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By David Poland poland@moviecitynews.com

New Trailer: Gatsby

I am a a sucker for Baz. Fascinated to see what this thing all adds up to… and I would bet the actors are too.

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58 Responses to “New Trailer: Gatsby”

  1. SamLowry says:

    So Luhrmann’s spending a truckload of money to make the 1920s look amazing, but he decided their music stinks and he’d rather subject us to 21st century emo junk that could’ve played in Twilight?

    This is what bugged me so much about Moulin Rouge–if I’m watching a period piece, I want everything to be period, especially the music. But either Luhrmann hates old music or he thinks modern audiences do. As a result, I haven’t watched my ML DVD more than once…that Roxanne bit alone was a showstopper for me, and I mean that in a bad way.

  2. Foamy Squirrel says:

    Moulin Rouge is a pretty divisive film, but replacing the music would mean it would stop being Moulin Rouge. Completely. The music selection is pretty much the whole movie.

    I think considering the Rise of the Guardian comments combined with this comment, my guess at SamLowry’s age is… oh… 263.

  3. SamLowry says:

    I had to play “Dear America” for a class the day before spring break and I was stunned by the number of ’60s songs that I haven’t heard in over twenty years (when the ’60s revival gave way to the ’70s revival), and by songs like “For What It’s Worth”, which have become so linked to Vietnam that they’ve become a cliche.

    Yet how many of us would accept a Vietnam movie with Slim Shady playing overtop it, or Beyonce, or Justin Timberlake?

    Luhrmann decided to throw revival and cliche right out the window and announce that a time period’s music is worthless, unimportant, and not worth remembering. The here and now is what’s hot and happening, and all those old timey periods are good for is clothing and architecture.

  4. anghus says:

    “Moulin Rouge is a pretty divisive film”

    You ain’t kidding. I walked out of the film twice. First time i walked out just annoyed by every aspect of the production. The editing, the music, the whole thing just seemed so idiotic.

    Then, at the behest of a friend who claimed it was truly genius, i watched it again and made it about five minutes longer than before. Im amazed when people tell me they love Moulin Rouge. Other than strictly ballroom Baz Luhrman films are like sandpaper to the eyes and ice picks to the ears.

    The new trailer tells you everything you need to know about Baz Luhrman’s take on Gatsby: Gatsby as hip hop. The first baller. Old school playa’. Visual bling. That’s his stab at making Gatsby ‘relevant’.

    And am i the only one who finds Dicaprio’s accent strangely overdone? Like he’s auditioning for Newsies. Every time he opens his mouth i hear “EXTRA! EXTRA! Read all about it! Stock Market crashes!”.

    I think this has the makings of a glorious train wreck. I expect this movie will be responsible for a lot of failed book reports in subsequent years.

  5. hcat says:

    “I think this has the makings of a glorious train wreck”

    that statement may actually be printed on Baz’s business card. I am one of the people that love ML in all of its unabashed sincerity and giddiness. I can see how people are turned off by it since it begins in the redline and continues revving for its entire runtime. But I can’t remember a better visual approximation of the feelings derived from pop music. For ML the settings and plot served the music as opposed to the other way around.

    As for Gatsby, we already have numerous interpretations of the period that stick to authenticity, why not have a big gonzo piece of theatrical mash-up. I don’t think this should become routine, I don’t want to see a Jane Austen heroine dancing like Molly Ringwald to OMD, but as long as the non-period soundtrack correctly serves the mood of the source material I certainly don’t have a problem with it.

    Given that I enjoyed his Shakespeare reinterpreted as an episode of Miami Vice take of R&J, I’ll give him the benefit of the doubt. The guy certainly has a unique voice and talent, enough that I am interested in seeing Baz disappear into whatever Rabbit Hole he decides to leap down.

  6. cadavra says:

    Do we know for a fact that he’s using modern music in the film or are we just going by the trailers? There’s hip-hop on the 42 trailer, but I believe they’ll be more authentic than that.

  7. SamLowry says:

    No comments about the possibility of a hip-hop Vietnam War, so I’ll assume my point has been made.

    The people who lived and breathed in a time period would consider it sacrilege, a perversion to impose the music of another era atop it, but since anyone who formed a direct emotional connection to the music of the ’20s is safely dead then it’s alright to cast all that aside, so sayeth Baz.

