Baz Luhrmann Research Articles

Multimodal Representations of the American Dream Theme: A Comparative Analysis of The Great Gatsby in Film and Novel

This research analyzes the film adaptation of The Great Gatsby and its written text. It aims to examine the film adaptation through the perspective of multimodal analysis to determine how it expands or contracts the viewersꞌ comprehension of the complex themes and characters from the source material. Another goal is to determine the effect of the use of multimodal elements in the film on viewersꞌ engagement compared to the capacity of text to achieve the same function. According to this research hypothesis, the film adaptation of The Great Gatsby relies heavily on multimodal modes of communication to convey themes, character development, and emotions, influencing its viewers more than the textual descriptions do. Bateman and Schmidt's (2011) model, which includes paradigmatic and syntagmatic analysis, underpins the evaluation of the film. A thematic sample was selected for the multimodality analysis to compare the novel by F. Scott Fitzgerald to the film version directed by Baz Luhrmann in 2013, featuring Leonardo DiCaprio and Carey Mulligan. This research finds that the film adaptation presents a distinct interpretation of the American Dream compared to that of the novel. Fitzgerald's work conveys ideas through introspective narration and lush, descriptive language, allowing for a more nuanced and personal understanding of the American Dream.

By way of North: reorienting the feminine other in Australian film

ABSTRACT Within the body of scholarship on Australia's North, the cinematic Northern Territory has been identified as a potent site of Australia's racialised discourse and the nation's identity debate [Carleton, Stephen. 2009. “Cinema and the Australian North: Tracking and Troping Regionally Distinct Landscapes via Baz Luhrmann's Australia.” Metro 163: 50–55, 55], and its theorisation has tended to reflect scholarly preoccupations with national identity, place and a critique of a certain kind of masculinism that fetishises white-settler manhood as quintessentially Australian, with the role of the feminine and the non-white Other either marginalised and/or examined in relation to these [Hogan, Jackie. 2010. “Gendered and racialised discourses of national identity in Baz Luhrmann's Australia”]. This article reorients such views. It foregrounds the feminine via a comparative study of three female protagonists in three Northern-set films and theorises these through a framework that draws on Rossiter's Theory of Nature and Identity Formation, Creed's neomyth, and Sandars' conceptualisation of The Daughter in Australian cinema. Observing a lineage between these characters this article proposes that a cinematic trope of ‘The Woman in the North' is emerging in Australian film; and that it plays a role in progressing and reflecting Australia's gendered and racialised discourse.

Baz Luhrmann’s Elvis, Race, Racism and the South African Nexus

ABSTRACT TIME magazine film critic Stephanie Zacharek avers: “ … when Luhrmann first announced he was making an Elvis movie, back in 2014, the question might have been ‘Why now?’ But in 2022— especially now that we’ve seen how politically, racially, and culturally fractured our nation could become—the many faces of Elvis form a sun mosaic that raises more questions than it answers” (74). Using Luhrmann’s film as my launch pad, I explore the problematics of race in the lebenswelt of Elvis Presley while forging a nexus with racism in South Africa where a Presley movie was banned.

Breaking news: Television in Baz Luhrmann’s William Shakespeare’s Romeo + Juliet

The story of film’s relationship with television is long and fraught, a story of close alliances and indeed desired assimilation (of films on the small screen, or of studios owning stations), as well as of bitter rivalries (for viewers) with disastrous consequences (like Mankiewicz’s dispendious and Shakespeare-inspired Cleopatra (1963) and its effect on Fox studios): a tale, in short, not entirely dissimilar to the legendary Romeo and Juliet. As such, viewers perhaps should not have been surprised that Baz Luhrmann, whose work has been largely characterized by surprising associations, would have begun his rendition of the classic tale with the image of a television set automatically turning on and revealing a newscaster whose “news” is the play’s prologue. In so doing, Luhrmann makes the news not the story itself, but rather the way it is conveyed – “the medium is the message”, as McLuhan would say, and the well-known tale is made new through mingling these media. From this perspective, the television becomes a defining characteristic of this film’s rendition of Luhrmann’s Red Curtain aesthetic. By bookending the film with a camera dollying first towards and finally away from the television set, the director foregrounds television, first as object, and then as aesthetic, in this performance of Shakespeare’s classic tale. Though television may seem peripheral (both literally and thematically) in the film, I argue that Luhrmann’s use of television and its multiplicity of genres and tropes are actually central to its politics of adaptation.

