Watching a movie made from the skeleton of a favorite book is an act of hope that surpasses even Jay Gatsby’s optimism.First of all, the mediums are fraught with drastic differences for the reader/viewer. The conjuring is done in a different place, internally vs. externally. Movies are limited to two hours or so, but can hypnotize you with sensory effects, and can deliver pages upon pages of description in a single second, whereas books can meander in and out of characters’ thoughts without worrying about clunky voiceovers or the physical limitations of actors. Book have deep symbolism, movies deliver easy aesthetic beauty.Their opposing strengths in form can deliver amazing experiences, each in its own way. So why is it so hard to make a great book into a great movie? When a new project’s preview appears, the little Gatsbys inside us swell with the belief that we can, indeed, re-create the past, that someone is spending millions of dollars to do it for us, right now. After the show, our glum Caraways realize, too late for the murdered Gatsby, the crushing disappointments to which optimism generally leads.There have been five Great Gatsby’s made for film and television (I’m not including any of the various stage productions here). Five Gatsbys, but because the original is in writing, there are millions of Gatsbys, living inside each of us, vital and unique and uncompromised.The first film adaptation is all but lost. It was a silent movie directed by Herbert Brenon and released in 1926. Warner Baxter plays Gatsby. In the theatrical trailer, which is all that remains, we see the telltale excess of large set mansions, scantily clad girls flapping about, a handsome Baxter commanding the screen. Not much is known about how this Gatsby held up to the scrutiny of Fitzgerald fans, but if the original Jay Gatsby had his way, the takeaway for us might be this: where there is something lost, there is always hope.
The next Gatsby iteration, Alan Ladd’s admirable 1949 portrayal, directed by Elliot Nugent, depicts Gatsby as a detached, mild-mannered aristocrat, with the occasional glimpse of the confident gangster hidden below the surface. Nick, played by MacDonald Carey, is odd and haughty, and too fickle with his affection and judgments. Ladd plays Gatsby well, but the figure he cuts is so straight-laced that it’s hard to tell if he has any emotions. In the Daisy-comes-to-tea scene Gatsby flinches ever so slightly when he hears Daisy’s car pulling up, and Nick responds by chiding him not to “be so jumpy” in a prescriptive and demeaning way. Yet Gatsby isn’t at all visibly nervous, and Nick’s hostility fades instantly into a chummy, fraternal grin. Both Carey and Ladd are solid actors, but the chemistry isn’t quite right, and their stiffness detracts from what’s supposed to be there, just below the glimmering surface.One of the most interesting aspects of this version is the script, which is adapted from an adaptation: a play written by Owen Davis, which producers Cyril Hume and Richard Maibaum worked over for the movie. The film begins in a cemetery, with Caraway and a female companion visiting Gatsby’s grave twenty years after his death. The story’s framing allows the narrator to meander within the novel’s timeline, and the early focus on Nick and Gatsby’s relationship, as well as the series of well-done flashbacks of Gatsby’s past, clues the audience in to both the complexity of Gatsby’s life and the odd endearment the two men share, the latter of which would be nearly impossible to pull off with the haughty, judgmental Nick of this film. The dialogue is crisp, the acting subdued, and the plot stays close to the novel. That is, until the end.Hume and Maibaum give Gatsby a bold, character-affirming speech, wherein he firmly sees the errors of his gangster ways, and aims to man-up, to take charge of the situation, and do the right thing. He anoints himself a moral hero, a changed man, elevating the tension and the dramatic irony (we know George Wilson is on his way), complicating the tragedy to come, and capturing perfectly for the audience a noble, post-war, optimistic zeitgeist befitting the audience’s mood of that time.
