When Baz Luhrmann announced that he would be helming a new adaptation of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s “The Great Gatsby”–in 3-D, no less–nobody expected it to be a straightforward, classical treatment of the material. (That was already attempted in 1974 by Jack Clayton and Francis Ford Coppola, and the result was less than satisfactory.) Nonetheless, I don’t think many anticipated a full-on return to post-modern “Romeo + Juliet”-territory for Luhrmann. The trailer (embedded above) certainly makes it look that way, however, laying Kanye West/Jay-Z and Jack White/U2 tracks over the exaggerated 1920s scenery. This should be a very interesting piece of work, even if it ends up a failure — especially considering that its heightened aesthetic appears at-odds with the Modernist style that “The Great Gatsby” is so famous for.
The film, which stars Leonardo DiCaprio as Gatsby, Tobey Maguire as Nick, and Carey Mulligan as Daisy, opens stateside on Christmas Day.