![]() ![]() When Baz finally backs down and allows the story to steal focus during the last hour (a scene in a Plaza Hotel suite crackles with simmering tensions and the 'Sunset Boulevard' climax is a stunner), 'The Great Gatsby' at last becomes a riveting cinematic experience, and the impact of Fitzgerald's prose shines through. Too much technique and too much artifice sabotage the film's first half, and while I get that Luhrmann's style mirrors his interpretation of this "too much" era, his execution continually (sledge)hammers the point home. For example, how can you accurately depict The Jazz Age when people are frenetically dancing the Charleston to the overdubbed hip-hop stylings of Jay-Z (especially when the on-screen musicians are playing instruments that don't exist on the soundtrack)? A modern love theme accompanying a romantic montage works better, but Luhrmann's innate need to flip an iconic work on its ear sometimes backfires, and the reason this 'Gatsby' takes so long to get going is due to the sensory barrage that assaults us from the opening frames. Though 'The Great Gatsby' is timeless in its depiction of lavish living, selfish disregard, obsession, power, desperation, and unrequited love, even timelessness can be compromised when a period setting is stressed by contemporary conventions. (Why 'Gatsby' needs 3D is open to debate - it doesn't enhance the presentation or make the tale more intimate in fact, I feel 3D tarnishes the story's elegance and distances us from its emotional core.) But gimmicky processes aside, Luhrmann, who obviously respects the Fitzgerald text and honors it with a faithful script, tries too hard to put his personal stamp on the material, at times taking the period out of this period piece. ![]() Luhrmann's 'The Great Gatsby' is an orgy of flashy images, green-screen technology, and unbridled passion that's both involving and off-putting, dazzling and sloppy, especially in 3D, which heightens the spectacle to dizzying degrees. Scott Fitzgerald's classic novel celebrates the drunken decadence, sky-high spirits, and reckless attitudes of The Jazz Age with his trademark love-it-or-hate-it flair. A symbol of wealth, excess, and devastating glamour, Gatsby fits Luhrmann like an Armani suit, and the director's adaptation of F. So it's not surprising Luhrmann might be attracted to the high-living, out-of-control Roaring Twenties and the era's fictional poster boy, the dashing and mysterious Jay Gatsby. 'Moulin Rouge' and 'Australia' stand as prime examples of the bold, glitzy, kitchen sink style that both distinguishes and often engulfs his work, with even the low-budget, high camp 'Strictly Ballroom' brandishing a manic, over-the-top edge. Subtlety is not a word in Baz Luhrmann's lexicon, as the Australian director has proven time and again in his small cadre of films. I run the images through a batch encoder with Irfanview to get rid of black borders on the image, rename the files, and conform them to jpg.Ħ.Baz does it big. and bring down the number of stills to my 60-65 golden number.ĥ. I go through the folder again (immediately)looking at the frames on large preview and try and remove frames that replicate a certain lighting style or framing. I’m then left with usually around 80-100 really interesting frames. I view all the frames as a slideshow and I remove any frame that there are doubles of (someone might be blinking in first frame and normal in second) or remove any that seem less interesting this time around.Ĥ. ![]() So the next step is to edit, usually there might be a week or 2 between the first grab and this edit stage. ![]() This usually leaves me with around 200-250 frames per film. Depending on mood I could spend a few hours just doing the grabbingģ. I watch through the movies on VLC, usually between 3x and 4x speed while listening to podcasts, grabbing any frame that interests me. i try to keep a mix of styles.genres/directors and DP’s so I dont get bored while working.Ģ. Make a to do pile, its a combination of recommendations, stuff Ive been enjoying myself, stuff I want to rewatch…. Hi Arturo, Ive considered having a donate button, but I feel bad for asking for money, maybe I’ll post an amazon wishlist so people can contribute in that way sending me movies I want to feature on the site.ġ. ![]()
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