Réalisation:
Baz LuhrmannPhotographie:
Simon DugganMusique:
Craig ArmstrongActeurs·trices:
Leonardo DiCaprio, Tobey Maguire, Carey Mulligan, Joel Edgerton, Isla Fisher, Jason Clarke, Elizabeth Debicki, Jack Thompson, Amitabh Bachchan (plus)VOD (4)
Résumés(1)
Printemps 1922. L'époque est propice au relâchement des mœurs, à l'essor du jazz et à l'enrichissement des contrebandiers d'alcool... Apprenti écrivain, Nick Carraway quitte la région du Middle-West pour s'installer à New York. Voulant sa part du rêve américain, il vit désormais entouré d'un mystérieux millionnaire, Jay Gatsby, qui s'étourdit en fêtes mondaines, et de sa cousine Daisy et de son mari volage, Tom Buchanan, issu de sang noble. C'est ainsi que Nick se retrouve au cœur du monde fascinant des milliardaires, de leurs illusions, de leurs amours et de leurs mensonges. Témoin privilégié de son temps, il se met à écrire une histoire où se mêlent des amours impossibles, des rêves d'absolu et des tragédies ravageuses et, chemin faisant, nous tend un miroir où se reflètent notre époque moderne et ses combats. (Warner Bros. FR)
(plus)Vidéo (29)
Critiques (16)
Un triangle amoureux théâtralement surexposé aux visuels effervescents, mais insipide au niveau de l'âme. Baz Luhrmann reprend tous les trucs de Moulin Rouge !, mais n’arrive pas à la cheville du film musical concernant la représentation des amours tragiques. Avec beaucoup d’anticipation, on prend le temps de découvrir le personnage de Gatsby graduellement et Leo a de l’allure – tout comme les autres – dans ses costumes pastel. Mais paradoxalement, son personnage s’avère l’élément le plus impersonnel et le plus contradictoire du film. C’est que, même s’il est au centre de l’histoire et que l’on y raconte son parcours vers la réalisation de son rêve, personnifié par la belle Daisy, on ne s’intéresse pas vraiment à lui. Mulligan n’est qu’une décoration, Edgerton dans le rôle du mari dur à cuire se fait plus remarquer que le Gatsby de DiCaprio. Le seul personnage naturel est le « représentant du peuple » joué par Tobey Maguire. Moulin Rouge ! était animé et énergisé par ses chansons originales, vives et émotionnellement entraînantes. Gatsby le Magnifique s’appuie sur les hits usés de Jay-Z (avec l’identification à New York) et tente vainement d’ajouter une dimension romantique à un livre d’images opulentes en utilisant une chanson accrocheuse de Lana Del Rey. Un thème puissant, beaucoup de grandes idées… mais les yeux du spectateur restent secs. ___ 2e visionnage : La scène de la confrontation dans la chambre d’hôtel. Si tout le film avait été aussi intimiste, plus concentré en psychologie et avec plus de sensibilité dramaturgique, sans excès formels non désirés et en se contentant de la musique de Lana Del Rey dans les scènes clés, il aurait été *exceptionnel*.
