I watched The Great Gatsby on DVD yesterday. I started out being really annoyed with Baz Luhrmann’s over-the-top excesses – the loud, frenetic party scenes, the overly-glittery mansions, and the extreme “after the bomb” devastation of the “Valley of Ashes”. But I really liked Leonardo DiCaprio’s acting, and the many striking images in the film, such as the way Daisy first appears lounging on a white sofa in a room obscured by gossamer draperies billowing from the open windows. When I finally started viewing the movie as an iconic myth, rather than any sort of realistic story, things went better for me. I still think many of the scenes crossed the line into silliness rather than profundity, but by the end I cared about what happened to Gatsby.