love. Romantic? Or,  slightly demented?

Who are we to judge? 

Bonnie and Baz

Certainly a Baz Lurhmann film in feel, look and pace, yet tempered from the speedy Baz attack nature of "Moulin Rouge" and "Romeo and Juliet". Baz spectacularly captures the beauty, grandeur and reckless abandon of the time. I mean, no one throws a dazzling party scene quite like Baz.

Being a Long Island native and Port Washington resident, viewing the film in the heart of one of the Gatsby EGGs along the waters of the Gold Coast where the tales behind F. Scott Fitzgerald’s literary classic were lived deepened the 3D experience. 

As my friend Bonnie Zarabi eloquently said to Baz at the screening "you brought Gatsby home."

Le Entrance to the Hempstead House

Hempstead House

The mansions that inspired Baz's Gatsby uber mansions, including the famous Hempstead House, scene of the screening's after party, transport you to another space and time. The splendor of the architecture and the walls whispers of past company. 

Modern mansions will never be as romanticized as the castles of the past.

Although for reasons that quite don’t fly with this New York Lawyer, the film was shot on location in Australia where the mansions, pools and according to Baz "even the blades of grass were meticulously recreated”. 

Conveniently located 19 miles from Manhattan, Long Island was built to the kilt by the mega rich, usually as their second homes. Some mansions remain but many of the estates, including the infamous Lands End, were knocked down and subdivided into Villages of 5-10 1+acre homes each.

The economic crunch of our present era contrasted with the Old New York Wall Street scene in its glory bootlegging, flapper, post World War 1, Pre-Depression, pre-women's lib era was a fascinating  lesson.

Baz captured the stark contrast of the filthy rich, new money versus old money, and the just plain filthy bourgeoisie. 

These world's collide in increasingly sketchy ways, starting with Toby Maguire's pawn of a Nick Carroway's second drink and first lay.

Driving the space between the worlds laid the pavement for the Long Island Expressway, the pipeline via the Queensboro Bridge to Manhattan. The humble beginnings of Queens, the LIE and Old New York was an awesome recreation.  There, now Queens, the dusty town air is harder to breathe and the film brilliantly brings out the variety of lives lived through cameo windows into diverse worlds.

The curtains are waiting to be drawn back on the secrets and demons swirling each Gatsby character. Revealing themselves throughout the film during very tense awkward sophomoric moments and the constant re-telling of the story. Who knows what about whom is society's favorite Olympic old sport.

What's believed straddles the truth. However, for all the mystery hyped, much was painfully obvious and overdrawn.

Present Day Manhasset Bay

Leo's Gatsby goes mad over his lost love. For you must be mad to corrupt your soul for love.  The decadence of the era matched by moral ambivalence. Setting aside the believability of Leo going mad over a chick for a sec, each character's descent into madness sparks a return to "normalcy" in others.

Every fabulous party eventually ends with echoes of music in the halls, noteable quotables, darkened hearts and lingering ghosts.

The film is a roaring ride, rich but without the richness with some dips, emotional disconnects and plateaus.

Disclosure: No monetary compensation was provided for this post, rather, I was generously invited to this event and had a fabulous time getting my flapper on.

Mommas Pearls Meter: 2.5 (almost) 'Great Gatsby' Sized Pearls - but I'm kinda undecided.

Gatsby

Warner Brothers, Rated PG-13 

Directed by: Baz Luhrmann

143 min

Trailer  
*note scenes displaying violence, violence against women, drinking and driving