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The more problematic the film, the more you expect a standard adaptation of a classic book. The world of New York high society simultaneously disgusts and attracts Nick. He is aware of his ambivalent position as a person both on the inside and on the outside, a person who simultaneously wants and doesn’t want to be part of the story being told, and he is not only able to reflect that position, but he has to reflect it in his own interest. The narrator’s deeply personal relationship to “his” story and to the characters is emphasised by the fact that for Nick, retrospectively reconstructing who Gatsby actually was is a form of psychotherapy (similarly to the way that the search for the meaning of the word “rosebud” was an attempt to find the truth in Citizen Kane). Given the obvious hints that Nick is Fitzgerald’s alter-ego, writing (or rather retelling) as a form of therapy becomes one of the key motifs of the film. Also, the storyline involving the relationship between Nick and Gatsby (which strikingly lends itself to a queer reading) is ultimately the most authentic aspect of the film and, together with the therapeutic level of the narrative, rationalises the film’s double ending. ___ Like the narrator, Luhrmann sympathises with the characters, yet he places them in the surreal Technicolor world of major studio films, thus turning them into mere abstract ideas. In this rendering, Gatsby is merely the essence of the American mentality (the tenacious, self-destructive effort to achieve a particular ideal) and DiCaprio plays him accordingly. ___ Highlighting the narrative framework in comparison with the book (in which Nick simply tells the story, and why and to whom he is telling it are not important) is not a gratuitous attempt to bring a bit of tabloid subtext into the story – it rhythmises the narrative (“stepping out” of the story occurs at regular intervals) and influences its style. At the beginning, Nick speaks rapidly, as he is fascinated by all of the new stimuli and feels the need to quickly express all of his impressions. The cuts are abrupt and unexpected, and the shots are so short that it is difficult to find one’s bearings in them (it almost seems that there is a separate shot for every sentence). The camera never stops moving and, more so than later in the film, Luhrmann uses lap dissolves to create the impression that one shot blends into the next. The images sparkle, dazzling us with intense colours and CGI effects. We later become aware of the significance of the Sirk-like excessive work with colours, when it becomes clear why Myrtle was characterised in red and Gatsby in blue, or why it is important to know what colour Gatsby’s car is. The soundtrack is just as boisterous as the visual component of the narrative. ___ The choice of songs is the most striking (or rather loudest) link between today and the period in which the narrative is set. The soundtrack’s producers succeeded in selecting songs that can be imagined as contemporary alternatives to the music that was popular in the Roaring Twenties, though there is again a certain exaggeration (the shot of a car full of black people is accompanied by gritty gangsta rap). With its genre diversity, the soundtrack serves as an effective way to map the changes in mood that the film undergoes. ___ The film settles into a calmer, more classic style only after Nick’s story stabilises and focuses on Jay Gatsby as a man who personifies the limits of the American desire for success. The shots are longer, the narrator’s vocabulary is more colourful (which is also connected to the fact that Nick starts typing instead of speaking) and the lighting of the scenes is more natural. Together with the slowing of the film’s pace, the primary sources of inspiration also change. Whereas the noisy and flamboyant first third takes inspiration from the musicals of Busby Berkeley (and, I would venture to say, from the extravagant French epic productions of Marcel L’Herbier and other poetic realists), the film gradually progresses through excursions into gangster, adventure and war movie to a combination of social drama (The Crowd) and melodrama. Due to the doubling of the romantic storyline, however, it is rather an ironic commentary on the genre of melodrama (a sign that Luhrmann was not entirely serious is the pool shot in the film’s climax, which makes reference to the opening minutes of one of Hollywood’s most biting satires). ___ Because of the lifeless characters and excessive care taken to ensure that viewers understand exactly what is happening in the story, The Great Gatsby is an emotionally apathetic and laughably simple film. However, it is not a nonconceptual patchwork for lovers of pretty, shiny objects and expensive champagne (of one particular brand), though it does at first deceptively seem to be just that, even more so than Luhrmann’s earlier attempts to make the past present. 80%
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(moins)
(plus)
Two and a half stars for the soundtrack, which is not even properly used. The film itself didn’t do for me, but I will give it another chance after some time. The first time I watched it, it irritated me in a similar way as the beginning of Moulin Rouge! … But whereas Moulin Rouge got better as the story progressed, Gatsby irritated me throughout. Maybe next time.
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It starts as intoxicating kitsch, then it becomes a tiresome mess stumbling on both feet. As far as gimmicky camera tricks and image wizardry go, Luhrmann is confident, but he fails in simple meaningful storytelling and in trying to get under the skin of the characters. I've mentioned kitsch – all those lavish parties make you feel like you're looking at a big garden dwarf, festooned with colourful ribbons and flashing light bulbs. But when it comes to feelings, it's like a shallow story in a girlie magazine, kind of plucking the daisy "He likes you, he likes you not, he likes you, he likes you not, he'll leave with you, he won't leave with you.....". Thank goodness for at least two things: Edgerton's manly Buchanan, the only full-blooded character in the entire panopticon, and the reunion scene between Gatsby and Daisy – the only moment in the entire film where you can feel any emotion. Luhrmann is getting a little stale.
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The make-up and lighting make Gatsby look like a leaked Madame Tussaud model. Luhrmann's lust for the most effective imagery neuters the sketches of everyone else, making The Great Gatsby the most poorly narrated (and subjectively longest) blockbuster of the season; a good party ends without a hangover, but here you're dragged to the sidelines with a queasy stomach before its climax.
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