As a Fitzgerald fan, I'm excited. Baz Luhrmann is definitely the man for the job (Moulin Rouge, Romeo + Juliet). The trailer exceeds my expectations. . . with the only concern being the music.
But the city, the cars, the cast, the flappers -- it all looks gorgeous. Carey Mulligan gives me a little pause in the trailer, but she has the acting chops to pull it off.
Maybe if this does well, they'll film some of his other flicks. I'd love to see The Sun Also Rises, The Beautiful and the Damned, or a fleshed out version of the novella May Day.
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I have a feeling this is just going to be 'okay'. Gatsby is easily in my top five books of all time, and I think that's going to somehow ruin my enjoyment of this. Plus, Rome and Juliet was soooooo bad.
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It's about time! I was wondering when this trailer was going to come out. I've known about this for some time now, and the book is definitely one of my favorites. I can't wait!
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I have been told I deserve to be kicked out of English teacher club because I hate Fitzgerald.
Can't help it.
I had a choice on the course of study to either teach The Great Gatsby or a Heminway novel. I jumped on the Hemingway bandwagon with both feet, gladly. I had to teach a Fitzgerald short story instead, so I taught Winter Dreams.
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Yeah the biggest shock to me in this thread is that there really are actual people for whom The Great Gatsby is truly on their list of favorite novels.
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I've never read the book, and nothing I've heard about it makes me want to read it. I can't say the movie trailer looks interesting either. I can say that I hated that cover of U2's "Love Is Blindness", though.
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I know a lot of people who really enjoy the novel, but I've never seen the appeal; I guess I'm just not in the target demographic.
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Knowing that this is the director of Romeo+Juliet immediately turns me off. That movie's philosophy seemed to be "if people won't get the Shakespearean dialogue, throw a bunch of over-the-top scenery in their faces to make them think they understood something." The trailer for this movie makes me apprehensive that this approach will be retained.
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The pedigree of the acting gives me some degree of hope that elements of the source material will be respected, but it'd be foolish for me to think talented actors guarantee the quality of a film.
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Chalk me up as part of the unintended audience for the book. My favorite teacher in high school, who turned my entire track for college around, tried to help me appreciate Gatsby, and I was completely underwhelmed by it.
But he also brought me Grapes of Wrath and The Jungle, so he is more than forgiven.
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I loved the Great Gatsby. I loved the 80's version, and the 2000 version, both for different reasons.
I love how Baz Luhrman sees things. I LOVE Strictly Ballroom. I only watch Moulin Rouge on the bus through France on the way to or from Paris. I do enjoy it though.
I loved his Romeo and Juliet. I hate the story of Romeo and Juliet, though. Why do people think this is such a great love story? There was no loving relationship in this movie worth lauding. I do however show the opening to my world history kids to demonstrate how Shakespeare's themes are still valid today...but there's always 10 Things I Hate About You, too.
I'll go see it, just like I went and saw Dark Shadows. (Tim Burton's live action stuff is getting a bit...redundant?)
As far as the book goes, I like the mental and emotional struggles of Nick and his conclusions about the very rich and careless. I found it an interesting perspective. Not in my top 10 or even my top 20, but it's one I've reread a few times.
Blackblade: Just saw yours. I find your last post interesting because I really don't like John Steinbeck's writing style. And, I never finished The Jungle because I got too angry at how bad things got. (I do read parts of that to my US History students as an example of muckraking.) I wonder how many people who dislike Fitzgerald like Steinbeck and Sinclair (and Hemingway, like Belle). Are their writing styles similar? Is it content? Just wondering...
quote:Originally posted by BlackBlade: Chalk me up as part of the unintended audience for the book. My favorite teacher in high school, who turned my entire track for college around, tried to help me appreciate Gatsby, and I was completely underwhelmed by it.
I'd say that Gatsby for a teenager is about as appropriate as Catcher in the Rye would be for a pre-teen. There is a certain amount of living that has to be done before a book is relevant. Gatsby wouldn't have any power to someone who hasn't moved out on their own and participated in the class struggle.
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Catcher in the Rye is another one of those books for which I've never really understood all the laud and praise.
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Gatsby has a very good narrative. I really enjoyed the word choice, the poetry, and the depth of the characters.
