the virtues of friendly debate

---------------  They were careless people, Tom and Daisy -- they smashed up things and creatures and then retreated back to their money or their vast carelessness, or whatever it was that kept them together, and let other people clean up the mess they had made...
----------[The Great Gatsby]

---------  "I don't know, they forgot to wind my watch."  That was Marjorie Merriweather Post's reply when a friend asked her what time it was.  And that is the quality of a "careless" life that is so difficult to capture in a film.
------------------ [reader Comment on The Atlantic review of The Great Gatsby, 2013 film, directed-Baz Luhrmann]

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^  Another Comment on that movie review disagreed with the reviewer, but the Comment was so non-obnoxious and un-combative (so unlike many thoughts put out on internet), that the reviewer himself was compelled to answer:

"Thanks for disagreeing so very generously.  Not the kind of thing one often hears, but a nice reminder -- on all sides -- of the virtues of friendly debate."

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~  The New York Times review of Baz Luhrmann's Gatsby movie drew the following Comments
{and when they refer to "Scott" it isn't F. Scott Fitzgerald, author of the novel, but A.O. Scott, who wrote the NYT review} --

the great gatsby
Haven't seen the movie yet, but I think I'll like it.  I've seen many films of The Great Gatsby and I've liked them all.  Gatsby works because the character is a self-creation who modified himself constantly, even within a single conversation.  He is the American everyman.
-- sjs, Bridgeport CT

Five stars for A.O. Scott's review
I haven't seen the film yet, but that is some first rate movie reviewing.
-- Steve Sailer, America   ...

Gatsby overstated?
I've never understood why the East and the Ivy League are so fascinated by the book.  It's never had that emphasis here in the Midwest.  Maybe the focus on new money is more relevant in the East?
Or the criticism of the old money?  I guess we just don't have those obsessions hereabout....
-- jay fraser, Midwest

Reviewer Heal Thyself
Tony Scott says that the character Gatsby and the Luhrmann movie based on Fitzgerald's book are each "a mess".  So, I would submit, is the review itself.  If he can sort it out in his own mind, which I doubt that he can, Scott should write an opinion piece on why "vulgarity" holds such charm for him and on why Luhrmann's "artistic sensibility" entitles him to do whatever he pleases and then reliably expect plaudits for it from critics confused about which way the wind blows.
-- jim, alexandria va

What a Mess
Baz Luhrmann is a bad director, a flamboyant drama queen masquerading as a director.  This isn't a splashy opera:  it's a bad, annoying music video made to entertain teenagers (or at least people with the mentality of teenagers).  Wow, I know people in Hollywood can't read, but this is an absolute joke - if you have any appreciation for the book, you'll be absolutely shocked at the overt visual garbage that's constantly thrown in your face.  This isn't an adaptation, it's a text message for attention-deficient teenagers.  It's ridiculous and ultimately very disappointing because The Great Gatsby deserves a mature treatment by a mature director ... not someone whose main influence is Dancing with the Stars.
-- R W, New York, NY

DEJ
In keeping with the period depicted, we are subjected to "music" from the likes of Jay Z, Beyonce and a flock of other contemporary "talent".  Nice.
-- DEJ, Portland, Oregon

Reviewing the reviewer
Love Scott's frequent, casual dismissal(s) of the novel.  "It might be even better than you expect...."  Who is he speaking for here?  Gatsby is without question one of the finest books of the 20th century, but Scott sees largely mixed results.  Not bad, mind you...I suppose this 3D version is worthy enough of the novel in Scott's mind.
What a twit.
-- hubris, San Francisco, CA

leading actor problems
I am a bit mystified why critics are enthralled by literally everything Leonardo DiCaprio does.  For me, he's only slightly better than the blandness we get from Tom Cruise's flicks.  Ewan McGregor would have been an edgier choice.
-- K Henderson, NYC

AO's apology.
So in typical Hollywood corporate style moviemaking, we're supposed to enjoy the explosions and not worry about the writing.  Rather than dismiss the book Gatsby as carrying too heavy a reputation, a more honest view is that Luhrmann made a clunky, visually noisy movie that never connects with the soul of the story and gives us the wooden DiCaprio who doesn't have the acting chops for the role.  After three tries, Hollywood has yet to make an even mediocre version of one of the best American stories ever written.  But then Hollywood gags when it has to deal with writing.  The solution here is a visual style akin to the "blow up things reeeeeal good" mentality that drives big releases.
-- Gary Warner, Los Angeles

