Monday, April 10, 2017

Gatsby Is Great, Gatsby Is Good

.
While we'll always be Team Joel Egderton's Riding Pants in Baz Luhrman's Great Gatsby movie, today on the occasion of the 92nd anniversary of the publication of F. Scott Fitzgerald's book we're asking you to choose something less roundly beloved -- between two of the actresses who've had the difficult  task of portraying Daisy Buchanan on film. Head over to The Film Experience to vote! I actually don't think either of them give perfect turns in the role but I don't really know how you turn that impossible symbol of a person into something believable on a movie screen.
.

2 comments:

Pierce said...

I prefer the 1974 Mia Farrow and Robert Redford version. The Luhrmann is missing so many things! It's a wrongheaded movie.

joel65913 said...

I didn't like the new version except for the visual opulence at all. The Redford/Farrow version was likewise a beautiful eyeful but inert. Both were more visual than the 40's version with Alan Ladd, Betty Field and Shelley Winters but Ladd came the closest to capturing Gatsby.

However neither Carey, Mia nor Betty Field got Daisy right. It's a complex part, as you said more an ideal than a person, but they all miss first and foremost on the voice and without that it's hard to make the rest of her an identifiable woman.

It's one of the most mentioned characteristics of Daisy and yet they never cast an actress with the proper vocal pitch. When I was watching the 40's version I kept thinking why didn't they cast Alexis Smith who would have been ideal. There was a woman with a creamy voice full of money plus she had the carriage and demeanor that went with all that...in other words Jay Gatsby's conception of Daisy whether it was true or false. She's who I envisioned when I read the novel as well.