Great Gatsby kicks off Cannes Film Festival

Leonardo DiCaprio and director Baz Luhrmann have appeared on the red carpet in Cannes as their new film The Great Gatsby opens the annual film festival.

The movie, based on F Scott Fitzgerald’s novel, also stars British actress Carey Mulligan. Early reviews have been mixed though DiCaprio has been praised in the central role as bootlegger Jay Gatsby.

The 20 films in competition include movies by the Coen brothers and Roman Polanski.

DiCaprio – who worked with Luhrmann in his 1996 adaptation of Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet – said that he read the book “in junior high school” but admitted “it didn’t quite connect with me”.

He said his recent reading of a first edition of the novel “just blew me away – it had so many meanings and nuances”.

Tobey Maguire, Leonardo DiCaprio, Carey Mulligan and Joel Edgerton in The Great Gatsby Tobey Maguire (left) also appears in Baz Luhrmann’s F Scott Fitzgerald adaptation

“I remembered it being a very traditional love story of this man that was obsessed with this woman named Daisy,” he told BBC News.

“But it’s such an existential novel in a lot of ways. This guy is an eternal dreamer. He is a manifestation of his own dreams.”

DiCaprio said taking the lead role brought an “enormous pressure”.

“What is so great about this novel and why people still discuss it nearly a hundred years later and still have arguments about the meaning of each sentence and each word and each bit of symbolism, is because it’s left up to the interpretation of you as a reader.

“In a way it’s a recipe for disaster because so many people are going to say ‘that’s not how I felt Daisy should be or how Gatsby should be’.

“I just looked at it as an incredible character to take on, something that was subtle in its approach but had so much depth and meaning in every single line,” he said.

Of the uneven reviews coming from US critics, he added: “All you can do is try your best.

“You go to make these films, you’re off on location for months and months at a time, and all you can do is try your best. I know we did that for this film.

“Ultimately whether people embrace it or tear it apart is beyond anyone’s control. All you can do is dedicate yourself to making a great piece of art and that’s what we ultimately did.”

Source:BBC

R.Sawas