Contradictory Review, Unconvincingly Straining to Approve
This is supposed to be a favorable review, yet everything concrete Mr. Scott says about the movie sounds to me markedly unfavorable.  The review ends thus:  "As a character in Nick's ruminations, in Fitzgerald's sentences and in our national mythology, he [Gatsby] is a complete mess.  This movie is worthy of him."  The movie is a "complete mess", and that's appropriate because Gatsby is a complete mess too?  But Fitzgerald's book is very far from a mess.  In fact, what's so good about the book is simply that everything in it meshes together almost perfectly, with very little extraneous.  It's neat, compact, and lean.  (I don't see, by the way, that Gatsby is really a character in "our national mythology".)
-- Jake, Wisconsin

A.O. Scott
Does A.O. Scott ever write a movie review that doesn't sound like an apologia?
-- Roy Zornow, New York City

...To call anything about Luhrmann's work genius is to demonstrate Stalin's theory of The Big Lie:  keep saying it enough and they'll believe it to be true.  American cinema is in enough trouble without the critics of the paper of record fawning over the filmmakers.
-- Paul, Pacific Palisades, CA

"Our Gang" does art
diCaprio is a man child and never believable as an adult.  Watching him always makes me feel like I'm watching summer stock.  And Tobey Maguire - sorry but he lacks even a droplet of talent.
A.O. Scott like most film critics today is a half-baked hack.  Anything remotely connected to Hollywood turns out to be superficial nonsense.
Look I could care less about the sanctity of F Scott, but you've got to find some kind of depth in this script.  I don't know if there will eventually be a renaissance in film making like perhaps the one in the 70's, but if not I guess I just have to rewatch the great ones.  Remember when Scorsese wasn't a pandering hack?
And 3-D...oy.
-- L.A.

Baz all over again
Luhrmann never saw a cinematic gewgaw he didn't like.  He is over the top and in your face....Initially pleasing, his movies wear and enervate with excess and leave no airspace for the viewer's imagination to take hold and join with the screen....

Carey Mulligan does what she can with a role that has fallen into cliché, and it doesn't help that Luhrmann directs and shoots her as though he's doing ads for Chanel.
-- Pauline, NYC

Well done
Really and unexpectedly enjoyed movie
Don't miss it
-- Jerry, Gold coast long island

Earlier Gatsby Movie Version
I rather liked the mostly critically panned movie version starring Robert Redford and Mia Farrow as Gatsby and Daisy, respectively.  It had a quiet, lyrical and introspective tone to it that I thought captured quite well Mr. Fitzgerald's prose.  A.O. Scott's description of this latest Gatsby film iteration, replete with 3D effects, hip hop soundtrack and frenetic pacing, makes this sound like the version designed specifically to appeal to a Millennial generation attention span.  I think I will pass on this processed cheese.
-- Jeff, Chicago, IL

The Great Baz
I have seen only the trailer (or preview, or, as we usta call it in my Hudson County, NJ, yute, comin' attractions), but, in conjunction with A.O. Scott's review, I have decided not to spring for the 10 bucks (senior citizen rate) to see this film.  Tobey Maguire's voice is all wrong for Carraway, and despite my esteem for DiCaprio's abilities as an actor, he, too, is wrong for Gatsby.  Even in the short trailer, it is apparent that Luhrmann is imitating the surface, the Gatsby the world sees, but Fitzgerald's story is about Carraway's perception.  TGG is much like Warren's All the King's Men in that it is about the narrator (which is why the film versions of ATKM, whatever their virtues, are an essentially different story from the book.)

Scott is right about Luhrmann -- and that is precisely why BL is attracted to the wrong thing about the novel.  He is not, of course, alone in this.  Underlying FSF's work is a sensibility akin to that of Cervantes in Book II of Don Quixote, where Quixote renounces his madness and the author (and through him, the reader) is tugged into preference for the ideality of that madness.

-- Frank Gado, White River Jct, VT

Style over substance
...I like the energy of the film but I left thinking little about the film.  Eh?
-- kilika, chicago

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"What time is it?"

"I -- don't know.  They forgot to wind my watch."

-30-