Wszystko czego chcę, to Ty. Między odświeżeniem marki a zmianą paradygmatu – Chanel N° 5 w XXI wieku

All I want is You. Between brand refresh and paradigm shift – Chanel N° 5 in the 21st century The subject of the article is to show the cultural change that has occurred in terms of the created pattern of femininity in the Chanel N° 5 perfume advertisements realized by Baz Luhrmann. The purpose of the research was to trace the mechanisms of evolution of the images represented by Nicole Kidman and Gisele Bündchen, who are the faces of Chanel N° 5, taking into account the aspect of the iconic identity of the brand. Conclusions were formulated in the context of cultural studies.

Shakespeare and the Popular Film Industry

Shakespeare’s popularity on the big screen increased exponentially in the 1990s, largely thanks to Kenneth Branagh’s and Baz Luhrmann’s films and Shakespeare in Love (1998), co-written by Marc Norman and Tom Stoppard, which became the highest grossing Shakespeare film. In the recent two decades, the popular movie industry has also rediscovered the marketing value and crowd-tickling element in Shakespeare allusions, and several box office success genres, like superhero films, relied on “Easter egg” inclusion of well-known Shakespearean quotes or motifs. This paper offers a bird’s eye view of several tendencies characterising the attitude of the popular film industry to Shakespeare in the last 30 years. It also presents brief case studies with a focus on what makes or unmakes a “Shakespeare film” at the box office and in critical opinion, arguing that success relies on some form of a crossover effect. The films in focus are Baz Luhrmann’s Romeo+Juliet, Shakespeare in Love, Joss Whedon’s film noiresque, Much Ado About Nothing (2012), and Richard Eyre’s King Lear (2018).

Revising race and social mobility in adapting F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby

F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby is an American novel that has arguably established a global cultural recognizability, with the Hollywood adaptations of this novel commanding the biggest budgets and stars. However, Fitzgerald’s depiction of race poses problems for the contemporary reader, as it both critiques and replicates racism. Baz Luhrmann’s Hollywood-produced The Great Gatsby (2013) and the independent production G (2002), directed by Christopher Scott Cherot, both choose to emphasize this theme. Whilst Luhrmann links race to aspirational hip-hop “bling” consumerism, G recreates the theme as intrinsic to the meaning of Gatsby as a parable of the failure of social mobility. In 2021, The Great Gatsby was released from global copyright restrictions. The article ends by asking how we read these texts through an African and indeed South African perspective, and the possibilities a South African adaptation of Gatsby might offer.

Transgressive Catholicism

Abstract This article focuses on the omnipresent religiosity that permeates Baz Luhrmann's Romeo + Juliet (1996). The film creates an unconventional combination of a dystopian world – where violence, love, wealth and Catholicism are closely intertwined – and keenly focuses on the Capulets’ and the Montagues’ troubling relationship with religion. Drawing on previous studies by critics such as Christopher Baker, James N. Loehlin and Alan Hager, this article deals, first, with the various ways in which Luhrmann shows transgressions of Catholic faith and practices; second, how his film transgresses the original source text in religious terms; and third, how these transgressions also relate to a spiritual journey towards reconciliation.

Film and the intercultural multimodal reader: Expanding intercultural literary literacy as a theoretical and pedagogical concept

This article addresses key theoretical and practical concerns related to the intercultural encounter with multimodal literature. Previous efforts to incorporate an intercultural dimension into conceptualisations of literary literacy have primarily focused on competences associated with the reading of traditional, script-based texts. However, as the term “literature” is today associated with a wide range of new media texts, there is a need to take this into account in theoretical constructs as well as in pedagogical practice. The article provides insight into how the multimodal elements of film function as a complex meaning-making ensemble which adds layers of potential insight as well as potential misunderstanding to the text interpretation process. With a basis in the Model of the Intercultural Reader (Hoff, 2016), the article sheds light on how issues related to the narrative style and structure of a Hollywood motion picture can be navigated through an exploration of the recognisable audio-visual rhetoric of oft-repeated tropes. Drawing on Baz Luhrmann’s film Romeo + Julietas a practical example, concrete suggestions for pedagogical practice are offered. By integrating practices of script-based intercultural reading with new literacies, the article expands upon previous theorisations of the intercultural reader and provides insight into how teachers may facilitate nuanced intercultural explorations of literary multimodal texts in the 21stcentury language classroom.