Look at the closing lines, which are arguably its most famous:
"So we move on, boats against the currents, born back ceaselessly into the past".
Very cool line, in my opinion, and the book is filled with that kind of poetry. I really enjoy that kind of stuff.
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I hate Luhrmann, especially Moulin Rouge (most embarrassing movie to watch with another person in the room, especially the part when they're singing Smells Like Teen Spirit). But I have to admit that's a good trailer. And I like the cast. We'll just have to see.
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quote:Originally posted by BlackBlade: Chalk me up as part of the unintended audience for the book. My favorite teacher in high school, who turned my entire track for college around, tried to help me appreciate Gatsby, and I was completely underwhelmed by it.
I'd say that Gatsby for a teenager is about as appropriate as Catcher in the Rye would be for a pre-teen. There is a certain amount of living that has to be done before a book is relevant. Gatsby wouldn't have any power to someone who hasn't moved out on their own and participated in the class struggle.
I have zero in common with a dust bowl era farmer from Oklahoma too but Grapes was just fine for me.
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quote:Originally posted by BlackBlade: Chalk me up as part of the unintended audience for the book. My favorite teacher in high school, who turned my entire track for college around, tried to help me appreciate Gatsby, and I was completely underwhelmed by it.
I'd say that Gatsby for a teenager is about as appropriate as Catcher in the Rye would be for a pre-teen. There is a certain amount of living that has to be done before a book is relevant. Gatsby wouldn't have any power to someone who hasn't moved out on their own and participated in the class struggle.
I have zero in common with a dust bowl era farmer from Oklahoma too but Grapes was just fine for me.
I've never met Sauron, but I liked LOTR.....
Honestly, I know that for me some books are a lot better now that I am older. I always read way above my age and grade, but understanding something intellectually and understanding something because of related experiences are very different things.
I HATED A Tale of Two Cities" the first 2 times I read it. Didnt even finish it, and at that point in my life it was the ONLY book I never finished. Now, I love it. I got it on repetition. I had been trying to read it way too early, when I was 12 or so, and it just didn't resonate with me. When I revisited it at age 18, I got it. And when I read it again at 30, it was even better.
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quote:Originally posted by SteveRogers: Catcher in the Rye is another one of those books for which I've never really understood all the laud and praise.
I totally have to agree with you here. Big Phil's Kid is the same premise, but a lot funnier.
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quote:Originally posted by SteveRogers: Catcher in the Rye is another one of those books for which I've never really understood all the laud and praise.
I'm with you, Steve.
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I've read it every couple of years hoping to finally be in the target audience with the life experiences for something about it just to click in my head, but the whole affair just seems like reading the complaints of an insufferable ass for an extended period of time.
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quote:Originally posted by Aros: Maybe if this does well, they'll film some of his other flicks. I'd love to see The Sun Also Rises, The Beautiful and the Damned, or a fleshed out version of the novella May Day.
Are you referring to Luhrmann or Fitzgerald? Because Te SUn Also Rises is a Hemingway novel... and I would hate to see it directed by Luhrmann.
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quote:Originally posted by Aros: Maybe if this does well, they'll film some of his other flicks. I'd love to see The Sun Also Rises, The Beautiful and the Damned, or a fleshed out version of the novella May Day.
Are you referring to Luhrmann or Fitzgerald? Because Te SUn Also Rises is a Hemingway novel... and I would hate to see it directed by Luhrmann.
Sorry, I was thinking of This Side of Paradise (though I wouldn't mind seeing an adaption of Sun Also Rises).
Luhrman might be a good choice for Gatsby; he has the visual sense, I'm just hoping that he can tone down his showmanship. I'd love to see May Day or Beautiful and the Damned filmed by Aronofsky, Gondry, or Jonze. They all have the visual sense, but they can do the (heartbreaking) drama as well.
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quote:Originally posted by SteveRogers: I've read it every couple of years hoping to finally be in the target audience with the life experiences for something about it just to click in my head, but the whole affair just seems like reading the complaints of an insufferable ass for an extended period of time.
But that's what it means to be American! We pride ourselves on complaining for extended periods of time whilst being insufferable asses.
