I won my fantasy baseball league on Monday morning my time.
It's my second win in three years, after I took home the trophy in 2021 as well.
Woo hoo.
I obviously don't talk about it a lot on here -- this is a movie blog, in case you weren't aware -- but fantasy baseball occupies a sizeable percentage of my brain from early March to early October each year. (Early October if I'm lucky and make it all the way to the finals, as I did this year -- otherwise I begin the weaning off process starting as early as mid-September, depending on how quickly I'm eliminated.)
The end of the fantasy baseball season, in fact, usually begins the transition to my obsession with movies (and the NBA) that takes me through to my year-end rankings. At which point -- lo and behold -- it's almost time for baseball again. (Nice to have obsessions that fuel you year-round, I've found -- it means you always have something to look forward to.)
To celebrate my win, I decided to watch The Great Gatsby on Monday night for Baz Jazz Hands.
That might seem like a disconnect, but hear me out.
The scenes I remember most from my first two viewings of The Great Gatsby, which both occurred ten years ago in 2013, are the lavish party sequences taking place at Jay Gatsby's West Egg mansion. Their celebratory atmosphere seemed just the thing to crown my fifth fantasy baseball championship in 30 years of playing fantasy baseball. (Of course, I forgot that a lot of the rest of the story ranges from mildly to very depressing.)
As I was watching these scenes again, it struck me how they are similar in time period and bacchanalian excess to the party scenes depicted in last year's Babylon from director Damien Chazelle. The feeling of the scenes, though, couldn't be more different, and points up the essential underlying optimism that characterizes Baz Luhrmann's work and continues to make him -- I think I can now say it with confidence -- a favorite director.
Those scenes in Babylon feel like Chazelle smearing our faces in the dog shit of the characters' lurid deviance. The Gatsby characters, while probably getting equally drunk and engaging in similar shenanigans, feel like innocents, people having the time of their lives as they are seduced by the grandeur of Gatsby's orbit.
I prefer the latter -- not always, but certainly given the mean-spiritedness with which Chazelle depicts these scenes, and their comparative lightness in Luhrmann's film. (I should add that my first viewing of Gatsby was in 3D, which just made this stuff all the more delightfully delirious.)
Watching these Luhrmann films back to back has made me even more aware of a Luhrmann Template that I continue to enjoy. Gatsby is just his latest example of a movie told by a writer in recollection of a period of ecstasy in his life, one that is now sadly in the past and out of reach. Its most obvious corollary in his filmography is Moulin Rouge, with the slight difference that Nick Carraway (Tobey Maguire) is more of a third party in this film whereas Christian (Ewan McGregor) is the central figure in the earlier film's featured romance. Luhrmann is big on song and dance as a means of showing his characters at the height of their happiness and glory, though because he's a romantic, we know these films also have to end in tragedy. Romeo + Juliet is certainly another example of that tragic ending.
Strictly Ballroom and Australia both end happily, but are no less effective for it. Especially since I reacted so positively to Australia this time, I'm starting to think that Luhrmann is effective in any mode, and I have yet to find a film of his where his missteps are any more than minor.
I do have one humorously significant complaint about The Great Gatsby, but it can be chalked up more to an idiosyncratic tic than anything I really want to criticize about the filmmaking.
Namely: Was Leonardo DiCaprio paid by the number of times he used the phrase "old sport"?
In F. Scott Fitzgerald's original novel, "Old Sport" -- probably more appropriately capitalized, because it functions as a nickname -- is what Gatsby calls Carraway whenever he speaks to him. He uses it when speaking to a few other people, but we see him speak to Carraway more than anyone else.
And I say "whenever he speaks to him," I mean "whenever he speaks to him" -- at least in this film, if not the novel.
If your name was Nick and you had a conversation with someone where they said "You know, Nick, I was thinking about an idea I had. Nick, I thought I would throw a party tonight. It's because I'm celebrating, Nick. You see, Nick, I just won my fantasy baseball league." You'd think that was weird, right? Everyone knows your name is Nick. You don't need to say it every sentence.
It's even weirder when it is a goofy, quaint, awkward nickname like "Old Sport."
Was this Luhrmann's idea? DiCaprio's? Is the frequency of this nickname established in the book and they are just trying to be faithful in their adaptation?
I don't know. But it's annoying as hell. Next time I watch The Great Gatsby -- maybe another ten years from now -- I will make a drinking game out of it. Or at the very least, count the actual number of occurrences.
But as I said, this is a humorous complaint that does not detract from another excellently conceived vision by Luhrmann. It's not just the unparalleled attention to design details, resulting in a luxurious production design. It's not just the wistful feeling that suffuses the film. It's not just the incredible ability of Carey Mulligan and Elizabeth Debicki (who I first discovered in this film) to play flappers. It's not just the hissible villain, this time played by Joel Edgerton.
It's all of it, which wraps me up in its spell, even though its second half is a downer compared to its first. The complete package leaves The Great Gatsby jockeying for position around the middle of my Luhrmann rankings, with the likes of Strictly Ballroom and my newly appreciated Australia. (As much as I did enjoy Romeo + Juliet on this viewing, I think it may now be looking up from the bottom.)
Where will Elvis fit into all this on my second viewing? We'll find out in December.
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