Film: The Great Gatsby

Carey Mulligan and Leonardo DiCaprio in The Great Gatsby

It would be both lamentable and crass to describe F Scott Fitzgerald’s novel, The Great Gatsby as being ‘unputdownable’, as if it had something in common with all those other ‘unputdownable’ books that publishers boast carelessly about. So I began wincing when I heard this cinematic interpretation of the book being referred to just as carelessly, as a ‘blockbuster’ to kickstart the summer - writes Niall Leahy SJ on Thinking Faith.

The thought of director Baz Luhrmann performing plastic surgery on Fitzgerald’s near-perfect body of text, rather than simply applying the few brushstrokes needed to bring it to life, was unsettling to say the least.

True to form, Luhrmann serves up a veritable feast for the senses. Every weekend, New York’s social elite descend on the mansion of mystery millionaire, Jay Gatsby, whose open-house parties are designed to cater for the most insatiable of appetites. These scenes, along with so many others, are drenched with decadence. Jay-Z, Lana Del Rey and Emile Sandé all feature in an anachronistic but potent soundtrack – a relentless cocktail of R’n’B and 1920s jazz that sucks up everything that is in its path.

To read Niall Leahy SJ full review on Thinking Faith see: www.thinkingfaith.org/articles/FILM_20130524_1.htm