Seriously though, Gatsby wasn't my cup of tea. There were a lot of readings in high school I didn't care for, but Gatsby was probably my least favorite. Now that I'm older maybe I'll appreciate it more.
I have some time today. I think I'll give it a try and report back what I think.
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I loved Catcher in the Rye. It's basically a snapshot of a person whose growing up, but is doing so with a wave of conflcting and frustrated emotions. It has an engaging rawness to it.
And I think its worth noting the context of the story, with Holden being sat down and asked to describe the three day trek that led him to be hospitalized, and participating. There's also some moderate ambiguity considering if everything in his narration actually happened. TOTALLY would go to Vegas with Holden Caufield. It's definitely drawn out and you don't have to like it, but I don't think the appeal should be baffling.
I like Gatsby, which is somewhat weird, because Catcher and Gatsby get taught in some of the same classes, and it's common for students to like one and hate the other.
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I'm having flashbacks to 10th grade English, writing a piece called (IIRC) 'Generation's voices' about Gatsby and Catcher, specifically lamenting that our generation had not yet produced a similarly era-defining novel. Twenty years later, I can see how painfully overwrought and simplistic my thoughts on the matter were, but I also think the fundamental critique perhaps holds. I can't point to a novel that a future 10th grade English teacher will be able to use to teach what life was like in America during the Clinton-era, dawn-of-the-information age 1990s.
Of course, that's a realistically unsatisfiable requirement. Realistically, it seems to me that American classics from the mid-20th century had a lot of cultural landmarks, dealing not just with events of the time but with attitudes. Maybe I don't read enough (non-spec-fic) modern novels, but I can't bring to mind anything that does that effectively for the late 20th century; certainly nothing of quality equivalent to The Great Gatsby or Grapes of Wrath or On the Road or Catcher in the Rye, all of which I'd say are limited but useful snapshots of America's culture and values at the times they were written.
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quote:Originally posted by Aros: Sorry, I was thinking of This Side of Paradise (though I wouldn't mind seeing an adaption of Sun Also Rises).
Luhrman might be a good choice for Gatsby; he has the visual sense, I'm just hoping that he can tone down his showmanship. I'd love to see May Day or Beautiful and the Damned filmed by Aronofsky, Gondry, or Jonze. They all have the visual sense, but they can do the (heartbreaking) drama as well.
The only thing that ever springs to mind for me in terms of The Sun Also Rises as a film would be a Coen brothers adaption, and that seems unlikely. But aside from them, I don't know another director with the necessary subtly and patience for such a film.
Fitzgerald was splashy and atmospheric with his scenery and characters. Hemingway cut his scenes with an exacto-knife. They would demand very different styles as films.
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The problem Gatsby has, I think, is that it gets taught to high schoolers, who typically do not have the patience or experience to enjoy the novel. They're too ignorant of the world, for one, but they've also got limited experience with literature at that point in their lives (at least that was the case for everyone I knew back then, including myself). The Great Gatsby, The Sun Also Rises, and the Grapes of Wrath are all great books, but giving them to a high school student is kind of stupid. Most kids don't read anymore, so why start them off here? All it is going to do is make them hate reading, which is really the last thing a teacher should want.
That's just my opinion, of course. I think I would have enjoyed my high school literature classes a bit more if the teachers had assigned books a teenager would have enjoyed. You know, ease them into reading. Find a gateway drug/book to start them off on (Ender's Game, as I mentioned earlier, or something less high-brow). They'll probably get to that other stuff in college, so why not let them learn to enjoy reading before you make them hate it?
The point of middle and high school literature classes should be to get kids engaged with reading, not to deter them. Ah well. I suppose the damage is done Posts: 1324 | Registered: Feb 2011
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I disagree. I enjoyed both Grapes of Wrath and The Sun Also Rises in 11th grade....but even then I was a weird kid.
I am not sure age is the great way to telling if a kid can appreciate a book. Sure, experience does matter, but intellect and interests matter as much, if not more.
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I've never been a fan of Gatsby, though I'll admit I haven't read it since high school, and I like a lot of things now that I didn't like then.
But I love Baz Luhrman, and I Leonardo DiCaprio is one of my favorite actors. So for that alone I'd see this.
