Gatsby ‘88

I have yet to watch Baz Luhrmann’s film adaptation of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby; in fact, by the time you read this, it may have dropped out of local cinemas altogether, jostled out of the way by the next action-thriller or rom-com, and I will have missed my chance to catch on the big screen what the trailer promised to be a period over-the-top extravaganza as only Luhrmann can deliver, complete with Jay-Z-led soundtrack.

I must admit to some apprehension regarding this adaptation. A friend of mine, a great appreciator of period costumes and elaborate production design who had been looking forward to it for ages, actually walked out of the theater, disgusted. “It’s the story on steroids,” she said. Everything too literal, too obvious, too overblown. If that’s true, and I trust this particular friend’s judgment a great deal, then it’s a pity. The book is important to me (and of course, to many millions of others), and its sensitive observations and subtleties — its restraint — are a large part of what has made it an enduring classic. And Luhrmann, for all his reputation as a kind of cinematic rimgmaster or showman, can handle under-the-surface emotions and gradual developments and revelations well (my favorite of his films is still Strictly Ballroom).

So anyway, I reread the book with cinematic adaptations on my mind. I’ve never seen the ones starring Robert Redford or Paul Rudd either, but I wanted to “cast” my own Gatsby movie in my head while I was rereading. My John Hughes-addled brain being what it is, I ended up with a cast from the 1980s.

Namely: Andrew McCarthy as Nick Carraway, Ally Sheedy as Jordan Baker, John Cusack as Tom Buchanan, Matthew Broderick as Jay Gatsby, Jennifer Connelly as Daisy Buchanan, Ione Skye as Myrtle Wilson.

I admit to being annoyed by McCarthy in most of his ‘80s movies, but that’s actually a sign of how effective he is in certain types of roles (fallible, malleable), and we know now that he has hidden depths, since he has transformed himself in the years since into an award-winning writer (not that all award-winning writers have depths). Sheedy can play smart plus tough plus vulnerable like no one else; Connelly has the sadness and loveliness that Daisy requires; Cusack, despite being typecast as a lovable geek throughout most of the ‘80s, can be menacing when he wants to be; Skye can elicit sympathy while inhabiting a rather thankless fate; and when Fitzgerald writes about Gatsby’s smile having “a quality of eternal reassurance,” Broderick comes easily to mind.

(The fact that McCarthy and Sheedy, as well as Cusack and Skye, have previously established onscreen chemistry appealed to me too.)

And of course, imaging The Great Gatsby with an ‘80s cast — and consequently, an ‘80s setting — I had to think about the soundtrack as well. Here are the songs I iamgined being on it:

New Order’s True Faith, Neneh Cherry’s Buffalo Stance (Electro Ski Mix), and Pet Shop Boys’ What Have I Done to Deserve This — for the glittery, gaudy party scenes at the beginning, at Gatsby’s mansion, for revelry and flirtation and dancing and champagne-sipping, while occasionally hinting at darker motivations or buried secrets.

Prefab Sprout’s Hey Manhattan and The Blue Nile’s Tinseltown in the Rain — for the scenes in the big city, for the romance and giddiness and loneliness and occasional quiet desperation of it all, for Nick Carraway’s accounts of the nameless hustling hordes and his own day-by-day slow dance through the buildings and alleys and corridors.

David Bowie’s Shining Star and Everything But The Girl’s I Always Was Your Girl — the first, for Nick and Jordan’s bittersweet goings-on, the second, for Jay Gatsby and Daisy’s rain-kissed reunion. And then Morrissey’s Late Night, Maudlin Street for the end credits.

So there. I chose the year (1988) not only so that Connelly could actually be old enough to play the role of Daisy in my head, but also for the music: much of what is listed here came out in 1987 and 1988. It may seem a little strange that the imaginay soundtrack of an adaptation of what is regarded as a quintessentially American novel has practically no Americans on it. Then again, perhaps that’s entirely appropriate, old sport.

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Listen to the imaginary Gatsby ‘88 soundtrack at http://8tracks.com/mister_k/gatsby-1988/