The film, as all the others do, flirts with the green light on Daisy’s dock and with the eyes of Dr. T.J. Eckleburg. It also retains some of the best and most astonishing lines from the book, but it struggles to capture the complexity of a well positioned literary symbol. The eyes work better than the light in this film, but neither stands up to the original. Nor does Tom (too polite), played by Barry Sullivan, nor Daisy (flat and simple minded), played by Betty Field. With unambitious camera work and a standard orchestral score, the film is too reserved. You can’t see the moral depravity or the desperate search for happiness in any form bubbling up from inside the characters.Perhaps the best known of the filmic Gatsbys is Robert Redford’s 1974 portrayal, directed by Jack Clayton, an atrocious, clunker of a film that could send even the most blindly optimistic among us scrambling for the stop button. It’s not that Redford is bad. Redford is Redford: moral, stoic, kind, humble, unflinching. He’s just not Gatsby. And with a star-studded cast (Mia Farrow as Daisy, Bruce Dern as Tom, Sam Waterston as Nick) and Coppola writing the screenplay, fresh off of adaptation success with The Godfather, you find yourself wondering how it all went so horribly wrong.The direction and the camera work, first off, are inconsistent. We go for stretches of paced, long and medium shots with clean cuts to swatches of film full of odd angles, close ups, fast cuts, and moving cameras. And then there are the seemingly meaningless crossfades. Some of the crossfades are fast, some slow, some are light, some dark, and half the time the fade has nothing to do with the previous scene. Intentional unevenness for the purpose of setting a tone for the viewer is one thing, but blatant changes in shot and editing styles makes the film needlessly distracting. The super-saturated, sparkly white montage of Redford and Daisy (who’s played as a shallow ditz by Farrow) looks like a scene from The Love Boat.
Mia Farrow is annoying, and it’s hard to see why Redford’s Gatsby would ever love her to begin with, but Bruce Dern is fantastic as a mean, intelligent Tom, and Jordan Baker, played by Lois Chiles, is wise and subtle. The sets are beautiful, but they are framed like greeting cards. Most of the bit actors affect a stereotypical gumball accent. Farrow’s overwrought emotionalism meets Redford’s stoicism without a bit of chemistry, and it all seems forced, manufactured and robotic on every level. The great themes in the book—the immorality of wealth, the surface level of a shallow humanity set against the desperate reality underneath, the class differences, how the past affects present, lost romantic love, the failure of the American Dream—all are lost in the junk heap of bad dialogue and flimsy, and scatterbrained camera tricks.On my path through all of the Gatsbys, I was surprised to find another contemporary adaptation of Gatsby, a less-heralded TV movie of such surprising depth and quality that I didn’t quite know what to make of it. How had I not heard of it before? The 2000 Great Gatsby, created in a collaboration between A&E in the U.S. and Granada Productions in the U.K., is a well-acted chamber drama adapted by John J. McLaughlin and directed by Robert Markowitz. The movie is almost perfectly cast. Paul Rudd’s mild-mannered puffiness suits Nick Caraway well, and Mira Sorvino is a surprisingly complex Daisy. Francie Swift and Heather Goldenhersh bring moxie and attitude to the roles of Jordan Baker and Myrtle Wilson, respectively. Toby Stephens absolutely steals the show as Gatsby. Stephens is cool, confident, commanding, and just mysterious enough. He’s one of those slippery actors who usually gets typecast as an unhinged villainous mastermind. He’s earnest and enigmatic at once, trustworthy and seductive, ugly and handsome.Perhaps the only miscast role is Martin Donovan as Tom. Donovan plays Tom as an intellectual with an earnest conscience. He does this new Tom well, but it’s too mild-mannered for the original character; he’s a limp noodle of a Tom, a Tom with feelings.The script works quite well, too. McLaughlin stays close to the novel, and the voiceovers develop Nick’s changing perspective, as well as hitting many of the novel’s best lines. The actors are allowed to be complex and conflicted, to exist in that scary space between the facade we present to the world and what’s hiding inside us.The camera relies on the usual television modes of shooting. Medium shots let the actors carry the drama, and subtle shifts clue the viewer into psychological changes. Gatsby is kept front and center in the initial framing, and is then thrown to the side of the frame when Daisy re-enters his life. The tea scene is a perfect example. Gatsby’s nerves are nicely conveyed by Stephens, and the shots move further away, with Gatsby screen left or right, diminishing his visual power and control.The nature of the television-style shots, as well as the budget, limits the film. The sets are minimal, never lavish. Even the Valley of Ashes is unimpressive; it looks like a standard industrial park. And though the chamber drama style