    I’m just stunned that he and his music director chose not to seek out any music from the ’20s that could be reused, perhaps even updated with a modern artist. Instead, he took a squat on Gershwin, Jolson, Armstrong, Ellington, Hanshaw, Brice, Holiday, Whiteman and Beiderbecke to give us more of what we already hear on the radio every stinkin’ day.

  8. Ray Pride says:

    Cadavra, there is a track list out there and it is busy, in a word.

  9. hcat says:

    Perhaps not Beyonce or Timberlake (are they even considered hip-hop?), but I can certainly see a Dead Presidents type movie using hip hop performers of today to great effect.

    Edited after posting: Is the use of non-period music really any different than the Speed Racer visual flourishes seen in the trailer? Baz tells a tale in a hyperreal way with very broad strokes (I would imagine his scripts contain nothing but exclamation points). Isn’t it easier to except an out of time Beyonce song amongst these visuals, than say if they had thrown a Seals and Croft song in the middle of the early 70’s Redford version?

  10. palmtree says:

    I’m very confused. Is this supposed to be a documentary about the Great Gatsby? If not, then what’s the big deal with taking artistic license. One of the worst movie critic sins is the “It’s bad because I wouldn’t have directed it that way” stance. Granted, you can and should feel strongly, but Baz clearly isn’t going for authenticity so that critique of his work is pretty much pointless. It’s like being upset that a comedy didn’t move you to tears of sorrow…it wasn’t the point. And I’m not really the biggest fan of Baz either, but I’m going to judge him based on what he intended to do, not on what I wish I could have done with the material. *end rant*

  11. anghus says:

    i have no problem with artistic license. It’s your movie, do as you please.

    The greatest sin of Gatsby is i already know exactly what im getting. Maybe not. Perhaps there is some surprises to be had. But im guessing this is what Luhrman did to Romeo and Juliet: takes a well known story and throws a lot of gloss on to it. Poppy soundtrack, syrupy visuals, a ridiculously high level of energy. When you watch that trailer and it says From Baz Luhrman Director of Romeo and Juliet and Moulin Rouge, you just kind of nod your head. Of course he’s doing this movie. Every one of his trademarks is stamped right on it. And whether you end up liking it or not will be dependent on whether you like what Luhrman does.

    I don’t. So i have to imagine this ones gonna hurt. My eyes. My ears. My attention span.

    I dont want to make broad declarations without having seen the finished film, but im starting to take a mental rolodex of directors who have actually improved with the infinite number of tools in the digital toolbox. What filmmakers do you think have improved with the benefit of the ability to create anything they want? I think Peter Jackson got lost in the special FX with Kong and has created a soulless, boring mess with The Hobbit. Cameron was far better in his Terminator/Aliens days than he was with eye porn like Avatar. Does anyone think Tim Burton’s output from the last ten years has touched anything he did back when it was models and matte paintings? I dont think the toys are making better filmmakers.

    The only Director that comes to mind that i think found an interesting way to embrace the technology and told a story with some soul is Ang Lee. Life of Pi was the first 3D movies i saw that felt apt. Like the visuals existed to serve the story as opposed to the story existing to serve the visuals like, oh, i dont know: Oz the Great and Powerful.

    I would argue the technology isnt making our big budget movies better. It’s certainly not making them any cheaper.

    I suppose i should put the question out there: which filmmakers are creatively benefitting from the digital toolbox? Which ones are getting lost in it?

  12. palmtree says:

    Anghus, appreciate the classy response. I feel ya.

    I think Alfanso Cuaron definitely benefited from the digital toolbox. He maintained his storytelling prowess in both an effects laden Harry Potter and Children of Men.

  13. anghus says:

    Good answer. Cuaron hadn’t popped into my head. Fantastic example. Doesn’t he have a new super budgeted film coming at some point this year? It’ll be good to see of the trend continues.

  14. YancySkancy says:

    Sam: If “Holiday” refers to Billie Holiday, she was born in 1915 and didn’t start recording until 1933.

    I didn’t like MOULIN ROUGE any more than you did, but I’ll give Luhrman his concept–there’s no way he could’ve made the movie he wanted to make if he’d used music only from the late 1800s. Funny thing is, he still used “old” music: aside from a couple of tunes written for the film, all the songs were “oldies” to one degree or another in 2001 (“Your Song,” “The Sound of Music,” “Like a Virgin,” “Roxanne,” “Nature Boy,” etc.).