Shakespeare's The Bachelorette

Our joint presentation combines performance and parody to create a playful and accessible approach to understanding Shakespearean texts and the power of adaptation. We intend to populate the TV show “The Bachelorette” with Shakespeare’s characters, thus using popular culture to reveal the problematic aspects of Shakespeare’s plays. We want to appeal to up and coming generations and include those who may not have the background or elite education to understand Shakespeare on their own. One possibility we hope to explore is Ophelia choosing among several Shakespearean tragic heroes vying for her hand. Additionally, we will deconstruct Shakespearean gender norms and notions of sexuality, and probe the queer experience, or the lack thereof, in Shakespearean adaptations. Many Shakespearean popular media adaptations skirt around the queer undertones of the texts from which they derive their material. Our exploration is facilitated by the critical and parodic nature of our presentation, drawing on influences from Shakespeare’s own works and popular adaptations like Baz Luhrmann’s 1996 film Romeo + Juliet and Iqbal Khan’s 2015 theatrical production of Othello to challenge and subvert Shakespearean conventions. While many Shakespearean adaptations exalt and revere Shakespeare, our experiment hopes to discover what a queer and irreverent eye might make of Shakespeare.
 Mediums:
 
 Presentation
 Mini essay

INVESTIGATING THE USE OF OLD ENGLISH "SECOND PRONOUN" IN ROMEO AND JULIET MOVIE 1996 BY BAZ LUHRMANN AS CORPUS LINGUISTICS STUDY

This corpus linguistics study is to identify the use of the second pronoun in Romeo and Juliet Movie 1996 by Baz Luhrmann adapted from William Shakespeare's Novel. This movie is about the forbidden love between Romeo and Juliet because of family problems. The beauty of old English is interchangeable especially in literature. English underwent several changes. This change also affects the use of the second pronoun. The development of the pronoun has been a general process, which shows the variations available in what is considered a closed system. Based on Ernest Klein (1966), eight forms of second personal pronouns used by Shakespeare: the singular forms are Thou, Thee, Thy, and the plural forms are Ye, You, Your, and Yours. The objectives of the study are: (1) to identify the use of Old English “second pronoun” in Romeo and Juliet Movie 1996 by Baz Luhrmann adapted from William Shakespeare's Novel; and (2) to know which Old English “second pronoun” is higher and why. This research uses the descriptive qualitative method. The result of the research shows that the movie used old English of second-person pronouns You, Thou, Thee, Thy, Thee, and Thine as a singular pronoun. Based on the findings, the Romeo and Juliet Movie 1996 by Buz Luhrmann adapted from William Shakespeare's novel still uses Old English of second-person pronoun.

The Great Gatsby: A Graphic Novel AdaptationNick: A NovelEl gran GatsbyStepping Out with Scott and Zelda: Touring the Fitzgeralds’ Montgomery

The Great Gatsby: A Graphic Novel AdaptationNick: A NovelEl gran GatsbyStepping Out with Scott and Zelda: Touring the Fitzgeralds’ Montgomery

“Bipolar Zelda”: A Cultural Phenomenon

Abstract Following the release of Baz Luhrmann’s film adaptation of The Great Gatsby in 2013, interest in Zelda Fitzgerald reached its most recent peak. Out of this interest a curious cultural phenomenon that one might call “bipolar Zelda” emerged, challenging Zelda Fitzgerald’s historical schizophrenia diagnosis. This article traces the origins of “bipolar Zelda” and evaluates the strategies, motivations, and outcomes behind the phenomenon and its place within a much longer-running project to rescue Zelda from her diagnosis. Illuminating the “bipolar Zelda” phenomenon from a medical perspective demonstrates the problems and constraints of “retro-diagnosis” as well as the particularly erroneous representation of schizophrenia in film and literature that stands behind a problematic desire to disassociate Zelda with that condition. It is, therefore, time that scholars reconsider the wisdom of continuing to challenge Zelda’s historical diagnosis as it constitutes harm not only to her legacy but also to mentally ill individuals in the present.

