Chris Bohjalian's Blog - Posts Tagged "the-great-gatsby"
Hollywood's blockbuster season is here: Duck.
It was over thirty years ago that the Hollywood Blockbuster Season gave us “Odorama.” Yup, 1981’s version of 3-D was a scratch and sniff card with numbered aromas. When a number flashed on the screen, we in the audience would scratch. It was a John Waters gimmick for his film, “Polyester,” which has been used only sparingly since. I saw the film, but all I recall are the ovals on the scratch and sniff card – and one “aroma:” stinky shoes.
We are now once more in the midst of the Hollywood Blockbuster Season, which is kind of like hurricane season except all of the mayhem is digitally rendered and the only casualty is the nation’s collective hearing. I shudder when I think of how many hearing hair cells in my ears have been pummeled by Cineplex explosions, engines, and screams. As a middle-aged man, I may actually have more hair in my ears than I have hair cells. It makes a guy miss “Odorama.”
Nevertheless, I like this season. I really do. When it comes to movies, I have the emotional depth of a thirteen-year-old. A new Batman movie? I’m there. A new Jackass movie? My wife and I are there together. (Diligent readers will recall that my wife and I did not merely stand in line for a recent Jackass film, we were among the first in line on opening night. We were also – by far – the oldest people there. When it comes to movies, apparently neither of us has a whole lot of pride.)
These days a summer blockbuster is likely to come at us – quite literally – in 3-D. We have the technology and so we use it. Baz Luhrmann’s 3-D “The Great Gatsby” opened earlier this month. J.J. Abrams’s 3-D “Star Trek into Darkness” opened this weekend.
Historically, this has been the case with most technologies: When we can do it, we will do it. Among the rare cases when we have not leveraged an invention are the nuclear bomb – at least so far, thank heavens – and supersonic passenger flight. The Concorde allowed people to fly between North America and Europe in less than half the time that it took a traditional passenger jet, but in its nearly three decades of operation, there were relatively few takers. Saving a few hours wasn’t worth the extra cost.
But filmmakers are using 3-D a lot, especially for the movies that premiere in the summer. As anyone who has seen Luhrmann’s 3-D “Gatsby” knows, we don’t merely don the plastic glasses now for the likes of Iron Man, Superman, and Thor. We don them for James Gatz and Daisy Buchanan. Meanwhile, consumers are starting to spend serious scratch to bring 3-D TVs and home theatres into their living rooms.
And while 3-D is not a bad thing and it’s certainly not a gimmick thing, I wonder if it is quite so necessary. Is it as critical a cinematic breakthrough as sound – as talking pictures? As replacing black and white film with color film? As, for that matter, transitioning from film to digital technologies? To computer generated imagery and special effects?
The short answer? No. The truth is, we had 3-D in the 1950s. Who could possibly forget the 1953 3-D science fiction classic, “Robot Monster?” Okay, that’s a bad example. But you see my point. And while 3-D is better now and has the benefits of being married to CGI technology, I’m still not sure it’s essential for most movies. My favorite moment in Luhrmann’s “Gatsby” was that riveting, climactic scene toward the end when Daisy must choose between her husband and her lover. And that was all about writing and screenwriting and acting and directing.
Am I a dinosaur? Maybe. But I don’t think so. I just prefer my 3-D to be in the service of the Starship Enterprise.
(This article appeared originally in the Burlington Free Press on May 19, 2013. Chris’s new novel, The Light in the Ruins, arrives on July 8.)
We are now once more in the midst of the Hollywood Blockbuster Season, which is kind of like hurricane season except all of the mayhem is digitally rendered and the only casualty is the nation’s collective hearing. I shudder when I think of how many hearing hair cells in my ears have been pummeled by Cineplex explosions, engines, and screams. As a middle-aged man, I may actually have more hair in my ears than I have hair cells. It makes a guy miss “Odorama.”
Nevertheless, I like this season. I really do. When it comes to movies, I have the emotional depth of a thirteen-year-old. A new Batman movie? I’m there. A new Jackass movie? My wife and I are there together. (Diligent readers will recall that my wife and I did not merely stand in line for a recent Jackass film, we were among the first in line on opening night. We were also – by far – the oldest people there. When it comes to movies, apparently neither of us has a whole lot of pride.)