    The first GATSBY trailer has generated at least one sale: my girlfriend ponied up for Filter’s version of “Happy Together.” The only thing that intrigues me much about the film is the 3D; I hope he uses it in an interesting way in scenes that aren’t all about visual spectacle (but I’m not holding my breath).

  15. SamLowry says:

    My bad, Yancy. I was going off a list of ’20s hits and her name somehow made the list.

    “Baz clearly isn’t going for authenticity” and yet he’s clearly setting the film in the 1920s. If he wanted a big enough sandbox to play in then why not set the movie in the present day? Or is obsession over a woman, obsession that would make a man amass a fortune just to impress her, passe?

    Going in the other direction, I was reminded of PENNIES FROM HEAVEN, which I found truly amazing. I’m an even bigger fan of Martin’s DEAD MEN DON’T WEAR PLAID, which showed his love of “old” movies by the amount of care that went into blending the new footage with the old, and it not only inspired me to look into some of these films but it also gave me an appreciation for Edith Head.

    XANADU also did a great job of using styles and music appropriate to the men who are finding new inspiration from their muse…and yet Baz can’t even come close to such sophistication.

    Here’s a possible headline: “Luhrmann’s GATSBY: Worse Than XANADU?”

  16. foamy squirrel says:

    You must hate Tarantino then. R&B in Basterds and Django? Sacrilege!

  17. SamLowry says:

    Still haven’t seen either one. But then Morricone said he “places music in his films without coherence”, so there’s that.

  18. Foamy Squirrel says:

    Other films SamLowry hates:

    Watchmen (or really anything by Zack Snyder)
    Plunkett & Macleane
    Marie Antoinette
    A Knight’s Tale
    Back to the Future (although that was kinda the point)
    Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid
    Chariots of Fire
    The Sting (out by 10 years, but still out)

    Edit: and despite traumatising Morricone, Django still nominated for “Best Music” by the Motion Picture Sound Editors. So while Morricone may share SamLowry’s tastes, that particular appeal to authority is by no mean universal.

  19. hcat says:

    Sam, taking Gatsby out of the twenties would be an even bigger disaster than using non-period music, and I would think 90% of the draw for Luhrmann is shooting all the jazz age oppulance.

    Do you have the same issues with all the Shakespeare adaptians that fiddle with the time and place, Titus, Richard III, Coranalios (In fact in the last twenty years I think the vast majority of Shakespeare movies were set outside the elizabethian age, didn’t Branagh even toss some Cole Porter tunes into one of them?).

    He is simply taking artistic liscence, now if all of a sudden it has a happy ending, then there can be complaints.

  20. christian says:

    I’m trying to imagine how epileptic the camera will become during the famous “tie” scene – I see a million rainbow ties falling, fluttering….but to what Timberlake tune?

    And that Morricone story has already been outed as “the internets fail again”:

    What I read about my statements on Quentin Tarantino is a partial writing of my thoughts which has deprived the true meaning of what I said, isolating a part from the rest. In this way my statement sounds shocking, penalizing me and bothering me a lot.

    I have a great respect for Tarantino, as I have stated several times, I am glad he chooses my music, a sign of artistic brotherhood and I am happy to have met him in Rome recently. In my opinion, the fact that Tarantino chooses different pieces of music from a work in a film makes the pieces not to be always consistent with the entire work.

    The risk for me, when I compose, is not to be consistent with the film work and my desire is that the director accepts my consistency.

    Tarantino proposed me to work for Inglorious Basterds, which I consider a masterpiece, but I could only had two months to work since I had to compose the soundtrack for Baaria directed by Giuseppe Tornatore and it was not possible.

    Regarding Django, the thing is that I cannot see too much blood in a movie due to my character, is how I feel and impress me especially with a film that is made very well and where the blood is well shot. But this has nothing to do with my respect for that Tarantino which remains great.

    http://www.spin.com/articles/ennio-morricone-quentin-tarantino-django-unchained-beef

  21. cadavra says:

    Ray, thanks. My interest in the film has taken a precipitous dip.

    It’s one thing to be deliberately anachronistic in a comedy (e.g., KNIGHT’S TALE). But it’s entirely another to do a realistic drama like GATSBY and then violate said realism by putting inappropriate-era music in it, even if it’s non-diegetic. It shows a lack of respect to both the material and the audience, not to mention a whiff of pandering to The Kids, whose attendance is vital and likely wouldn’t come to a period drama otherwise.

