Last week,
The New York Times posted an intriguing article
about what Baz Luhrmann hopes to achieve by using 3D in
his movie adaptation of The Great Gatsby. Luhrmann
talks about "using 3-D not to
create thrilling vistas or coming-at-you threats, but
rather to find a new intimacy in film". While
there has been some scepticism about the decision to
shoot the film in 3D, this article sheds some light on
the reasoning behind Luhrmann's vision.
The Rich Are
Different: They’re in 3-D
The New York Times, 16 January 2012
With “Avatar,” 3-D conquered the world. With “The Great
Gatsby,” it may finally grow up.
In a daring test of both himself and the movie audience,
Baz Luhrmann — the Australian director of films like
“Australia” and “Moulin Rouge!” — is planning to release
a star-packed, high-budget version of F. Scott
Fitzgerald’s much-admired novel of the Jazz Age next
Christmas. In it Leonardo DiCaprio plays Jay Gatsby,
Carey Mulligan is Daisy Buchanan and Tobey Maguire is
the narrator, Nick Carraway. In 3-D.
Mr. Luhrmann’s film will come three years after
“Avatar,” a science-fiction epic directed by James
Cameron, became the biggest hit in movie history, with
$2.8 billion in worldwide ticket sales. “Avatar” proved
that a new generation of 3-D technology could immerse
viewers in a credible fantasy world, the fictional
planet Pandora.
But “The Great Gatsby,” written by Mr. Luhrmann with his
long-time collaborator Craig Pearce, will tell whether
3-D can actually serve actors as they struggle through a
complex story set squarely inside the natural world. If
“The Great Gatsby” succeeds, it may open the door to a
new generation of sophisticated movie dramas that will
match the spectacle value of the animations (“Happy Feet
Two”), action films (“Underworld: Awakening”) and
elaborate fables (“Hugo,” “The Adventures of Tintin”)
that now fill Hollywood’s 3-D release schedule.
It might also supply what has been missing in the Oscar
season — the heat of a film that decisively breaks a
barrier, like “Gone With the Wind,” the first all-color
best picture, or “The Lord of the Rings: The Return of
the King,” perhaps the first Oscar winner to be anchored
in its make-up and fantasy effects.
“The ‘special effect’ in this movie is seeing fine
actors in the prime of their acting careers tearing each
other apart,” Mr. Luhrmann explained in a telephone
interview this week. He spoke of using 3-D not to create
thrilling vistas or coming-at-you threats, but rather to
find a new intimacy in film. He referred particularly to
a climactic scene in which Daisy’s husband, Tom Buchanan
(played by Joel Edgerton), confronts Mr. DiCaprio’s
Gatsby in a suite at the Plaza hotel, all in three
dimensions. “How do you make it feel like you’re inside
the room?” he asked.
Mr. Luhrmann’s experiment will have to overcome the
ambivalence of viewers who have yet to fully embrace 3-D
technology, especially in North America. The success of
“Avatar” notwithstanding, 3-D has faltered somewhat in
high-profile efforts like “Pirates of the Caribbean: On
Stranger Tides” and “Green Lantern,” and studios have
had to work hard to convince consumers that there is a
real reason for it beyond Hollywood’s desire to charge
higher prices. (“Tintin” and “Hugo” have done well in
their 3-D versions.) As a result, audiences have become
increasingly picky about 3-D, although moviegoers
overseas — where films can now make up to 70 percent of
their profits — have been more enamored of the technique
because it is newer to them.
Mr. Luhrmann said that the idea of filming “Gatsby,”
which he will release along with Warner Brothers and
Village Roadshow, occurred to him about a decade ago. He
had finished “Moulin Rouge!,” a flamboyant mash-up of
musical cultures, and was traveling from Asia to Europe
on the Trans-Siberian Railway with, by his description,
“some bottles of red Australian wine” and earphones.
On the earphones, Mr. Luhrmann said, were two recorded
books. One was “The Great Gatsby.” After listening for a
day or two, he began to wonder why Fitzgerald’s novel,
which he said he found “exquisite,” had seemed to elude
filmmakers, one after another.
Mr. Luhrmann had seen the 1974 version directed by Jack
Clayton, in which Robert Redford played the lead. Mr.
Redford “was the coolest thing in the world,” he
recalled. But the film, he said, didn’t really tell him
“who Gatsby was.”
In 1949 Alan Ladd played Gatsby, the socialite-ruffian,
in a version directed by Elliott Nugent. Reviewing it in
The New York Times, Bosley Crowther said its problems
were a “weak script,” direction that seemed “completely
artificial and stiff,” and Mr. Ladd’s reversion to “that
stock character he usually plays.”
Mr. Luhrmann looked in vain for a print of the first
cinematic “Gatsby,” a silent film directed by Herbert
Brenon, with Warner Baxter as Gatsby. It was released in
1926, just a year after the novel was first published.
Motion Picture News was impressed. “It’s a sophisticated
story, told with first-rate lights and shadows,” wrote
its reviewer, Laurence Reid. Still, it has been left for
Mr. Luhrmann to unlock the movie potential in a small
book whose themes — social climbing, Prohibition
thuggery, faithless marriage and the self-conscious
modernism of almost a century ago — are squeezed into a
compressed yet strangely operatic plot. (An opera there
was, too, in 1999, commission by the Metropolitan Opera
and composed by John Harbison.)
