The Great Gatsby

[charliechaplinfan]

A thread both devoted to the book and the films. I loved the book, I know many people do and I've only seen the Robert Redford film, I knew of the film before I read the book although I hadn't watched it so when I was reading it I couldn't help but picture Robert Redford's flawless looks. I've been reading an article about The Great Gatsby remake starring Leonardo Di Caprio that said that Gatsby was a vicious bootlegger. Is this right? I was very young when I read it but I don't remember him being a thug, I remember him being cloaked in mystery and not a person to be looked up to as he seemed really empty. I'm wondering if I'm remembering the Robert Redford film rather than the book? Has anyone seen any of the other film versions? Is anyone considereing watching the Di Caprio version? I can't picture him as Gatsby but he's not a bad actor, he might be able to carry it off.

[Rita Hayworth]

I only saw the Redford's version ... and haven't Leo's version yet! ... I got to rack my memory and might have to pull out the DVD of the Redford's movie to make comments on this thread ... Stay Tuned.

[moira finnie]

In the book it is gradually revealed that Gatsby was a gangster who had been a bootlegger, a front man for loansharking and other illegal activities. Since we see Jay Gatsby through the eyes of Nick, who is dazzled by his smile and charisma initially and gradually detects the flaws within and around him, I believe we are seeing Jay through the eyes of a man who has spent his life in the upper crust. Nick is aware of the superficiality of that, but he can't entirely remain unaware of jay's criminal ties nor does he entirely accept Gatsby, even though he tries to tell him that "You are worth more than the bunch of them." The darker sources of Gatsby's money and his lower middle class origins still make him a bit of an "other"---even to Nick, who is a part of the milieu he has lived in all his life.

Fitzgerald based this aspect of the book on bootleggers that he and Zelda met while living in the Great Neck, Long Island area and the then-well known figure of George Remus, a criminal lawyer from Cincinnati, Ohio who cornered a profitable portion of the market in medicinal alcohol for a time during Prohibition. He distributed the product of this quasi-legal enterprise through drugstores and other retail settings rather than just speakeasies. Fitzgerald was among the first to recognize that the gangster was an outgrowth of capitalism and was on the rise socially as well as economically in America. He endowed the character of Gatsby with the chivalrous qualities of a deluded Galahad on an impossible quest (striving to win the hand of a hopelessly idealized Daisy Buchanan) with that of a tough guy. There are scenes in the book when Nick sees through Gatsby's pathetic tendency to flourish his possessions (the elaborate shirts and suits), his palatial house, his elaborate parties, his fancy automobile, his hydroplane, and "his library of real books" as a way of protecting himself from detection. Gatsby can also be seen as representative of the American tendency toward consumption to hide the hollowness inside. Part of his tragedy was that he felt that he had to get rich any way he could to succeed, even though it meant being a fraud and doing unscrupulous things.

I am curious about the Leonardo Di Caprio version too. It had major casting and other issues, but The Great Gatsby (1949) had the best Jay Gatsby I've ever seen, Alan Ladd. Wilson and Myrtle were also close to perfect too with Howard Da Silva and Shelley Winters in those roles.

Btw, the mansion near Sands Point, Long Island that inspired Fitzgerald to write about Gatsby was torn down just last year, a victim of neglect and hard times. I wonder what Fitzgerald would have said.

[feaito]

Never read the book, never seen the Redford version, although I've owned the film on DVD for many years...I simply have delayed & delayed watching it.

I did see the Alan Ladd version and it surprised me favorably; it's much better than one has been actually lead to believe by critics in general.

[Vecchiolarry]

Hi Fernando,

I urge you to see it. It is beautifully photographed and Robert & Mia are gorgeous. One can get caught up and dragged into the life-style with the camera work.
Sam Waterston is in it as the narrator, and he has always been a fine actor.

Larry

[feaito]

I'll do Larry, thanks for your input.

[charliechaplinfan]

Thank you Moira for fleshing out the book for me, it's been so long since I read it and I'm sure that the Robert Redford book isn't explicit about how Jay made his money or perhaps it was, it has been a long time since I've watched that version. I remember enjoying the book immensley and have intended for a long time to reread it, I've read all Fitzgerald's work on the back of Gatsby but again it was a long time ago, it all left a favourable impression.

In my mind Leonardo Di Caprio is too old for Gatsby, hopefully his performance will knock my doubts into a cocked hat.

[JackFavell]

I love the book and hope that one day the 1926 version will be found, it's currently considered lost.

Cast: Warner Baxter [Jay Gatsby], Lois Wilson [Daisy Buchanan], Neil Hamilton [Nick Carraway], Georgia Hale [Myrtle Wilson], William Powell [George Wilson], Hale Hamilton [Tom Buchanan], George Nash [Charles Wolf], Carmelita Geraghty [Jordan Baker], Eric Blore [Lord Digby], ‘Gunboat’ Smith [Bert], Claire Whitney [Catherine]

This is the first filmed version, considered to be the best of the many, by whom I don't know, but I read that somewhere.