  22. Ray Pride says:

    01. Jay-Z – 100$ Bill
    02. Beyoncé and André 3000 – Back to Black
    03. will.i.am – Bang Bang
    04. Fergie, Q-Tip, and GoonRock – A Little Party Never Killed Nobody (All We Got)
    05. Lana Del Rey – Young and Beautiful
    06. Bryan Ferry with The Bryan Ferry Orchestra – Love Is The Drug
    07. Florence and the Machine – Over The Love
    08. Coco O. of Quadron – Where The Wind Blows
    09. Emeli Sandé and The Bryan Ferry Orchestra – Crazy in Love
    10. The xx – Together
    11. Gotye – Hearts a Mess
    12. Jack White – Love is Blindness
    13. Nero – Into the Past

  23. palmtree says:

    This issue with the music really bugs me…it’s okay to use anachronistic music in a comedy but not a drama? Where did that rule come from? And how does it disrespect the material? And Baz is making a “realistic drama”? REALLY?

    From what I can tell in the trailer, Gatsby exists in a heightened reality even if it’s based in 20s style and detail. It seems to be drawing a parallel between the “new money” of the 20s and today’s bling culture. Baz has been doing this kind of postmodern storytelling for while now, so I hardly see it as being strictly pandering. Maybe you don’t find that compelling, and that’s fine. It’s where people start saying “Why didn’t he do it the way I want?” that gets to me. Couching it as a rule doesn’t make it so.

    I’m not the biggest fan of Baz, but if he’s going to do Gatsby, I’d prefer him to be true to his own vision than create some version that he feels I want. Because the latter, THAT would actually be pandering.

  24. chris says:

    Right on, Palmtree. I’m not a big Luhrmann fan, either, but what’s with this stodgy, literal attitude toward music? Does it mean movies shouldn’t be made about the 1850s because there were no movie cameras? I hope Luhrmann’s usage of contemporary music has something interesting to say. Maybe it won’t. But it strikes me as a really lame reason to dismiss the film, sight unseen, either way.

  25. movieman says:

    pandering to The Kids, whose attendance is vital and likely wouldn’t come to a period drama otherwise.

    Cad, I’d actually change that to “…wouldn’t come to a period drama anyway.”

    I personally don’t have any problem w/ Luhrmann using contemporary music in the film.
    But I sincerely doubt whether it’s going to bring in any under-30’s moviegoers who avoid period films (unless it’s, say, “Django Unchained”) like the plague. And who probably have zero familiarity w/ the Fitzgerald source novel.
    I’m continually shocked at the fact that virtually none of my (college) students have read “The Great Gatsby.” Apparently it’s not assigned in a lot of high school English classes anymore.

  26. cadavra says:

    It isn’t a rule per se, but comedies have always been allowed a certain latitude (like Bob Hope making Bing Crosby jokes in a period setting) that a realistic drama has not. And yes, GATSBY is a realistic tale. I don’t have a problem with Baz creating a “heightened” reality, but then he should have updated it to the present, which would have been far less of a stretch, as the story’s overarching themes are not especially tied down to the 1920s.

    Obviously, YMMV.

  27. palmtree says:

    Sorry, but I don’t see drama (realistic or not) as being tied down to any notions of authenticity. Certainly, those who want to see Gatsby done in a manner faithful to the novel are welcome to have their opinion. But Baz never promised us an authentic, documentary-real Gatsby. Why would we then criticize him as though he broke that promise? Likewise if another director known for authentic, period-detail films decided to do an authentic, period-detail version of Gatsby (say Tom Hooper or Julian Fellowes or whoever floats your boat), I’d feel pretty silly complaining at how they didn’t modernize stuff.

    Anyway, first time I’ve ever heard of “YMMV.” I’ll keep that one in my back pocket.

  28. leahnz says:

    how weird, I was just having a similar discussion with a friend who really dug Sofia Coppola’s ‘Marie antoinette’ but loathed the modern soundtrack, simply sacrilege to her (she and samlowry would probably get along famously) -while for me the contemporary music is an interesting juxtaposition to the period detail and rather nicely accompanies the sumptuous visual smorgasbord of the movie, even though I didn’t like it nearly as much as she did. clearly it can be a deal-breaker for some.

  29. Foamy Squirrel says:

    I think any attempt to say “this is the one true way of doing it” for any artistic medium smacks of hubris.

