Why Every Great Gatsby Adaptation Fails: The "Unfilmable" Classic Explained
HTML-код
- Опубликовано: 9 фев 2025
- F. Scott Fitzgerald's novel The Great Gatsby has been adapted for the screen at least seven times in the nearly 100 years since it was first published. None of the screen adaptations have been very good. What's up with that? What mistakes have the film and television versions of Gatsby made that cause them to fall short of greatness? Is a satisfactory screen adaptation of this classic American story even possible?
▶Join this channel to get access to perks:
www.youtube.co...
▶Patreon: / steveshives
▶PayPal: www.paypal.me/...
▶Venmo: venmo.com/that...
▶Twitter: / steve_shives
▶Facebook: / thatguysteveshives
▶Instagram: / steve.shives
Listen to the Late Seating podcast:
▶RSS: / sounds.rss
▶Soundcloud: / late-seating
Listen to The Ensign's Log podcast:
▶RSS: / sounds.rss
▶Soundcloud: / the-ensigns-log-podcast
#videoessay #thegreatgatsby #filmanalysis #literaryanalysis
I've always thought that a problem with film adaptations of Gatsby is that filmmakers want to BE Gatsby, to see themselves as glamorous and loved, to impresses every one with their great parties, so they all ignore the bits where Fitzgerald says "No, you really don't want to be Gatsby. It will end badly"
I think you're 100% on the money here!
Of course they do.
They're film directors.
That's bullshit.
You sound like somebody who wishes they were a filmmaker.
Yes, GATSBY is *Nick’s* story, as the events change him, not Gatsby. I’ve argued that Gatsby is never truly a major threat to Tom (Daisy was never going to leave him and his wealth), but *Nick* rejecting Tom and all he represents matters far more. In the book ONE FLEW OVER THE CUCKOO’S NEST, the narrator Chief Bromden is more than just a passive observer. Everything in the story builds to his actions in the ending. ruclips.net/video/QjsiqCD4Hf4/видео.html
I agree with your point. The other problem with most adaptations is that they make Daisy the heroine. She's a moron! Her indecision is what causes all the bad stuff in the novel. In film, we get Mia Farrow or Carey Mulligan playing the love interest. We're shown a Daisy (at least as far as I can tell) who definitely wants to be with Jay/Jimmy. Not in the book. The book is better.
The more you bring up the sci-fi version that hasn't happened, the more I want to see it actually
Right? That premise is ripe as hell.
Right? If Emma can be made into Clueless & 10 Things I Hate About You morphed out of Taming of the Shrew... why can we have Gatsby 3000?
I wonder who the directoral heir to Amy Heckerling would be, and what are they doing?
Just watch the headlines 2025.
Since it's public domain now, I'm imploring you Steve to write "Gatsby 2000". Hell, make it a patreon goal!
A lot of them feel like they were filmed specifically for English literature classes, especially with the obvious symbolism and obsession with putting the big quotes on the screen.
Exactly. In fact, the 1974 version was shown in my English literature class.
Jesus, Steve, you really ought to have found a niche in narrating for audiobooks. I was aware of The Great Gatsby before, but now I actually want to read it thanks to your narration of that passage.
A while back I ran across the idea of The Great Gatsby being adapted by the Muppets in the same way they did A Christmas Carol and Treasure Island. I can't help but think it could work--the inherent ridiculousness of the Muppets would definitely counteract the urge to be overly-reverent of the book, at least.
Oh my! Kermit as Gatsby, Piggy as Daisy, Gonzo as Nick - it works so well. Can we make this? How do we pitch it to Disney?
That could be a lot of fun. It could be really fun Heckle and Jeckle were busts or somehow part of the decoration of Gatsby's house and occassionally got into arguements with the cast
This is pure genius. I can't think of anything that _isn't_ better with Muppets!
No, y’all are forgetting that you need a human star so either Nick or Gatsby has to be played by John Mulaney or someone.
@@EdDale44135should reverse the gender roles and make Miss Piggy Gatsby, because she's clearly the one to go after Kermit rather than the other way around
I'm that cracking up nerd. Thanks for that shout out.
Sorry to say I don’t know the reference off-hand.
What is the movie or what is the actual name, if you only want to hint?
@@obiwanpez Alan Ladd, who played Gatsby in that film version, is most famous for his staring role in the cowboy movie Shane, which ends with the wandering cowboy that Alan Ladd plays walking alone into the sunset as a young boy shouts the character's name into the wilderness.
@colinneagle4495 I got the Shane reference, but didn't know the actor connection, because (sorry to admit it), I never saw either movie.
I'd actually love to see a sci-fi adaptation of The Great Gatsby fr fr
He had me with the red light of Mars. I had my checkbook out when he suggested updating the passage to refer to the Sea of Tranquility.
@@GSBarlev Exactly the same, the "red light of Mars" and the Sea of Tranquility bits cemented this as a perfect idea.
F. Scott Fitzgerald’s “The Martian Chronicles”
@@OmniGeno "A Flapper Girl of Mars"
See that green light, across the asteroid belt?
Steve don’t underestimate your audience. Even if a lot of us haven’t seen “Shane” we know the reference.
