Gatsby for the Hip-Hop Generation

It seems that Baz Luhrman's update of The Great Gatsby defied most box expectations and drew a large audience to its opening weekend, despite what had been generally bad reviews. But, of course Baz and Warner Bros. had covered their bases by giving the show plenty of advance publicity and product tie-ins, insuring that there would be enough curious moviegoers to take in one of America's great romance stories.

A.O. Scott was one of the few critics to give Baz a relatively favorable review. Baz is known for dazzle, and he uses three dimensional effects and hip-hop music to create a rip-roaring good time during America's most opulent and decadent era, much like he did with Paris in Moulin Rouge. Nuance was never Baz's thing, made abundantly clear in his Australian epic, which used just about every scene to bludgeon you over the head.

This is why few critics liked Baz's 3-D Gatsby, preferring Jack Clayton's much more nuanced 1974 version starring Robert Redford and Mia Farrow. This is the fifth adaptation of the novel. The first was a silent film that came out a year after the novel had been published. There was also a 1949 version with Alan Ladd and Shelly Winters. A very forgettable attempt was made in 2000. I suppose each generation needs its own version, and in its own odd way, Baz's Gatsby fits with the times.

Take your pick!

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O Pioneers!

It is hard not to think of Nebraska without thinking of its greatest writer. Here is a marvelous piece by Capote, Remembering Willa Cather . I remember seeing a stage production of O Pioneers! and being deeply moved by its raw emotions. I had read My Antonia before, and soon found myself hooked, like Capote was by the simple elegance of her prose and the way she was able to evoke so many feelings through her characters. Much of it came from the fact that she had lived those experiences herself. Her father dragged the family from Virginia to Nebraska in 1883, when it was still a young state, settling in the town of Red Cloud. named after one of the great Oglala chiefs. Red Cloud was still alive at the time, living on the Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota, in the aftermath of the "Great Sioux Wars" of 1876-77. I don't know whether Cather took any interest in the famous chief, although it is hard to imagine not. Upon his death in 1909, he was eulogi

The Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire

Welcome to this month's reading group selection. David Von Drehle mentions The Melting Pot , a play by Israel Zangwill, that premiered on Broadway in 1908. At that time theater was accessible to a broad section of the public, not the exclusive domain it has become over the decades. Zangwill carried a hopeful message that America was a place where old hatreds and prejudices were pointless, and that in this new country immigrants would find a more open society. I suppose the reference was more an ironic one for Von Drehle, as he notes the racial and ethnic hatreds were on display everywhere, and at best Zangwill's play helped persons forget for a moment how deep these divides ran. Nevertheless, "the melting pot" made its way into the American lexicon, even if New York could best be describing as a boiling cauldron in the early twentieth century. Triangle: The Fire That Changed America takes a broad view of events that led up the notorious fire, noting the gro

Colonel

Now with Colonel Roosevelt , the magnum opus is complete. And it deserves to stand as the definitive study of its restless, mutable, ever-boyish, erudite and tirelessly energetic subject. Mr. Morris has addressed the toughest and most frustrating part of Roosevelt’s life with the same care and precision that he brought to the two earlier installments. And if this story of a lifetime is his own life’s work, he has reason to be immensely proud. -- Janet Maslin -- NY Times . Let the discussion begin!

Dispatches from Vilnius

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