    For filmmaking, think of how many great films we would not have if the creators had stuck to “traditional” structures and conventions – Jaws, Psycho, Rashomon, Pulp Fiction, Memento, Casablanca… hell, even Le Voyage dans la Lune.

    If you’re trying to evoke the feeling of the period, then sure it makes sense for the aural aesthetic to be contemporary with the visual aesthetic. If that’s NOT the feeling you’re going for… why not change it?

  30. christian says:

    If it works, it works, if it doesn’t, it don’t. Thank you.

  31. Lex says:

    I just hope Mulligan shows her feet.

    Yeah, I know, waiting for moderation, Nurse Ratched

  32. SamLowry says:

    Foamy, you’re right, either I don’t care for most of those films or haven’t seen them (or even heard of PLUNKETT), but I find it odd that you’d list WATCHMEN or BTTF–in the latter they’re at least playing with period instruments inside the movie and not overlaid on the soundtrack with modern instruments like in GATSBY, and in the former Snyder was roasted for being so cliched in his period musical choices. I’ll have to go back to that one and see what you’re picking up on.

  33. KrazyEyes says:

    Is this issue much different than Vangelis scoring Chariots of Fire. That certainly was serious drama and, detractors aside, didn’t ruin the film.

  34. pat says:

    Richard Strauss wrote “Also Spoke Zarathustra” in 1896. How do you feel about Kubrick using it in the Dawn of Man sequence of 2001? Did it ruin the period ambience?

  35. Foamy Squirrel says:

    Re: Watchmen, so Dylan was performing in depression/ww2 US?

  36. anghus says:

    i think it’s insane to try and rationalize the idea that filmmakers can only use period specific music for a film. Some filmmakers are adept and picking the right music for the scene, no matter what time it came from.

    Some, like Luhrman, use it as a gimmick to try and bring relevance to ‘dated’ material. If youre Tarantino putting a David Bowie song into Inglorious Basterds as mood music, it seems fitting. If you’re Baz Luhrman having Filter sing “happy together” in your trailer, it feels forced. Because the music doesnt blend into what he’s doing. It’s deliberately modern. Just the act of taking old song “A” sung by more modern band “B” is an excercise in playing your hand. Youre taking something old and adding new veneers. Check.

    Tarantino weaves together visuals, music, and scenes so well because he finds pieces from different times and places. And to me, it works. His musical choices never take me out of the movie. If nothing else, it makes the whole thing work. Not always, but most of the time.

    The problem is most filmmakers lack that kind of finesse. They take Gatsby, throw Lana Del Ray on the soundtrack and think its the same thing. Unfortunately, its the difference between a nice distressed piece of furniture and a really glaring, thick coat of paint.

  37. SamLowry says:

    Yeah, Dylan during the Depression is rather jarring, even if the point of the (cliched) song is to quickly montage the action forward from the beginning of the vigilante era to the present (1985). And as for 2001, the music doesn’t really fit there either, unless it was the voice of a “god”, speaking through the monolith, but then Zoroaster was a Persian prophet, not a god, so it’s meaningless then.

    The only thing that seems “dated” about Gatsby is the absence of bodyguards–if he really is a wealthy mobster–and an entourage, but the presence of either to do the heavy lifting would’ve prevented the two key events of the story from happening.

  38. SamLowry says:

    I didn’t intend to create a fundamentalist reaction with something that sounds like a Dogme rule, but I can easily foresee the reception of GATSBY telling Hollywood whether or not they can lure the young’uns into any sort of movie just by slathering the soundtrack with music they already like.

    And strangely enough no one mentioned BLAZING SADDLES yet–perhaps because it already received the special dispensation granted to comedies, but it gets extra special permission to include Count Basie because the ending shows that we’re not really watching a Western, we’re watching a Western being made. (Why doesn’t anyone study this in film classes?)

  39. hcat says:

    Which also excuses the Cole Porter song earlier in Blazing Saddles?

    As for packing it with music the teens already like, I’m nostalgic for the days of the hit single tie in, evoking the movie every time I come across it on the radio.

    Anyone else think one of the reasons that Skyfall was such a larger hit than other recent Bonds was the Adele song was inescapable.

  40. cadavra says:

    Sam: Exactly right. Many of Brooks’ films are meta, but SADDLES is the most extreme example. The Basie bit addresses a question that’s been asked since the dawn of talkies: Where is that music coming from? Answer: From that band over there.