Directed by Herbert Brenon only one year after the book was published, the scenario was taken from the stage play, which was adapted from the novel by Owen Davis and some say Fitzgerald himself. It seems a perfect cast, though I am having a hard time imagining Powell as the pathetic garage mechanic, but I am guessing that if one didn't know Powell's voice, it would be considerably easier to picture him in the role. In fact I am sure he was very good, and suitably dark - he got the best reviews, including the November 22nd, 1926 New York Times: Mordaunt Hall describes his performance as "unerring". He was singled out for praise in every review I could find, which adds up to 5, with most critics stating that Powell was the only one to really capture the mood of the novel. Lois Wilson's Daisy was considered a breakthrough role for her, with some great scene, but ultimately unsatisfying.

It's interesting reading the reviews of the time, since they sound as if they could describe every other version to date. It was considered a mere shell of the novel - a blank, just as Jay is a shell, projected onto the world with no real substance. It included all of the scenes we think of in Gatsby, crazy parties, diving for gold and cocktails (thank you Mordaunt Hall for that lovely image) but imbued them with no depth or humanity. One critic went so far as to say that Warner Baxter was only a dress suit, that he wanted to care for the characters, but couldn't for some reason. Sound familiar?

So essentially, we have a book with loads of filmable action, great iconic characters, an achingly painful storyline, but one that is completely untransferable to the screen. Fascinating. Perhaps the very nature of the novel is what makes it impossible to film? These jazz age babies encapsulate the halfness of their world and their times (and ours). Maybe we shouldn't sympathize with them.

[charliechaplinfan]

I'm rereading The Great Gatsby, I haven't read it for 20 years and the memory has merged into a picture of Robert Redford, it goes without saying that I'm enjoying it but it has made me reevaluate some of the characters. More when I've finished, it shouldn't take long.

[JackFavell]

It's such a great book! I reread it this summer.

[charliechaplinfan]

I hadn't forgotten how good it was but I did read it when I was a young adult and my feelings aren't quite how I remembered them. I seemed to remember I liked Gatsby unreservedly, yet this time I have reservations but agree with the only party goer who turns up at his funeral that he was a poor old sod (or similar) he was, he didn't deserve his end yet one wonders what his life was after daisy. Apart from Daisy driving his life's desires what else was there? we know there were telephone conversations and business dealings and we can surmise what these were and that they weren't legal but did these drive his life forward? Would he have been relieved to leave his world? I don't know there's so many questions with this book.

I remember Tom as being not very nice, I still don't think he was, he was moneyed but he was rough, at first I felt some sympathy but he went and ruined it by beating his girlfriend up. The two women, I couldn't take to either, moneyed, concerned with nothing but themselves, I didn't take to the women but I guess I wasn't supposed to.

He makes a strong point about society people, I don't know the answer to this but is Nick Carraway, Fitzgerald, as in is that the place he occupied in the hierachy of society, poor relation to people much higher up the pecking order? Gatsby's parties and the people who come to them put me in mind of the celebrities today and the hangers on. He's not the Great Gatsby at all, he's from the same stock as most, did he always have the ambition or did Daisy drive his need for riches? He can't get into the world, he can romance Daisy but she won't give up Tom, for all what Jordan says about her wedding morning. I believe he'd treat her better than Tom.

There are sympathetic characters in the book, the older men, the father and Myrtle's husband.

Its his observations on the society of the time that linger in peoples memories and make it so accessible today, it's not for the love of the characters, not for me at least but it's the party going society and whims of the rich that are conjured up and what Fitzgerald's captured of the Jazz Age.

[JackFavell]

Yes, those impressions are just like mine, Alison. I felt a little sick after re-reading it, the way people treat one another, the bold faced prejudice shown baldly. Which is worse, the deluded pretention, or the bored entitled intolerance?

A friend is a friend only if they don't step over the line, and the line can be drawn anywhere at anytime and for the most ridiculous reason. There is a story Fitz wrote, it's either The Jelly Bean or The Camel's Back, and in it the protagonist is poverty stricken, unable to pay rent or even get a bite to eat, so he goes to his best college buddy for a loan. He broaches it in the most polite way, asking for a job reference and then we go into the best friend's mind, he's annoyed because the protagonist is touching him for money, though he's got oodles to spare, it sets his teeth on edge and he blows the fellow off just because it bothered him, like a fly hovering around his nose. He had a dance to go to anf the fellow spoiled his mood. These are the cold blooded people of Fitz's stories, he really draws a line between image and reality that is so unflattering, and yet, he doesn't spare the downtrodden either.

[MissGoddess]

your description of that passage reminds me of the scene in Laura, where Vincent Price was explaining to Gene Tierney the reaction he got from a friend when he asked him for a job.

[JackFavell]

Ooh, I'll have to go back and watch that section, I didn't remember it!

[MissGoddess]

Price's (Shelby) story went roughly like this: "I asked a friend for a job the other day and he just looked at me and laughed. Until he saw that I was serious and then he excused himself politely. I haven't heard from him since." It was the scene on the balcony at the party where Laura and Shelby met. It's a great scene in how it totally delineates both Shelby's character and that world they live in.