Back to posting around June 16. Not exactly a summer vacation, especially since the pace of for-pay work isn’t slacking off, but more like a warm-weather interlude. Except that it isn’t quite warm enough to be summer, at least not in northern Illinois.

I’ve heard about the latest version of Gatsby, and so decided to read the book again. I’m going to pass on the film, for reasons stated before. But also because I’ve heard about the soundtrack.

From hotnewhiphop.com: “The director, Luhrmann, spoke on the adaption of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s book, and creating music for it that blends the Jazz Age with a modern spin. ‘F. Scott Fitzgerald’s novel is peppered with contemporary music references specific to the story’s setting of 1922. While we acknowledge, as Fitzgerald phrased it, “the Jazz Age,” and this is the period represented on screen, we—our audience—are living in the “hip-hop age” and want our viewers to feel the impact of modern-day music the way Fitzgerald did for the readers of his novel at the time of its publication.’ ”

Something like Classical scenes in medieval paintings featuring clothes and armor that looks suspiciously medieval? No, that’s being too generous. The producers clearly believe (and correctly so) that a genuine period music soundtrack — or even one featuring closely authentic, newly recorded versions — wouldn’t sell as well as a hip-hop soundtrack, and are pretending it’s for artistic reasons. Yet posh Jazz Age clothes and cars seem to be OK for the movie (to judge by the marketing). I don’t see why Jay Gatsby shouldn’t be dressed like a hip-hop star.

I forget which costume drama I saw about Marie Antoinette some years ago, but it had the same problem — a distractingly modern soundtrack. In that case it was ’80s New Wave, which I’d prefer over hip hop any time, but it still didn’t sit well on the film.