    As for the classical music in 2001: It was written decades, even centuries, earlier, and it was indeed still listened to in the year 2001. The past is not the future.

  41. SamLowry says:

    BLAZING SADDLES in its entirety is a meta event, hinted at early on by the frequent breaking of the 4th wall, and so is not a Western at all but a 20th century film production gone wildly out of control.

    Edit: And yes, Cadavra and I were writing our responses at the same time. Sorry for sounding like an echo.

  42. jesse says:

    anghus, you don’t really actually clarify what the difference between Tarantino using Bowie in WW2 and Luhrmann using Filter in the roaring twenties actually IS, according to you, except that for Tarantino apparently it’s all “mood” but for Luhrmann it apparently has nothing to do with what’s going on and is “deliberately modern.” What does that even me? Is Tarantino NOT deliberately using a modern (ish) song? Is Luhrmann just sucking up the kids who, you know, just can’t get enough of circa-2000 success stories FILTER covering a sixties song? I’ve heard a bunch of Filter songs and had no idea that was them in that trailer, just that it was a cover of “Happy Together.”

    I think it’s safe to say that if Luhrmann chose a Filter cover of “Happy Together” for that scene, it wasn’t just grabbing at the newest hippest song he could. Because, uh, it isn’t. At all.

    (Not to mention you criticize a trailer, which I’m sure Luhrmann had a hand in, but is not exactly the same thing as a movie. Sometimes for better, sometimes for worse.)

    Obviously you can still dislike the result or think it doesn’t work or it takes you out of the movie or whatever. But when you get into talking about PURPOSE, like Tarantino OBVIOUSLY *intended* this and that, and Luhrmann is OBVIOUSLY just grasping at straws (and, again, doing so talking about a trailer), I don’t know, I think that’s kind of bullshit.

    Could it be you also prefer the Tarantino example because it utilizes an also-old classic rock song in a way that’s not at all period appropriate, but FEELS more appropriate to you because you probably like that Bowie song?

    I have no idea how old you are, so maybe that doesn’t play into it at all. But I do think if Luhrmann’s Gatsby trailer used a Beatles song or something from the forties or fifties that nevertheless wasn’t era-appropriate, there wouldn’t be such a snobby reaction against it.

    No idea how it will play in the movie, of course. But the fact that you count it as a strike against Moulin Rouge, where the use of familiar songs was both brilliant (in terms of reappropriation and new arrangements — many of which I honestly prefer to the originals) and very much in keeping with movie history makes me think this is a pretty arbitrary distinction.

  43. palmtree says:

    Yes, jesse, I also find it strange that Tarantino gets a pass, but Luhrmann, who is every bit the auteur as Quentin, can be dismissed as pandering to the masses. Neither of those filmmakers do things half-assed, so why would you make that argument?

    I think the negative reaction to this new Gatsby is that it is playing on the aesthetics of modern music videos, which don’t seem to get much respect. But rather than seeing that as some kind of lowest common denominator pandering, I can’t so easily dismiss it outright. After all, many of the people we call auteurs (Jonze, Gondry, Fincher, etc.) got their start making music videos.

  44. anghus says:

    I’m 40, by the way, in reference to “I don’t know how old you are”.

    I didn’t list a difference because I don’t think there isn’t one. Its purely subjective. I just don’t notice the musical selections w/ Tarantino as much as Luhrman. To your point, I don’t think I had ever heard that Bowie song prior to Basterds. I know a lot of 80s Bowie and stuff like Space Oddity but I’m not exactly well versed in his back catalog.

    Luhrman seems more interested in bringing focus to the music. He showcases it, pushes it to the forefront. Tarantino has gotten a lot better about weaving it into a scene. Its really just about subtlety. Not exactly the adjective I would use to describe Tarantino, but his musical selections seem more subtle than Luhrman.

    and I don’t know if Luhrman had any input on the trailer, but when I hear a really popular and well known through a glaringly obvious modern filter, it feels like sonic overkill.

  45. chris says:

    FYI: Bowie’s “Cat People (Putting Out Fire)” IS “80s stuff.”

  46. anghus says:

    Just goes to show I am no expert on Bowie.

  47. SamLowry says:

    To paraphrase hcat (since I corrected his interestingly repeated misspelling of my original goof): “For MR the settings and plot served the music as opposed to the other way around.”