"Goethe Boom" Films: Bildung Reloaded

"Goethe Boom" FilmsBildung Reloaded Bridget Swanson The project of German reunification in the 1990s coincided with a marked decline in film adaptations based on German canonical texts. The move signified a turn away from classical literary adaptations and broke with a longstanding trend in the German film industry. Whereas previous eras of cultural crisis and change, such as during the 1930s and 1970s, had often prompted renewed interest in classical adaptations, changes in funding structures in the early 1990s shifted the German adaptation industry's attention away from eighteenth-century Dichter und Denker (poets and thinkers) to the works of contemporary bestselling authors. With these sorts of book-to-film endeavors proving economically successful on the global market, in part due to financially advantageous changes in the book publishing industry,1 such adaptations promised Germany's film industry a strengthened foothold in commercially successful entertainment cinema. From Joseph Vilsmaier's Schlafes Bruder (Brother of Sleep, 1995) to Tom Tykwer's Parfüm. Die Geschichte eines Mörders (Perfume: The Story of a Murderer, 1995), the adaptations created during this era indeed garnered national and international acclaim, with Caroline Link's Nirgendwo in Afrika (Nowhere in Africa, 2001) even winning the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film in 2002. At this point, it seemed that the relevance of Weimar classicism had waned. Starting in the early 2000s, however, German film studios began to return to canonical texts and have released numerous adaptations based on the works of Goethe, Lessing, Schiller, and Kleist, among others. Loosely grouped under the umbrella term "contemporary classical adaptations," these films range from more conservative theater-based productions like Leander Haußmann's Kabale und Liebe (Intrigue and Love, 2005), to modernizations such as Christoph Stark's Julietta (2001), Sebastian Schipper's Mitte Ende August (Sometime in August, 2005) and Uwe Janson's Werther (2008), to biopic-oriented heritage films like Philipp Stölzl's Goethe! (Young Goethe in Love, 2010) and Dominik Graf's Die geliebten Schwestern (Beloved Sisters, 2014). As suggested by Paul Cooke, Randall Halle, and Brad Prager and Jaimey Fisher, the cultural shift toward eighteenth-century German literature in the early twenty-first century complicates scholarly treatments of the current transnational German film market.2 Whereas these scholars outline contemporary German film output as increasingly outward-looking, with Germany's traumatic twentieth-century past and contemporary multiculturalism often [End Page 351] stylized for consumption by global markets, the contemporary classical adaptations discussed here point toward a pervasive national preoccupation with two intertwined endeavors that can be traced back to production and reception processes of the eighteenth century. First, German cinema has sought to rival Hollywood's successful "Shakespeare boom" period via acts of emulation and appropriation reminiscent of Enlightenment-era German literary practices. Second, the contemporary German film industry has been engaged with concerns about the perceived need and mandate for the media literacy of young Germans—doing so in a manner that co-opts aspects of the discourses of Bildung inherent to the very texts upon which the contemporary classical adaptations were based. The resulting adaptations are thus culturally unique compared with earlier eras of German Literaturverfilmungen, as they emphasize, across both aesthetic and industrial lines, figurations of transnational pop culture, national Bildung, and pedagogy. In terms of the appropriative practices at play in the initial emergence of this genre, eighteenth-century Shakespeare emulation resurfaces as twenty-first-century Shakespeare boom emulation. That the German film industry has channeled Hollywood Shakespeare film adaptations to create contemporary cinematic fare based on Germany's literary trove is, from a film historical perspective, distinctive, contrasting with most other national cinema contexts. Here, filmmakers imitate the translocation and modernization of Baz Luhrmann's Romeo + Juliet (2006) and Michael Almereyda's Hamlet (2000) and fit Shakespeare's works to their geographical and linguistic contexts, examples of which are described at length by Mark Thornton Burnett, Maurizio Calbi, and Sonia Massai.3 However, in Germany, where the Hollywood Shakespeare boom films garnered the greatest profits of any foreign market, several German critics and filmmakers immediately responded with laments that "die Amerikaner und die Engländer 'ihren' Shakespeare rauf und runter verfilmen, mal klassisch, mal...

