Beautiful stars and plain heroines

[dirac]

Winona Ryder doesn’t fit Wharton’s description, true, but I agree with canbelto that she rises to the occasion beautifully in that last scene alone with Day-Lewis, big brown eyes wide as she moves in for the kill.

De Niro would have been the perfect Seventies Gatsby, not that I think a successful movie could ever be made of that book for reasons beyond the bounds of this thread, although we’ve already transgressed those. Interestingly, Gatsby was made at that time because Ali MacGraw, at that time married to Robert Evans of Paramount, had a longstanding yen to play Daisy. Then she went off on location with Steve McQueen, with predictable consequences, and she and Evans were phfft. McQueen offered his services for nothing, or at a very reduced rate, if Paramount would cast MacGraw anyway, but no dice. MacGraw would have been just as bad as Farrow, if not worse, but McQueen might have made a fine Gatsby. So it's quite true that vocal suitability was not a primary concern.

[canbelto]

dirac, the horror! The horror! (The thought of Ali McGraw as Daisy). I think in the 1970s if anyone could have played Daisy it was Cybill Shepherd. Of course Shepherd at that point was completely controlled by Peter Bogdanovich, so it wouldnt have been likely. Julie Christie, if she could have shed her British accent, might have been a good Daisy too. But Shepherd would have been better -- Daisy at her core is ice cold, and Christie was naturally a warmer actress. Perhaps Faye Dunaway too. Anyway, any of these ladies would have been better than Farrow.

[Helene]

Winona Ryder doesn’t fit Wharton’s description, true, but I agree with canbelto that she rises to the occasion beautifully in that last scene alone with Day-Lewis, big brown eyes wide as she moves in for the kill.

I really dislike Daniel Day Lewis, too, in the movie. Except for Pfeiffer, the entire movie was lost on me. I don't expect Mae to be a mouse, and I do expect her to have the posture of her station and to enunciate.