    That may be the difference–it looks like Tarantino shoots the scene first then chooses which song he’d like to play over it, whereas Luhrmann chooses the song first and the scene is built around it, meaning that his rendition of GATSBY may be, like MR, an extended music video which uses scant story elements merely as transitions to another musical number.

    To quote Bill the Cat: “Ack!”

  48. cadavra says:

    I don’t care for Tarantino using modern music in period films, either, but given that IB is a fantasy (as Hitler’s death scene clearly proves), it annoyed me less than it would in a–that word, again–realistic film.

  49. palmtree says:

    In the final analysis, I still think it’s f-ing weird that a group of really intelligent film buffs would not get that musical choice in any film is truly artifice. If you guys maybe listened to more classical music, you’d be smacked in the face with how out of place and unrealistic classical orchestral music is in the context of films depicting various time periods, including the past. In defense of Foamy, the 2001 comment was not about using orchestral music in the future, but on using it for the Dawn of Man sequence. How can you defend using 19th and 20th century music to depict prehistory? The only answer you guys have is…well, I liked it or I didn’t like it. So what? The fact that you can’t see how baseless that is, I would suggest, is more of a comment on your own sensibilities that you’ve gotten from the films you’ve seen, rather than a creative/critical eye. The classical film scoring tradition is a proud one, but not the only way to skin the cat.

    Similarly, I don’t think inserting period-appropriate music into a Baz Luhrmann film would increase its artistic merit. If anything, it would probably feel more weird, incongruous. It’s ironic that shooting to music is so offensive to you guys since it’s often regarded as a great technique when it’s done by a respectable composer/auteur team. Takemitsu’s score to Ran comes to mind. (btw, what a European orchestra would be doing in feudal Japan is utterly beyond me, but I suppose no one here is bothered by that).

    If you got through all that, I thank you for reading.

  50. SamLowry says:

    If Luhrmann’s version of Gatsby is worthwhile then someone will eventually strip out his shitty music and replace it with something more appropriate to the period. That, however, is a big “if” since so far the movie looks like a celebration of musicians who didn’t make it big until 70 years after Fitzgerald died, which again makes you wonder why Baz, his producers and the studio bothered to buy the rights to the novel in the first place.

    Perhaps that’s why there wasn’t so much bitching about MOULIN ROUGE–there was no primary source that people could look at and say “Wow, you really got that wrong.” Instead, it was only realism that was treated with the same respect that Chris Brown grants Rihanna, but since that’s been going on in Hollywood for over a century nobody really seemed to mind.

  51. SamLowry says:

    I finally saw SKYFALL and have some comments that await a new BYOB (since I don’t want to discuss similarities to elements of DUNE, BLADE RUNNER, THE MANCHURIAN CANDIDATE and THE BOYS FROM BRAZIL on the Ebert tribute BYOB or the even older 11th Commandment one).

    Because this is a music topic I will limit myself to noting that it was rather annoying to see Mendes act as though Monty Norman’s classic theme music and the gun barrel sequence were embarrassing anachronisms of a spy who hasn’t the decency to become Jason Bourne. Wikipedia tells me that kicking these two elements to the end of the movie–when everyone is tear-assing out of the theater–has become a habit in the Craig films, but since this is only the second time, total, that I’ve seen Craig as Bond then I guess it escaped me earlier. Perhaps that’s why it felt like Eon was running away from everything I’ve come to expect in a Bond movie and this one was the least Bondy film I’ve ever seen…UNTIL…Monty Norman’s theme explodes out of the speakers during Bond’s escape from London in Connery’s 1963 Aston Martin DB5.

    The youngling had the movie in heavy rotation all day, but after the first viewing she kept starting from that point because everything that came before was not just tedious and boring but a flagrant rip-off of THE DARK KNIGHT (I’m sure every critic on the planet made the obvious connection of Bond, Kincade, Silva to Bruce Wayne, Alfred, the Joker…zzzzz). Bond didn’t become Bond until that moment, and the music underscored that change with a heavy guitar twang.

  52. movieman says:

    One of my favorite “anachronistic” uses of music in a period film was “Nights in White Satin” in the French bordello movie “House of Pleasures.”
    Pure genius.

  53. YancySkancy says:

    This doesn’t exactly qualify, I guess, but you gotta love the sequence in Kenneth Anger’s “Scorpio Rising” in which footage of a biker is intercut with shots from some Jesus movie and set to the Crystals’ 1962 pop smash “He’s a Rebel” (produced by Phil Spector).

