THE FILM
FILM DIRECTOR: Jack Clayton
SCREENWRITER: Francis Ford Coppola
FILM STARS: Robert Redford, Mia Farrow, Bruce Dern, Sam Waterston, Karen Black, Scott Wilson, Lois Chiles, Edward Herrmann, Howard Da Silva, Vincent Schiavelli, Patsy Kensit
COUNTRY: USA
THIS BOOK
AUTHOR: F. Scott Fitzgerald
TYPE: Novel
PUBLISHER: Penguin
THIS EDITION PUBLISHED: 1974
COUNTRY: Great Britain
COVER: Paperback
THE ORIGINAL BOOK
ORIGINAL AUTHOR: As Above
YEAR FIRST PUBLISHED: 1925
ORIGINAL BOOK TITLE: The film title
NOTES
GENRE: Drama
WORDS: Much has been written about F. Scott Fitzgerald’s novel The Great Gatsby. You can do the googling. Of course I knew of its importance in the American literary canon when I read it many years ago, and … I can see why. A thoroughly entertaining read it was, with segments that remain vividly with me now some 20 or more years after reading. There is poetry in the prose remains with me as does the romantic tragic story told.
Th narrative is simple … as told by Jay Gatsby’s freind, Nick Carraway, it follows Gatsby, an enigmatic and newly-rich millionaire, as he dedicates his life to winning back his former lover, Daisy Buchanan, who is married to another man. The story encapsulates the promise that anyone, regardless of their background, can reinvent themselves and achieve wealth and success. However, the novel ultimately exposes the dark side of this ideal, revealing how the relentless pursuit of materialism can lead to moral emptiness and tragedy.
The book defined the cultural mood of the 1920s Jazz Age, and exposed some of its shallowness. It is both a critique of the “American Dream” and a lesson in the idea that money can’t buy you everything, it can’t buy you happiness. Though as a modern cynic I would say, for sure money can’t buy your happiness but better to be rich and unhappy than poor and unhappy. Or, as Spike Milligan once said “Money can’t buy you happiness but it does bring you a more pleasant form of misery” or David Lee Roth “Money can’t buy you happiness, but it can buy you a yacht big enough to pull up right alongside it”. Whichever way you lean, I’m pretty certain money can’t buy you peace of mind.
The poor boy does well and hides his past story is still relevant today, perhaps as much as it ever was. Of course that modern cynic (again) in me would say that modern technology has further obscured any path to awareness. A super cynic would say, if you aren’t aware then why does it matter? I wouldn’t.
This film from 1974 is the best of the three (major) versions so far. The 1949 version directed by Elliott Nugent and starring Alan Ladd concentrated on how he made his money as a gangster, but it is not without charms of its own. The Baz Lurmann directed version with Leonardo Di Caprio is a bit of everything and (unintentionally) celebrates the jazz age as much as critiquing it. It, also, is too intentionally anachronistic for my taste. There was a (lost) 1926 silent version directed by Herbert Brenon with Warner Baxter as Jay and a Made for TV version from 2000 directed by Robert Markowitz with Toby Stephens in the lead. Neither I have seen. Oft filmed the only surprising thing about the novel is that it hasn’t been filmed with a dull gender or race swap treatment. Actually a google reveals there was a 2002 Afro-American updated version set in a hip hop milieu directed by Christopher Scott Cherot and starring Richard T. Jones. It seems that version had the good sense and taste to not to re-write or fuck with the past and changed the characters names and called itself “G” whilst still being inspired by the original story.
In 1970s film there was a wave of 20s (The Fortune (1975), Won Ton Ton: The Dog Who Saved Hollywood (1976), The Front Page (1974), Valentino (1977), The Great Waldo Pepper (1975)), 30s (The Day of the Locust (1975), Chinatown (1975). The Last Tycoon (1976), The Streetfighter (1976), The Sting (1973), Hearts of the West (1975), At Long Last Love (1975), Movie Movie (1978), Thieves Like Us (1974), Hindenburg (1975)), and 40s (Summer of ’42 (1971), New York, New York (1977), The Other Side of Midnight (1977), The Way We Were (1973), The Godfather (1972), Farewell, My Lovely (1975)) nostalgia. Likewise in music there was a 1970s Ragtime revival (mainly on the back of the Marvin Hamlisch via Scott Joplin score for The Sting) as well as the emergence of Leon Redbone, The New Sunshine Jazz Band, The Pasadena Roof Orchestra, The Manhattan Transfer and other nostalgic acts. To make Gatsby at the time was perhaps inevitable.