allows the characters to develop nicely, there’s something missing thematically in the absence of the big, sumptuous sets. Wealth is not at the forefront of this film. But the human drama of the relationships is on full display.One of the remarkable things about Fitzgerald’s novel is how effortlessly its themes emerge and swirl together into a mass of poetic, personal and philosophical issues as complex and interdependent as any microcosm of humanity. It presents a messy, multi-dimensional world with extraordinary economy. Such economy stands in stark contrast to Baz Luhrmann's gaudy formalism. The newest Gatsby could as well be called The Absolutely Fabulous Gatsby, with moving 3D jazz hands framing the words.Luhrmann leaves no aesthetic stone unturned in his free-wheeling, spastic adaptation. It’s a hip little brother of a Gatsby, an energy drink infused skateboarder of a Gatsby. It’s also the most anticipated adaptation of the year. Perhaps this is because Fitzgerald’s book is so beloved, and none of the previous attempts by Hollywood have lived up to it. It certainly raises an interesting problem: with such high expectations, could this new Gatsby ever succeed? Are we not in the same position as Jay Gatsby in the hotel, asking too much of Daisy? Luhrmann attempts to match our expectations with sheer volume, both visually and with an innovative soundtrack. With swooping following shots, frenetic cuts, swish pans, POV shots, close ups, and 3D, this film thrusts the audience into the experience. It feels more like a video game than a film at times, like a first person shooter, Call of Duty: Gatsby.Much has already been made of Luhrmann’s aggressive style. Though there’s no consensus, Luhrmann is a polarizing figure, and most of the critics I’ve read feel that all the tricks Luhrmann employs keep him firmly stuck to the surface, that the film is nothing but glitz and slick formalism. I can certainly understand a critic not liking the style, or the soundtrack for that matter, as the film is visually overbearing and the music is distinctly stylized for a younger audience. But a close look at the filmic elements reveals Luhrmann’s mastery, if overuse, of formalist direction, editing, camerawork and sound engineering to show precisely the discord between the glittering surface of wealth and the seedy underbelly of moral depravity, human desire, and unhappiness.Take the apartment party scene, for example. The fidgety, close-up camera shot puts audience in the uncomfortable position of being a participant in the party. As the alcohol flows the camera becomes more frenetic, the music downright schizophrenic. Visually we lose control and focus, just as the characters do. Through voiceover we learn that Nick is having fun, but the “fun” is put to slow motion and appears immature, pathetic, sad, and demoralizing. The scene ends with Tom striking Myrtle to a crescendo of sound effects and an insane mash up, and Nick steps outside to see all of New York animated into a panorama of windows into individual lives—a scene of prostitution in one window and a hopeful little girl listening to a trumpet player in another. The immensity of the message here cannot be overstated: Nick is a participant in Tom’s immorality, drawn in by the seduction and privilege of his moneyed culture; but it’s also merely a blip in a vast sea of individual morality, of the collective hopes and dreams of the entire city, of the failures and aspirations of human morality. So Nick is both participant and observer, both seduced and critical, and Luhrmann puts the viewer right there at Nick’s side.
One has to look at what Luhrmann is doing, rather than dismiss it, to see this, but it’s there, in all the complexity Fitzgerald would have hoped for, albeit with none of the economy. Music plays a key role. Jay Z’s brilliant soundtrack, produced by Anton Monsted, mashes contemporary pop, rap, and indie music with audacious intricacy. Every note of positivism has a contrasting downbeat, and every mournful Lana Del Rey wail has a hopeful lyric and a dance beat transition. The music does an incredible amount of work in the film, providing irony, intensifying existing dramatic irony, and illuminating and concealing various characters’ interior feelings (or our feelings about them), and often acting as a counterpoint to the action.The film is also well cast and acted. DiCaprio’s stately looks, penchant for moodiness and ability to believably lose control work well for Gatsby. Tobey Maguire plays the familiar romantic patsy he always plays, but if Nick Caraway is to be seduced by the wealth and intrigue of Gatsby, Maguire is perfect for the role. His dowdy costume, which often turns him into a Mr. Rogers look alike, is certainly overdone, but his acting is aptly subtle. Joel Edgerton is a revelation as Tom Buchanan. Rumor has it Ben Affleck turned down the part, and while I have nothing against Affleck, Edgerton perfectly captures Tom’s aloof, abusive, and self-obsessed character. Elizabeth Debicki is a kind of supermodel/Elvira of a Jordan Baker, and Isla Fisher is convincing as a sultry, promiscuous Myrtle Wilson.The film