These days a summer blockbuster is likely to come at us – quite literally – in 3-D. We have the technology and so we use it. Baz Luhrmann’s 3-D “The Great Gatsby” opened earlier this month. J.J. Abrams’s 3-D “Star Trek into Darkness” opened this weekend.
Historically, this has been the case with most technologies: When we can do it, we will do it. Among the rare cases when we have not leveraged an invention are the nuclear bomb – at least so far, thank heavens – and supersonic passenger flight. The Concorde allowed people to fly between North America and Europe in less than half the time that it took a traditional passenger jet, but in its nearly three decades of operation, there were relatively few takers. Saving a few hours wasn’t worth the extra cost.
But filmmakers are using 3-D a lot, especially for the movies that premiere in the summer. As anyone who has seen Luhrmann’s 3-D “Gatsby” knows, we don’t merely don the plastic glasses now for the likes of Iron Man, Superman, and Thor. We don them for James Gatz and Daisy Buchanan. Meanwhile, consumers are starting to spend serious scratch to bring 3-D TVs and home theatres into their living rooms.
And while 3-D is not a bad thing and it’s certainly not a gimmick thing, I wonder if it is quite so necessary. Is it as critical a cinematic breakthrough as sound – as talking pictures? As replacing black and white film with color film? As, for that matter, transitioning from film to digital technologies? To computer generated imagery and special effects?
The short answer? No. The truth is, we had 3-D in the 1950s. Who could possibly forget the 1953 3-D science fiction classic, “Robot Monster?” Okay, that’s a bad example. But you see my point. And while 3-D is better now and has the benefits of being married to CGI technology, I’m still not sure it’s essential for most movies. My favorite moment in Luhrmann’s “Gatsby” was that riveting, climactic scene toward the end when Daisy must choose between her husband and her lover. And that was all about writing and screenwriting and acting and directing.
Am I a dinosaur? Maybe. But I don’t think so. I just prefer my 3-D to be in the service of the Starship Enterprise.
(This article appeared originally in the Burlington Free Press on May 19, 2013. Chris’s new novel, The Light in the Ruins, arrives on July 8.)
Our most endearing trait? Our ability to hope.
This coming Wednesday night, once again – as I do every year – I will be contemplating the irony and wistfulness in the penultimate sentence in “The Great Gatsby:”
“Tomorrow we will run faster, stretch out our arms farther. . . .And one fine morning – ”
Fitzgerald was on to something when he combined revelry with self-delusion. Those emotions are the yin and yang of New Year’s Eve, making the holiday rather Gatsby-esque. We party hard – some of us harder than others – because the night is a tyrannical reminder that we are all another year older, but this time no one is giving us presents to cushion the blow. At the same time, we water (sometimes with champagne) that seed of optimism inside us that we will use the New Year as a reboot. It’s our second chance. Or thirty-second. Or even seventy-second. This coming year we will, somehow, get it right.
It’s rather remarkable, and says something about what is certainly among our most endearing traits as a species: Our ability to hope.
I’ve never stood in Times Square as the ball falls as midnight nears, but I’ve witnessed some pretty wonderful moments on New Year’s Eve: There is my lovely bride diving headfirst – fingernails out – across a dining room table after a spoon in the world’s best card game, Spoons. I should note she was sober. But she is athletic and competitive. She plays to win. We were at a party at friends of ours here in Lincoln.
There are the two bartenders, a man and a woman, at a restaurant in Burlington, spontaneously breaking into dance behind a redoubtable slab of burnished mahogany as midnight peels on my wife’s and my first New Year’s Eve in Vermont. The restaurant has changed hands at least twice since then, but the memory lingers. My wife and I decided the pair was in love.
And there are all of those January firsts when I was a boy and I am surveying our house after my parents’ New Year’s Eve party the night before. There is something reassuring about the debris in the kitchen sink and the living room side tables with half-filled glasses of Scotch. My parents are still asleep, but there had been people laughing into the very small hours of the morning. If I were awake at midnight, my mother would come to my bedroom and bring me downstairs so I wasn’t alone when the New Year arrived. Sure, I was surrounded by grownups, some of whom were seriously soused, but my mother understood something important about New Year’s Eve: It is a holiday about connection. Human connection.
