EDITORIAL

J

ack Clayton’s movie of ’74, with the unforgettable Robert Redford and Mia Farrow, was glossy and showy; Baz Lurhmann’s sumptuous version of 2013 has its moments of kitsch, but is none the less intense for that. This is the shape, the “wrapping”, of the two latest on-screen versions of The Great Gatsby, Francis Scott Fitzgerald’s wonderful 1925 novel that, through Jay Gatsby’s story, comes to grips with the universal themes of love and life, mingling beauty and tragedy, dream and disenchantment.

While receiving it coldly, with myriad criticisms, and constant comparisons of Lurhmann’s work with the ’74 version, the critics have unanimously praised Leonardo Di Caprio’s extraordinary interpretation, and in any case it cannot be denied that this is 142 minutes of great cinema, not to be missed by anyone who loves America, Fitzgerald, Di Caprio, Carey Mulligan or all of them together.

In particular, for those who love America, the film, like the novel, is a must. The American dream: someone who starts from nothing and builds up an immense fortune, the jazz and the palatial residences of Long Island (who cares if Lurhmann rebuilt the sets in Australia). And of course New York, already so fascinating in the Twenties, splendidly photographed while we listen to the seductive words of Fitzgerald: The city seen from the Queensboro Bridge is always the city seen for the first time, in its first wild promise of all the mystery and the beauty in the world.

 The narrator of the story is one of the characters (a technique employed also by Henry James), Nick Carraway (an excellent Tobey Maguire), and his point of view is evidently that of Fitzgerald, who loves to let himself be seduced by the “dream”, but is capable of a bitter and equally poetic disenchantment.

It is difficult not to be moved by the fascination of a sunny character, with a granite-like optimism, that firmly believes it is possible to re-appropriate oneself of the past: Gatsby believed in the green light, the orgastic future that year by year recedes before us. It eluded us then, but that’s no matter – Tomorrow we will run faster, stretch out our arms farther… And one fine morning –– So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past.

In our days filled with terrible news, of depressed economies and of grey routine, Beauty, heartfelt life narrated poetically, shining images that leave their mark, an invitation to follow your dreams with determination and abandon skepticism have broken into our lives by way of the silver screen. Apart from the tragic epilogue, the film, like the book, leaves us, in our hearts and minds, that green light on the horizon, the lighthouse to keep sailing towards.