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quote:Originally posted by Kwea: I disagree. I enjoyed both Grapes of Wrath and The Sun Also Rises in 11th grade....but even then I was a weird kid.
I am not sure age is the great way to telling if a kid can appreciate a book. Sure, experience does matter, but intellect and interests matter as much, if not more.
My experience was more typical. I did not get into the classics until college, and even then, and even having a degree in English literature, I have little love for or enthusiasm about Dickens, Melville, Shelley, or many other 19th century authors. I did get into 20th century stuff like Hemingway, but as an adult. I think my earliest appreciation of poetry was Eliot, and I was in maybe 10th grade.
I think a good part of it is life experience, and that includes good teaching. A decent teacher can make many of these works appealing to the unconvinced. Because with high-end literature, it is all about being convinced that you aren't wasting your time. We don't expect 10th graders to sit through a 70 minute symphony and care about it, but we do expect them to read a book for 25 hours and enjoy it. That's a daunting prospect for some kids.
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quote:Originally posted by Jeff C.: The problem Gatsby has, I think, is that it gets taught to high schoolers, who typically do not have the patience or experience to enjoy the novel. They're too ignorant of the world, for one, but they've also got limited experience with literature at that point in their lives (at least that was the case for everyone I knew back then, including myself). The Great Gatsby, The Sun Also Rises, and the Grapes of Wrath are all great books, but giving them to a high school student is kind of stupid. Most kids don't read anymore, so why start them off here? All it is going to do is make them hate reading, which is really the last thing a teacher should want.
I think the problem wi Gatsby these days runs even deeper. We're 4 generations deep with Gatsby's influence in literature, films, tv, etc. In my view, it was never a subtle enough work on its own to withstand the slow erosion of cultural osmosis. Kids who read Gatsby today have seen hundreds of films inspired by it. The relationships in it are the basis for thousands of examples they are already familiar with. Reading Gatsby is like seeing Citizen Kane: everything in it, you've seen somewhere else; so much so that you confuse the ur-text for a cliche.
This doesn't work with The Sun Also Rises, which, in style and substance, is much more subtle and enigmatic as a work. It is difficult to copy the essence of Hemingway's work in that book, though we do, and often, see the influence of his others, particularly For Whom the Bell Tolls, and A Farewell to Arms.
How often do you see these plot elements: a dark stranger appears at a remote camp, and carries the tools needed to lead a group of rebels; a man and woman flee a war zone in a rowboat at dawn; a soldier falls in love with a nurse; hell, Hemingway originated the blurred post-explosion first person narration of chaos. Nobody realizes now that these things were novel when he did them.
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Orincoro, I think you're on to something. Kids today have no clue how cool the Matrix is for the same reason. smh. It makes me sad.
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I saw the trailer in theaters this weekend. I can see why they are releasing in 3D -- the movie looks gorgeous! The 2D trailers don't do it justice. The 3D is in the league of Hugo and Avatar.
I'm even more excited.
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Gatsby does not belong in 3-D. It's a story about people and relationships, not explosions and superheroes (or blue cat people). Why does this need to happen?
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Around here I think it's like $3 or $4, but I'm not 100% sure since I avoid actively avoid 3D films. But I saw, what was it, I think How to Train Your Dragon? I saw that in 3D and I think it was only about $3 extra.
How many years ago was that? Have the prices changed since then, or is it a regional thing?
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On a side note, I think How To Train Your Dragon is one of the few movies for which I would have actively pursued the 3D option.
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I had the misfortune of viewing the remake of Clash of the Titans in the theater in 3D, and that was just a colossal waste of time. Thankfully I didn't have to pay to see it.
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I know that I read the Great Gatsby in high school and I can not remember anything about it beyond a rich guy in the 20s. There is no other book that I can think of as being that way. I think Fitzgerald's writing style is not one that I find appealing. Maybe it is an age thing though and I'd enjoy it more now, who knows.
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quote:Originally posted by SteveRogers: I had the misfortune of viewing the remake of Clash of the Titans in the theater in 3D, and that was just a colossal waste of time. Thankfully I didn't have to pay to see it.
Hah, me too!
I think that was the last 3D film I saw.
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I did spend the money to go see the movie John Carter at the 3D IMAX, and that was an experience which was certainly worth the cost.
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