What happens when you spend New Year’s Eve alone? Just before I started eighth grade, my family moved to Miami, Florida. I was home alone that New Year’s Eve, and I consumed a rolling pin-sized tube of frozen chocolate chip cookie dough. I didn’t bother to bake it. I ate it raw.
Let’s face it, we are all a little diminished without each other – and the world but a sad and spinning blue marble. Sartre was wrong: Hell isn’t other people. It’s their absence. What makes humankind so extraordinary is the way we find hope in one another, despite our myriad and constant failings.
And so once more this week we will wake up on the first and we will – Gatsby-like – vow to run faster. We will pledge to stretch farther.
And that’s why the night before, the last night of 2014, I will raise a glass at midnight. I will toast to my family and friends, and to better times for strangers in need. I will hope and pray that this year our annual reboot will succeed.
May 2015 bring us all peace and wonder and joy. Happy New Year.
(This column appeared originally in the Burlington Free Press on December 28, 2014. Chris's most recent novels are "The Light in the Ruins" and "Close Your Eyes, Hold Hands.")
“Tomorrow we will run faster, stretch out our arms farther. . . .And one fine morning – ”
Fitzgerald was on to something when he combined revelry with self-delusion. Those emotions are the yin and yang of New Year’s Eve, making the holiday rather Gatsby-esque. We party hard – some of us harder than others – because the night is a tyrannical reminder that we are all another year older, but this time no one is giving us presents to cushion the blow. At the same time, we water (sometimes with champagne) that seed of optimism inside us that we will use the New Year as a reboot. It’s our second chance. Or thirty-second. Or even seventy-second. This coming year we will, somehow, get it right.
It’s rather remarkable, and says something about what is certainly among our most endearing traits as a species: Our ability to hope.
I’ve never stood in Times Square as the ball falls as midnight nears, but I’ve witnessed some pretty wonderful moments on New Year’s Eve: There is my lovely bride diving headfirst – fingernails out – across a dining room table after a spoon in the world’s best card game, Spoons. I should note she was sober. But she is athletic and competitive. She plays to win. We were at a party at friends of ours here in Lincoln.
There are the two bartenders, a man and a woman, at a restaurant in Burlington, spontaneously breaking into dance behind a redoubtable slab of burnished mahogany as midnight peels on my wife’s and my first New Year’s Eve in Vermont. The restaurant has changed hands at least twice since then, but the memory lingers. My wife and I decided the pair was in love.
And there are all of those January firsts when I was a boy and I am surveying our house after my parents’ New Year’s Eve party the night before. There is something reassuring about the debris in the kitchen sink and the living room side tables with half-filled glasses of Scotch. My parents are still asleep, but there had been people laughing into the very small hours of the morning. If I were awake at midnight, my mother would come to my bedroom and bring me downstairs so I wasn’t alone when the New Year arrived. Sure, I was surrounded by grownups, some of whom were seriously soused, but my mother understood something important about New Year’s Eve: It is a holiday about connection. Human connection.
What happens when you spend New Year’s Eve alone? Just before I started eighth grade, my family moved to Miami, Florida. I was home alone that New Year’s Eve, and I consumed a rolling pin-sized tube of frozen chocolate chip cookie dough. I didn’t bother to bake it. I ate it raw.
Let’s face it, we are all a little diminished without each other – and the world but a sad and spinning blue marble. Sartre was wrong: Hell isn’t other people. It’s their absence. What makes humankind so extraordinary is the way we find hope in one another, despite our myriad and constant failings.
And so once more this week we will wake up on the first and we will – Gatsby-like – vow to run faster. We will pledge to stretch farther.
And that’s why the night before, the last night of 2014, I will raise a glass at midnight. I will toast to my family and friends, and to better times for strangers in need. I will hope and pray that this year our annual reboot will succeed.
May 2015 bring us all peace and wonder and joy. Happy New Year.
(This column appeared originally in the Burlington Free Press on December 28, 2014. Chris's most recent novels are "The Light in the Ruins" and "Close Your Eyes, Hold Hands.")
