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The Great Gatsby
justjared
New Trailer
justjared
New Trailer
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Where can I find this picture in higher resolution? Thanks in advance.
myfdb-main.s3.amazonaws.com
Esquire.comGuy sitting in a room, talking about how comfortable he feels. Then he cracks his neck.
Thing is, he cracks his neck at the exact moment he's talking about how comfortable he feels — as he's giving a little speech about his feelings of comfort.
This is what he says:
"Most recently, the last few years, I feel way more comfortable than I've ever felt. You always talk about that, and then one day you're like: If they don't like this, well, **** 'em. What can you do? It's a resignation to life and who you are. Hey, look, I'm pretty well-formed as an adult now. I don't have to impress anybody. You ask yourself these different questions: What do I want to do? Interesting question: What do I want to do? What makes me really happy? I've learned all these things that I'm supposed to do. I know I'm supposed to be in that place and do that thing… but to really, deeply ask yourself that question — What do I want to do?"
First crack comes at the beginning of the speech, as the punctuation of the first sentence.
And it's really loud.
He's sitting in a chair when he does it, in the big empty conference room of a big expensive hotel. He's been sitting in the chair a couple hours. He's been all twisty, one leg slung over the other, the collar of his V-neck T-shirt not lining up with the collar of the blue-and-black-checked shirt he wears over it. He's one of those guys who has to invest a lot of energy into staying put, and so as he makes his speech, he's also untangling himself, putting his hands on his knees and his feet on the floor. And then he starts straining against himself, like Samson in chains. This is how it goes:
When he says "Most recently, the last few years, I feel way more comfortable than I've ever felt," he turns his chin toward his right shoulder, a full 45 degrees. A stripe of blue vein shows up in his surprisingly thick neck.
Crack.
And when he says "Interesting question: What do I want to do?" he turns his chin toward his left shoulder.
Crack.
Each crack has a snappy percussive element, like a fingernail flicked hard against a snare drum. Each one is loud enough to be heard on a tape recorder.
Now, the guy is an actor, so imagine if he cracked his neck like that in a movie while giving a speech about, you know, happiness. Imagine that he's sitting in a big empty room, and he's dwarfed by both its size and its ratty, faded elegance — the scarred little table next to his chair, the yellowed carpet under his feet, the dust-gray chandelier that hangs over his head. And imagine one more thing — that he's wearing a jaunty little driving cap and smoking a battery-powered cigarette with a glowing green tip … no, that he's been blowing smoke rings with the battery-powered cigarette, even though the whole point of the battery-powered cigarette is that there's no fire and nothing ever really burns.
The cracked neck would mean something, right?
In a movie, it would be a gesture — a tell. It would reveal character. If the screenwriter put it in the script, it would serve the story. If the director suggested it, it would serve his vision. And if the actor just, like, did it in a take, it would show how intuitive he is. He would crack his neck to add tension to the scene, to communicate menace, or, at the very least, to undercut his own claims of comfort. One thing is certain: No actor cracks his neck like that in a movie for no reason at all.
But here's the thing:
Leonardo DiCaprio is not in a movie. He's just being himself. The cracked neck is just a cracked neck, not a significant gesture but rather a neutral and therefore inscrutable one. You're not even supposed to ask about it, and when you do the conversation immediately sounds ridiculous:
"You just cracked your neck."
"I did."
"That was some crack."
"It was. It was pretty loud."
And so the cracked neck becomes the measure of the difference between the two lives that Leonardo DiCaprio has made for himself:
In the dark of the movie theater, it would mean everything.
In the light of day, it means nothing at all....
can't believe he's already turning 40 next year! I've always been curious to see this moment because I've always thought the 40s would be his peak.
The introductory text by Tom Junod is terrible though, he scrutinizes the cracked neck to say it means something that means nothing and doesn't even make it sound interestingly contradictory. It ends up just silly and amateur. Hopefully the interview will be good.
Thanks for posting LoveKatFashion.