  54. hcat says:

    Well Sam, you and I can agree with Skyfall being the least bondiest of all the bonds. While they flirted with this in the first two Craigs, they went full on in Skyfall about him becoming Bond. I don’t need to see Bond finding his place in the world, he is not on some hero’s quest, he is a professional who is called in to do the job. M doesn’t need to be a parental figure, he does not need an origin story, just have a threat appear and drop Bond into the mix.

    I felt the same way with the new Star Trek, I don’t want to see Kirk becoming Kirk, Kirk should be fully formed when the opening credits roll.

    And Sam, sorry for the misspellings (such a bad speller, I am not even sure which words you are referring to), but I type most of these out in quick bursts inbetween real work so there is no editing time for things like spelling or even coherent thought.

  55. movieman says:

    Also liked the way Sayles got away w/ using ’70s Springsteen songs in the 1960s-set “Baby, It’s You.”

  56. SamLowry says:

    Sorry Hcat, it was I who misabbreviated MOULIN ROUGE as ML and I thought it was interesting that in your haste you followed suit.

    I also thought the origin of Bond was not just an odd distraction but very fake, and that was to be one part of my argument (awaiting a new BYOB). Why not take M to a Village full of “retired” MI6 agents? Or just a plain-old heavily defended safe house that, like “Skyfall”, was already off the books?

  57. palmtree says:

    “If Luhrmann’s version of Gatsby is worthwhile then someone will eventually strip out his shitty music and replace it with something more appropriate to the period.”

    Hahahahaha…Sam, you are awesome.

    If someone was in the business of replacing shitty music in films, he’d have most movies from the past 30 years to choose from! I’m ALL FOR IT.

  58. Lex says:

    Hot day on the Cold Blog, eh?

The Hot Blog

Quote Unquotesee all »

It shows how out of it I was in trying to be in it, acknowledging that I was out of it to myself, and then thinking, “Okay, how do I stop being out of it? Well, I get some legitimate illogical narrative ideas” — some novel, you know?

So I decided on three writers that I might be able to option their material and get some producer, or myself as producer, and then get some writer to do a screenplay on it, and maybe make a movie.

And so the three projects were “Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep,” “Naked Lunch” and a collection of Bukowski. Which, in 1975, forget it — I mean, that was nuts. Hollywood would not touch any of that, but I was looking for something commercial, and I thought that all of these things were coming.

There would be no Blade Runner if there was no Ray Bradbury. I couldn’t find Philip K. Dick. His agent didn’t even know where he was. And so I gave up.

I was walking down the street and I ran into Bradbury — he directed a play that I was going to do as an actor, so we know each other, but he yelled “hi” — and I’d forgot who he was.

So at my girlfriend Barbara Hershey’s urging — I was with her at that moment — she said, “Talk to him! That guy really wants to talk to you,” and I said “No, fuck him,” and keep walking.

But then I did, and then I realized who it was, and I thought, “Wait, he’s in that realm, maybe he knows Philip K. Dick.” I said, “You know a guy named—” “Yeah, sure — you want his phone number?”

My friend paid my rent for a year while I wrote, because it turned out we couldn’t get a writer. My friends kept on me about, well, if you can’t get a writer, then you write.”
~ Hampton Fancher

“That was the most disappointing thing to me in how this thing was played. Is that I’m on the phone with you now, after all that’s been said, and the fundamental distinction between what James is dealing with in these other cases is not actually brought to the fore. The fundamental difference is that James Franco didn’t seek to use his position to have sex with anyone. There’s not a case of that. He wasn’t using his position or status to try to solicit a sexual favor from anyone. If he had — if that were what the accusation involved — the show would not have gone on. We would have folded up shop and we would have not completed the show. Because then it would have been the same as Harvey Weinstein, or Les Moonves, or any of these cases that are fundamental to this new paradigm. Did you not notice that? Why did you not notice that? Is that not something notable to say, journalistically? Because nobody could find the voice to say it. I’m not just being rhetorical. Why is it that you and the other critics, none of you could find the voice to say, “You know, it’s not this, it’s that”? Because — let me go on and speak further to this. If you go back to the L.A. Times piece, that’s what it lacked. That’s what they were not able to deliver. The one example in the five that involved an issue of a sexual act was between James and a woman he was dating, who he was not working with. There was no professional dynamic in any capacity.

~ David Simon