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| Leo in the title role of Jay Gatsby for Baz Luhrmann’s The Great Gatsby (2013). Image used for illustrative purposes only. | (image source) |
In honor of this exceptional and wholly historic occasion, The Sitch on Fitch is celebrating Abercrombie-style and all that jazz! This Summer 2013 is all about AberGatsby! on THE HOTTEST BLOG...parties, privilege, and all-American cool taking the planet by storm, old sport! Throughout the following period, you’ll enjoy exclusive pieces exploring the incredible world of the swingin’ Jazz Age and Abercrombie & Fitch in a way never before been conceived. I’d love to tell you more, but I’ll let you “oooh!” as the gems start rolling out. Though in risk of being cheesy, I’ll say this in use of cool ole 1920s slang: They sure are the bee’s knees! (And you’ll find that I took liberty in usage of other darb terms of Jazz Age vernacular). :D
Personally, you’ve no idea how stoked I am for this film adaptation. For many reasons, really: the anachronism, the sublimity of the director’s vision, the careless affluence, and the romanticism, aspirations, drama, and tragedy of it all. The parties themselves are a total whoopee of flapper-chic gals and ‘20s sheik fellas! ;) ("Sheiks" being what you called hot guys back in the day). Oh, and the actors: everyone’s favorite golden boy Leo DiCaprio (Jay Gatsby); Carey Mulligan (Daisy Buchanan, Jay’s love obsession); Tobey Maguire (Nick Carraway, Daisy’s cousin and narrator of the story), Joel Edgerton (Tom Buchanan, Daisy’s husband); Elizabeth Debicki (Jordan Baker, Daisy’s close friend), Isla Fisher (Myrtle Wilson, Tom’s extramarital affair), and Jason Clarke (George Wilson, Myrtle’s husband)...everyone incontrovertibly spiffy-perfect in role! However, I am most obsessed, principally of all, because I feel I emotionally relate to each main character – Jay, Daisy, Nick, Tom, Jordan... – strongly on some level. Or rather, it is almost as if each character is but a fraction of my entirety. Honestly, I find that The Great Gatsby is the most quotable source for me. It’s the idealized tale of the American Dream, of unbalanced privilege, of illusionary love, of restlessness, and, oh, of what can happen...and that time moves on in flair of indifference.
I first saw the premier trailer for the film back in late-May 2012. Was that hip-hop playing to 1920s privileged merriment?! :o Indeed, they were the seductively dark beats of “No Church in the Wild” by Jay-Z and Kanye West. And then came Jack White’s screeching cover of U2’s “Love is Blindness” totally capturing the raw romance and drama of the tale. Very lucky you can’t break the YouTube replay button: I was enraptured! I was a little disappointed when the film release was pushed back from its original Christmas Day 2012 date...and on to 10 May 2013. But it was a fleeting moment of letdown because a summer premier was, regardless, the perfect time. And so the Summer of Gatsby was to be!
My Gatsby fever was soaring by March as I began to keep up with every article and promotional material released. Florence + The Machine’s “Bedroom Hymns” became my tune of the moment from the second trailer: “This is his body...this is his love...And I can’t get enough...” Daisy rising from the sofa and peaking over her diamond-jeweled wrist... Tom riding on the eloquent-green grounds of his classically swanky Long Island, NY, mansion, swinging his polo club, and sending the ball high up in the clear blue sky... ”Gatsby? What Gatsby?” ...Just powerful. And then came the third trailer: purely beautiful, the main trailer, and my favorite over all. Oh, and TV spots with my heart fluttering every time I saw one. (Like this one)! The promotional singles releases, too, from the much-raved soundtrack: “A Little Party Never Killed Nobody (All We Got)" (Fergie feat. Q-Tip & GoonRock), “Over the Love” (Florence + The Machine), “Young & Beautiful” (Lana Del Rey), and “Into the Past” (Nero) were my favorites before the full album release on May 7. (I’ve taken a recent liking to the Beyoncé and André 3000 cover of Amy Winehouse’s “Back to Black”). So charged, could my heart literally explode out of my chest? Everything leading up to today...everything has been a joy to discover and relisten...reread...rewatch... In the words of Carey Mulligan’s surely-to-be-iconic Daisy Buchanan, “These things excite me so!”
One thing that I must dutifully note is how scandalous this film adaptation has been in regards to literary and cultural purists. Jay-Z as music producer for a film all about the Jazz Age?! Hell yes. (More about this complicated topic in a later post). Australian Oscar-winner costume designer Catherine Martin collaborating with Italian designer Miuccia Prada for the films clothing pieces? Filming in Australia? And adding “insult” to “injury” to all purists, an Australian director with a knack for rebellious anachronism. The adaptation of the Great American Novel should have been a glorious all-American production with the music of the period? Such a purist movie would have been a box office bomb. The way things came to be for this 2013 adaptation of The Great Gatsby are beautifully fitting because they reflect the modern spirit of author Fitzgerald in the most authentically natural and all-American way for the 21st century...and you can’t get any more pure to the original source than that. An essence that transcends time...and it has finally been captured in film relevantly ingenious for the first time. It used to be said that The Great Gatsby was impossible to authentically capture in film. But the day came when a man named Baz Luhrmann saw, with his illustrious vision, the reality of the elusive authenticity of this transcendent essence. There is a furthermore incredible connection between the ages that you only could have gotten with the exceptional elements that came to be. As Fitzgerald’s literary classic became the zeitgeist of 1920s America, so is to be Luhrmann’s 3D film adaptation on the parallels of the 1920s and the now early-21st century, globally-integrated world. It’s all significant in a plethora of forms.
What’s also pretty cool? Never have the cultural connections between the United States and Australia ever been so profoundly at play. Last year, it was all about London as the center of England’s soul and all that was happening in 2012. But 2013 has become the year all about Australia. What’s happened so far? One of our most beloved TV personalities, Ellen DeGeneres, took a trip to Ozland for the first time in March; the sequel to Finding Nemo (2004; a movie she stars in), Finding Dory (2015), was incidentally announced by Pixar Studios after years of speculation; and the fantasy of Southern California, Hollister Co., finally arrived Down Under in late-April, mates! Now, one of Australia’s arguably best filmmakers has brought to life, in revolutionary zeal, The Great Gatsby – one grand, sweeping, cinematic Summer 2013 party all around the world. Ah, how I love me some Aussie Baz-jazz!
So in conclusion, I leave you off with this... Fantasy. The central sentiment of everything we live and breathe. The fantasy of an emotion...how this plays profoundly in our aspirations...and how it comes in hand with escapism; but how we must all keep in mind that, eventually, we must go home to reality. Or do we? It resonates in our dreams. It resonates in The Great Gatsby. It resonates in you whenever you walk into your favorite Abercrombie & Fitch Co. store. ...Different circumstances in different settings, but it’s the same ole thumpin’ tune every time in your heart...
“
A LITTLE PARTY
NEVER
KILLED NOBODY.
SO
WE’ GON’ DANCE UNTIL WE DROP! ”
...and see you at Gatsby’s where I’ll be summering all season long! ;D
C.E.R.
Editor-in-Chief
The Sitch on Fitch