has many other strengths. The sets, art direction, animation, and costuming are brilliant, creative and innovative, and we’ll be hearing more of them when major awards nominations come out. Catherine Martin, producer and costume designer, deserves special credit for dressing the characters in such illuminating and eccentric ways.But Luhrmann’s Gatsby also has some major flaws. The story’s framework, wherein Nick Caraway is a depressed alcoholic looking back on the summer from a sanitarium, is flimsy at best. Nick is a writer, and the only way he can recover is to write the book, The Great Gatsby, as prescribed by his ineffectual and uninteresting doctor. Nick narrates the film through voiceover via the book he is writing, which is a device that allows Luhrmann and fellow screenplay author Craig Pearce to cannibalize our favorite lines from the book and put them into the movie, as their predecessors did in many of the other Gatsby films. But the trick is overused, and comes off as cheesy more often than it conveys the power of the original quote.And Luhrmann does go overboard with the special effects. This isn’t a failing so much as a style choice, but it does detract from some of the scenes. Directors like Luhrmann, and contemporaries such as Danny Boyle or even Tim Burton, have such unique visions that they polarize audiences, alienating anyone who has a problem with the styles they hold to. Consider again the scene that spies on New York through its many windows. Luhrmann must have been aware of Nick’s meditation early in the novel that as a young man he had naively hoped to be “that most limited of all specialists, ‘the well-rounded man.’” “This isn’t just an epigram,” he continues, “life is much more successfully looked at through a single window, after all.” So Luhrmann is actually embracing the limitation that Nick identifies, of trying to be everywhere at once. He’s far more interested in the novel’s spectacular promise of glamor and brilliance than in the wisdom of its disillusion.Furthermore, Luhrmann has the added challenge of a soundtrack that, while perfectly suited to the story he’s created and brilliantly implemented into the film, may only appeal to a sliver of the Americans who love the book. It’s no coincidence that many of the harshest criticisms come from stalwart newspaper critics over the age of 50. Luhrmann simply didn’t make the film for that demographic.
I’ve heard some say that Luhrmann lost sight of the text and turned the film into an egocentric personal creation. I don’t think this is the case. During one swooping receding shot after a party, we follow a gangster’s ejection from the premises and beating out past the fence, and we get a brief, mid-range shot of the gate to Gatsby’s mansion. Under the Art Deco JG insignia, the phrase ad finum fidelus is forged: “Faithful to the end”. It’s the perfect motto for Gatsby. Luhrmann’s careful attention to the source material is evident, and his attempts to create the themes in the book are as well. For that matter, such attempts are evident in all of the Gatsbys, even the one I like the least. We have to remember that Fitzgerald puts us in Nick Caraway’s head for nearly 200 pages, but in each of the films we get maybe a couple of minutes in there. These filmmakers, each of them, were trying to re-create the feeling of reading Gatsby by creating a new Gatsby, and using the best of the technology, camerawork, sound, editing, lighting, dialogue, and actors they could find.It’s worth asking if some of the flaws of these films come from the book rather than the directors. One of the things that bothers me about Fitzgerald’s novel is the sanctimonious position of the narrator, Nick Caraway, the outsider who dips his toe into a new experience and is then free to comment on its morality. The great failure of the American Dream is put on display more like a head on a pike, and we, and Nick, and Fitzgerald limp away back to the middle west, licking our minor flesh wounds, with a great moral story to tell. The book is full of unlikable characters, but it’s hard not to fall for Alan Ladd, Robert Redford, and Leonardo DiCaprio. Nick in the book is cool and judgmental, yet Paul Rudd and Tobey Maguire are no more threatening than stuffed animals, and just as endearing. Besides, the romantic grandeur of Hollywood has a way of enflaming the senses and inspiring the very hopes that Fitzgerald’s novel ultimately wants to snuff out. The first close up of Dicaprio’s Gatsby in Luhrmann’s film epitomizes the contrast. At one of his famous parties, as the guests gossip about him, Gatsby is introduced to Nick and to us with a close-up, slightly out of focus, holding a champagne glass, his massive presence framed by fireworks, smiling a million-dollar smile. It’s corny, excessive, and perfect. And the audience is front and center in the experience. I liked being seduced by the glitter. And who doesn’t love a good soiree.____Matthew Sadler is the author of The Much Love Sad Dawg Trio (March Street) and Tiny Tsunami (Flying Guillotine). He serves as Assistant Poetry Editor for Versal, and lives and teaches in the suburbs of Detroit.