“To be young, gifted, and black”

Abstract The Great Gatsby is a seminal novel in American high-school classrooms, and although educators should be aware of assigning diverse texts equitably on their syllabi, Fitzgerald’s 1925 classic is a part of the traditional canon of literature with modern relevance. Gatsby can be made relatable to all students, especially students who are Black, Indigenous, or People of Color (BIPOC) through various pedagogies: immersive history, Socratic discussions, debates, and other engaging activities. In a world of smartphones and mass media, embracing students’ predilections for screen time through film with Baz Luhrmann’s 2013 adaptation is also a beneficial approach. Taking a racial justice approach to the novel will also help create a classroom space for students of varying racial, ethnic, and social backgrounds to discuss current events related to the murder of George Floyd, the protests and rebellion across the United States, and the Black Lives Matter movement. Jay Gatsby mirrors the lives of many teenagers who navigate a society that attempts to put them in their place based on their racial/ethnic backgrounds. As the rift between the “inside” society of white privilege and financial stability and the “outside” world of diverse, working-class Americans widens, The Great Gatsby should remain a staple text of American classrooms.

Under the Red White and Blue: Patriotism, Disenchantment and the Stubborn Myth of The Great Gatsby

Under the Red White and Blue: Patriotism, Disenchantment and the Stubborn Myth of <i>The Great Gatsby</i>

Theatricality of Film Language in Baz Luhrmann’s Films

Theatricality of Film Language in Baz Luhrmann’s Films

GRAPHIC DESIGN IN FILM: BUILDING CHARACTER IDENTITY AND VISUAL STYLE IN THE GREAT GATSBY (2013)

Graphic design and cinema have worked together since the early days of filmmaking, driven by the effort to develop autonomous visual narratives in silent films, in much through the use of intertitles. It is meaningful to recognize how graphic design elements have invariably been a part of cinema’s hybrid language, as a material of expression manifested through the visual channel together with the filmed image. The different technological milestones that shaped cinema’s development also directly influenced the use of graphic language in movies, which became more complex with time. These graphic elements are present throughout an entire film narrative, from the choice of verbal, pictorial and schematic elements in titles and animations, to the creation (and curation) of printed or handmade graphic props, signage and logos filmed by the camera. Together, they form a movie’s graphic identity, which helps to convey meaning to the narrative as well as to bring a more dynamic and authentic storytelling. Through a case study of Hollywood’s 2013 movie adaptation of the literary masterpiece The Great Gatsby, this paper intends on exemplifying the strategic use of graphic design elements throughout the movie – in the physical and virtual formal natures – aiding in the construction of characters’ identities, contextualized into the roaring 1920’s aesthetics, as well as defining a clear visual style that is consistent with director Baz Luhrmann’s unique vision for the movie. In this way, the objective is to bring awareness to the potential of graphic design in building cinematic worlds that are historically accurate, aesthetically rich, and emotionally identifiable.

바즈루어만 감독의 영화음악 특징 : 영화 〈댄싱히어로〉 , 〈로미오와 줄리엣〉 , 〈물랑루즈〉 를 중심으로

바즈루어만 감독의 영화음악 특징 : 영화 〈댄싱히어로〉 , 〈로미오와 줄리엣〉 , 〈물랑루즈〉 를 중심으로

Tragedy tailored to the spirit of the times – Romeo and Juliet as interpreted by Franco Zeffirelli and Baz Luhrmann

This article discusses two film adaptations of Romeo and Juliet, i.e. one directed by Franco Zeffirelli and the other by Baz Luhrmann. It covers the following aspects: the structure of both the drama and its two film adaptations, the characters’ creation, the choice of setting and screen time, and the function of tragedy. Shakespeare’s language is characterised by unparalleled wit and powers of observation, and the final form of his plays is a clear indication of his ambivalent attitude towards tradition and the rigid structure of the drama. By breaking with convention, favouring an episodic structure, and blending tragedy with comedy, Shakespeare always takes risks, in a similar vain to the two directors who decided to make film adaptations based on his plays. Each technical device the adaptors selected could have turned out to be a wonderful novelty or a total disaster. The strength of both Zeffirelli’s and Luhrman’s adaptations is their emphasis on love and youth, which thanks to their directorial skill is perfectly in tune with the spirit of their respective times.