The world's most unnecessary use of 3-D has officially been greenlit. For those unaware, over the last few months Baz Luhrmann (""Romeo + Juliet"", ""Moulin Rouge"") has been debating whether his next project should be an unnamed musical or a new adaptation of F. Scott Fitzgerald's famous novel ""The Great Gatsby.""
Baz prepped for months with table readings of the script before even committing to the film. Judging from the cast used at the most recent readings, the final lineup is likely to be Leonardo DiCaprio as Jay Gatsby, Tobey Maguire as Nick Carraway and Carey Mulligan as Daisy Buchanan, though none of them have officially signed on yet.
There was an episode of the HBO Hollywood-comedy show ""Entourage"" where the main character Vince starred in a Martin Scorsese-directed adaptation titled ""Gatsby."" At the time, I wished they had put together a trailer for that meta-movie simply because it sounded like such a brilliant idea to me.
When I first heard rumblings of Baz's adaptation, and then heard the cast rumors (though for the record I still prefer the earlier possibility of Joseph Gordon-Levitt as Nick), I began hoping that this would be the ""Gatsby"" movie I never got to see.
But those hopes have been significantly deflated now that the actual details have been set in place.
One the most iconic aspects of ""The Great Gatsby"" is its dual settings of Long Island and New York City. While initial reports stated that Baz would film his adaptation in New York starting this June, that has now changed. Rather than actually film in New York, possibly the most recognizable city in the world, Baz has instead chosen to film in Australia. I guess the tax breaks will begin to offset the choice of shooting in 3-D. What a sagacious trade-off. Maybe he will just green-screen the entire thing so that he will have more room in the budget for the costumes and dance numbers.
""Moby Dick 3-D""—that's an adaptation that at least on the surface remains a reasonable proposal. But, ""The Great Gatsby""? Really Baz? Are we going to see Dr. T.J. Eckleburg's billboard-eyes popping out at us? Maybe Myrtle's body will come flying out of the screen?
What possible justification could he have for allocating a significant portion of the budget to the vast additional costs of shooting in 3-D and committing to the restrictions of filming with notoriously cumbersome 3-D cameras? Has our film culture really come to the point where a big-budget movie simply cannot be made without 3-D on the table? I would almost rather Baz had chosen post-production 3-D conversion, as at least that would allow him to film with more agile 2-D cameras, leaving the 2-D version of the film unburdened by the decision to make the film 3-D. Sure it might not look as nice, but again, I have to ask, what could you possibly need 3-D for in ""The Great Gatsby"" anyway? If this is not the epitome of pointless 3-D, I don't know what is. Considering that the release date will likely be sometime near the end of 2012, all those 2012 end-of-the-world conspiracy theorists have certainly got one more piece of validation in my eyes.
Personally, I'm a big fan of ""The Great Gatsby"" and Fitzgerald in general. I hope Baz proves me wrong. I hope that this turns out to finally be the worthy film adaptation of ""The Great Gatsby"" that fans have always dreamed of. But something tells me that this is going to be an unrecognizable, over-the top, gaudy mess.
Think David is just a boat against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past? Email him at dcottrell@wisc.edu.
