The Great Gatsby will always get my vote for The Great American Novel. Here’s the tale of a man from humble roots who reinvents himself to pursue an idealized dream, a lost love from his youth. But what is Jay Gatsby like? What was going through his mind as he looked out from his mansion across the Long Island Sound night after night, thinking of Daisy?
Part of the answer can be found in the mansion, for our design choices speak volumes about ourselves. For the 1974 movie featuring Robert Redford, we see a grand Baroque-inspired mansion. If this looks like a Gilded Age mansion, it’s because it is one — the movie was filmed at Rosecliff in Newport, RI, which was modeled after the Grand Trianon in Versailles and shows the aspirations of the Nevada silver mining heiress who commissioned it:
And here are the ornate European interiors of the ballroom at Rosecliff:
I always thought this was the perfect house for Jay Gatsby. Having come from humble roots, he wanted to woo back Daisy by becoming someone else: the heir of an old wealthy family. What better way to do that than move right into the house of one?
Indeed that is the persona that Robert Redford played in the 1974 movie: A passive, if not pathetic, man trying to fit into a world that he did not belong in. He went to extremes to gather and show off his wealth, in the end he was just trying to fit in with the Buchanans. Notice the similarity of the Gatsby mansion to the Buchanans’ estate, Heatherden Hall:
Fast forward to 2013, and we find Leonardo di Caprio playing a different Gatsby: bolder, stronger, and more assertive. Here’s his mansion – a fantasy castle reminiscent of the mad Gothic style of Mad King Ludwig’s Neuschwanstein Castle in Bavaria:
In contrast, the Buchanans’ home is based on the Greek Revival style popular with the Old South aristocrats (think Gone with the Wind and Thomas Jefferson’s Monticello):
Now look at the interior. The Art Deco look of the famous “shirts” scene might look retro now, but it was in fact cutting edge Art Deco design in the 1920’s. Art Deco came into vogue in France during the 1920’s as an homage to the new Machine Age. It was a bold, assertive style of the future (think Chrysler Building and Fritz Lang’s Metropolis), not the past of Rosecliff.
We can also see a bold, Art Deco motif in the floor of the ballroom, along with Gatsby’s initials prominently in the center. Talk about leaving his mark on the world:
When we build, we create a world. What kind of world is it, and where do we belong in it? Even before the first stone is laid, we’ve already asked and answered those questions. Gatsby, unfettered by prosaic considerations of cost and resale value, could create anything he could envision. From what he created, we could peer down into the deepest reaches of his soul. Whereas Redford’s Gatsby was trying to inherit a past that was never his, di Caprio’s Gatsby loudly proclaims “Here I am!” Whereas Redford was timid and uncertain in front of Daisy and Tom, di Caprio has come to take what belongs to him.
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