It was a lecture by Mr. Cameron, then working on
“Avatar,” that persuaded Mr. Luhrmann 3-D might help him
find what had been missing in “Gatsby.” To examine the
potential of actors in 3-D without the gimmickry of
contemporary action sequences, Mr. Luhrmann turned to
Alfred Hitchcock’s 3-D version of “Dial M for Murder,”
from 1954. It wasn’t easy. He found only two projectors,
one in New York, one in Burbank, Calif., that could
still play that film. The sensation of moving through it
with Ray Milland, Grace Kelly and Robert Cummings sealed
the deal — both for himself and for Mr. DiCaprio and the
troupe, who also studied the Hitchcock film. “It was
like theater,” Mr. Luhrmann said.
Michael Lewis, chief executive of the 3-D technology
provider RealD, said, “This is the final stage in the
maturing of the medium.” Mr. Lewis spoke from the
Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas last week. Other
filmmakers are pushing forward with grown-up dramas in
three dimensions, but fewer than might be supposed,
given the hoopla that surrounded “Avatar” when it was
released in December 2009.
Steven Soderbergh almost shot “Contagion” in 3-D, but
pulled back when it proved difficult in tests to get
close-ups and other critical shots. Mr. Cameron’s
“Titanic,” a drama with considerably more action than
“Gatsby,” will be rereleased in 3-D in April. RealD,
which collaborated with the Royal Opera House on a 3-D
version of “Carmen,” will follow up with “Madama
Butterfly” in the next few months, Mr. Lewis said.
Adult interest in 3-D has “settled into a very, very
good place,” Dan Fellman, Warner’s president of domestic
distribution, said. Mr. Fellman said he became sold on
the potential of Mr. Luhrmann’s film — which was shot in
Australia, with a budget of roughly $125 million before
government rebates — after viewing scenes that took what
he called an almost “subliminal” approach to the medium.
“You were immersed in the lifestyle of Gatsby,” Mr.
Fellman said. “You were in his world, moving from room
to room.” (The producers of “Gatsby,” along with the
Luhrmann regulars Catherine Martin and Catherine Knapman,
include Douglas Wick and Lucy Fisher, whose Red Wagon
Productions made the technologically adventurous “Stuart
Little” series.)
Some will fear, Mr. Luhrmann acknowledged, that he is
violating a sacred text. After all, he is the director
who in 1996 cast Mr. DiCaprio and Claire Danes in an
MTV-style adaptation of Shakespeare, “Romeo + Juliet.”
“Everyone has strong, and generally opposing, opinions,
when you mention 3-D, or ‘The Great Gatsby,’ or Baz
Luhrmann,” he said. But Fitzgerald, he insisted, would
have approved. “He was a modernist,” Mr. Luhrmann said.
“He was very influenced by the cinema.”
15 January
2012
'Gatsby' Cast Update
While we await further Gatsby
news,
PR Newswire has reported that Callan McAuliffe,
who plays the young version of Jay Gatsby in the film,
has been announced as the Youngest International
Ambassador to Australia and celebrated the honour at the
annual G'DAY USA event yesterday. McAuliffe said:
"I am beyond honored to have been
invited to join the Friends of Australia team - joining
fellow Australian's whom I remain in awe of. It has to
be the easiest job in the world to promote your own
country ... While in Sydney filming The Great Gatsby in
my free time my favorite activities have been - climbing
the Sydney Harbour Bridge and photography at Taronga
Zoo. When I have more time, I enjoy abseiling and
camping in the outback of Australia - where there are
endless opportunities to enjoy the peace and Australian
nature - not experienced anywhere else in the world."
Also,
The Hollywood Reporter has reported that Carey
Mulligan will co-host the 2012 Metropolitan Costume Gala
in New York, and Baz Luhrmann will be a creative
consultant: "The extravangant Met
Gala will be held on May 7. And the honorary chair is
Jeff Bezos, founder and CEO of Amazon, with Prada fan
Carey Mulligan, Miuccia Prada, and Anna Wintour serving
as co-chairs. Director Baz Luhrmann will act as creative
consultant to the exhibition."
For The
Record: Baz Luhrmann
For the Record: Baz Luhrmann is back! Visitors
to this website may recall that performances first
occurred back in April
2011. I am now pleased to report the show has
returned! It runs until 4 March 2012, and anyone living near Los Angeles should check out
this
popular event. For more details, check out the
Show At Barre
website.
For The Record:
Baz Luhrmann showcases signature songs and moments from
“Romeo + Juliet,” “Strictly Ballroom,” and “Moulin
Rouge.” ...
For The Record: Baz Luhrmann is a spectacular
retrospective of the musical magic of the Luhrmann
oeuvre that brings the audience into the show, led by a
colorful cast of showbiz alums from Broadway and
Hollywood. Playlist includes hit songs such as Lovefool,
Kissing You, When Doves Cry, Love Is In The Air, Time
After Time, Come What May, Your Song, Roxanne, Children
Of The Revolution, Rhythm Of The Night and many more.
2 January
2012
'Gatsby' a
Movie To See in 2012
As reported in my last
News Update, filming
of Baz Luhrmann's The Great Gatsby finished for
2011 on Thursday, 22 December. Pick-up shots are
expected to be filmed early this year, and the release
date will reportedly be 25 December 2012.
Throughout the shoot, there has been a
lot of positive online buzz surrounding the film.
Several websites have already listed The Great Gatsby
as a movie to see in 2012, including the
New York Daily News which said,
"With Baz Luhrmann behind the
camera and Leonardo DiCaprio as Jay Gatsby, Carey
Mulligan as Daisy Buchanan and Tobey Maguire as Nick
Carraway, this new take on F. Scott Fitzgerald's novel
will need to be seen", and the
Derry Journal which said,
"It's been attempted several times before but Baz
Luhrmann is out to impress with his 2012 interpretation
of the F. Scott Fitzgerald novel. With an impressive
cast it would be no surprise if 'The Great Gatsby' was
to clean-up at the Oscars."
It is going to be an
exciting year as the countdown begins to December 2012!