Redford was suited as a leading man for the revived eras starring in Gatsby, The Great Waldo Pepper, The Sting, and The Way We Were. I can see why. His clean cut Wasp-ish good looks make him perfect for a time when ethnicities were not usually leads in films and his film persona doesn’t incorporate 50s heroes with flaws as played by Kirk Douglas, Montgomery Clift or Marlon Brando. He is straight up and down but thoughtful and pensive enough to elicit sympathy. He works as the singular minded Gatsby though the Gatsby of the novel was a tougher with blue collar veins.
The usually reliable Sam Waterston as Nick Carraway is a little underwhelming, Bruce Dern is good though perhaps overly boorish as Daisy’s husband Tom Buchanan. Karen Black, Lois Chiles and Scott Wilson are fine, Howard Da Silva effortlessly looks the part, and there is a very young Patsy Kensit for train spotters. The biggest problem is Mia Farrow. Farrow as the object of Gatsby’s attentions does not work for me. She is not the ethereal, wealthy, enchanting socialite who represents beauty and privilege. She is too neurotic, though admittedly that does lean into Daisy’s superficiality, emotionally cowardice and moral carelessness. Perhaps her subsequent career (and private life) has affectedmy perception of her performance though, to be fair, her roles up till then are no less neurotic. In her favour she does have the build of a former 20s flapper. People complained of the lack of chemistry between her and Redford and Farrow “subsequently revealed that she found it hard to establish a rapport with her co-star, who was obsessed with the unfolding real-life drama of the Watergate scandal and who, when not on camera, spent nearly all his time in his trailer, watching the coverage of the Watergate hearings on TV”. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jack_Clayton. I don’t know about that. If that was the case maybe Redford was cutting his losses after the original more appropriate Ali MacGraw left the role. Reportedly, Candice Bergen, Katharine Ross, Tuesday Weld and Faye Dunaway were considered or offered the role before Farrow got it. Bergen or Weld would have been best. To be fair, Hollywood has never nailed Daisy – Betty Field in the 1949 version, and Carey Mulligan in 2013 also weren’t perfect, and I can’t see Mira Sorvino in the Made for TV film being any better. Daisy, much like Helen of Troy or Cleopatra has to be right for the rest of the film to work truly successfully.
The cinematography by Douglas Slocombe, music by Nelson Riddle, and set design and costumes bring no complaints and only praise. But, English director, Jack Clayton, is all literature no cinema. He was a director who tackles novels – Room at the Top (1958) by John Braine, The Innocents (1961) based on The Turn of the Screw by Henry James, The Pumpkin Eater (1964) by Penelope Mortimer, Our Mother’s House (1967) by Julian Gloag which is not a problem unless the book gets in the way of the viuality of a film which happens here. The actors seem to come out a little “written”.
The screenplay by Francis Ford Coppola is well done as you would expect from Coppola. He remains largely faithful to the theme, plot and dialogue of the novel, though the film forces us to watch events unfold rather than experiencing them through Nick Carraway’s reflective, deeply analytical first-person narration and moral lens. Accordingly, the film unfolds slowly (a shortish less than 200 page book becomes a 146 minute film). Also, maybe, because it was the 70s (and subsequent generations are smarter than earlier ones apparently) in the film, Gatsby exhibits a level of self-awareness regarding his obsession with Daisy and with his self-destructive fixation that he lacks in the book. I think that a misstep. We aren’t necessarily smarter because we are further ahead in time. The awareness also makes Gatsby becomes more conveniently sympathetic which is accentuated by making Daisy’s husband more harsh. In the book he is tough with some vulnerability, in the film he is a manipulative cynic. Small details perhaps, and they don’t affect the central premise of the book, but they do make it a little squidgy.
Still, it is very watchable.
The film did well. On a budget of $7 million it brought in $26.5 million
See the film but definitely read the book.
NOTES
- There was a 1926 play of the book done by Owen Davis that was the basis (apparently) of the 1949 film and it, perhaps, informs the 1974 film.
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‘ The biggest problem is Mia Farrow’. That comment could be applied to almost every film she appeared in. An untalented insipid actress who was a perpetual black hole.
I haven’t seen the most recent adaptation of the GG , but I thought the Redford film was fine. I didn’t know FFC wrote the screenplay-he certainly was very productive in the 70s. A shame Apocalypse Now took up so much of his time and energy.
One problem with filming the GG is that nobody has cast a leading man who conveyed Gatsby’s latent menace. The character was a self made millionaire bootlegger in New York, hence he would have done business with gangsters like Dutch Schultz and others of that ilk. An actor with a smooth exterior who also conveyed a ruthless side-maybe a young Robert Wagner -would be great in the role.