Yep, and it's Alan Ladd both instances.
Doesn't mean we all found it funny though... (I kid cause I love)
It's funny, I thought that the almost cartoonish tone of the 2013 version was done on purpose to highlight that distant image that we currently have of 1920 as a decade full of eccentricities and excesses and how well it ended.
Pretty sure Kermode made that point when he reviewed the Luhrmann version... That the story of Gatsby, in hindsight, kind of became this self-fulfilling prophecy/allegory of the Roaring Twenties in and of itself. Like, that's how Luhrmann interpreted it: everything in excess only to come crashing down when the party vibe sours, and we're left with a hangover the next morning.
And it makes sense, even if it falls apart in some aspects, but it's easy to see how people can make that comparison.
Also, and even though some people hate it, the melodrama of the 2013 version, to me anyways, drives home just how shallow and selfish these characters are in the story.
I like Luhrmann's attempt because I've always seen Gatsby as an archetype of the absurdly rich in the 1920s. The novel has always come across as an allegory for class war, and Gatsby is a complicated character because we pity him but at the same time disdain his lack of character growth.
Unrequited love though
Absurdly rich? Headlines 2025. Film at 11
In my younger and more formative years, it was universally acknowledged that including the number "2000" in the title of something would instantly code it as "futuristic."
I don't know if I've ever realized until now how completely incomprehensible that is to anyone born in this century.
Cue Late Night with Conan O’Brien and his “The Year 2000” segments.
Everyone knows the one solution to getting a good Gatsby movie: Muppets
I've heard it said that great literature doesn't make for great movies because great literature tends to be internal. Pot boilers make for great movies. Elmore Leonard, James Ellroy, Stephen King, etc. can yield more satisfying movies 'cause stuff actually happens outside of the characters' heads.
We need an unglamorous French adaptation.
"The book is always better than the movie."
Two words to disprove that statement:
Starship troopers 🎤
I've always loved the book, certainly not because of, but in spite of, the fascistic stuff (which Paul Verhoeven does point up, amplify, and parody absolutely brilliantly). Plus, the book features the powered armor, and I don't think I ever quite got over my disappointment at its absence from the movie. But that's just me.
Planet of the Apes, Legally Blonde, The Joy Luck Club I had a good list once. Usually, books are deemed better because they can go into hundreds of pages, and movies have to cut quite a bit for length. Then taste is subjective.
Oh god yeah that's right, the book has so many libertarian rants in it, it's a wonder it doesn't have the same reputation as like atlas shrugged
Haha, I recently talked about this with regard to _Helldivers 2_ (which very much takes its cues from Verhoeven)-the novel is incredible until you realize... Holy 🐮! Heinlein is being completely earnest!
That said, I think the novel still has its place-in the curriculum of a military literature course, immediately preceding Joe Haldeman's _Forever War._
Starship Troopers ... when the director didn't read the book, it's not based on the book
One of my favorite essayist talking about one of my favorite books. What a treat for me this morning.
Gossip Girl feels like a modern retelling of The Great Gatsby, but from Daisy's perspective. Dan embodies both Nick and Gatsby's roles, while Serena is the unattainable Daisy. The show brilliantly explores the destructive power of wealth and privilege, but I think it could have delved deeper into these themes instead of focusing so heavily on fashion and glamour.
I always thought Chuck was very Gatsby-esque in so many ways. Maybe it's just Ed's portayal of him...
I adore the costuming in the Redford one, those Ralph Lauren fits are so fun.
I am a reviewer and to be honest I find the tone of your negative reviews often rather vain, showing off how you can rip someone to shreds.
Having said that, I also find your reviews often make lots of valid points, capturing quite a bit of nuance and insight. Thanks a thousand times for that. Too often "reviews" simply go over the plot and then give a totally parochial pov as if their personal reaction were the voice of god. Yours are nothing like that but genuine deep dives, explaining precisely what your opinions are and why you've reached that conclusion. Bravo. I feel watching/listening to your reviews open my own perceptions.
Miss Piggy as Daisy says it all for personification.😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂🎉😂😂😂🎉🎉🎉🎉🎉❤❤❤❤😂
On this subject, two novels leap to my mind: Dune and The Manchurian Candidate. I get some kicks out of the 1984 movie of Dune, and I have endless respect for what Villeneuve is doing, but Dune may always be appreciated best as a book. It might work well as a miniseries -- although from what I've seen of how one miniseries treated the Guild navigators, that of course could also go very wrong. More of a revelation to me has been The Manchurian Candidate. I've loved the 1962 movie for a long time, so much that I finally bought the novel, and while the novel is good, I am startled by how the movie takes its raw materials and turns it into something remarkably fluid and moving. Some great books don't necessarily "need" a movie. But when a book can somehow inspire a movie which is very much its own vision and its own self, I can be happy.
For Dune, as adaptations, both the 1984 and recent films are really poor, even if they're enjoyable, more or less. They both have, for their time, high production values, good acting, and are fun to watch, but aren't exactly faithful to the book. The 1984 take is especially weird as well.
The SciFi Channel miniseries, on the other hand, has the opposite problem, very faithful adaptation, but chronic low production values, and some rather wooden acting. The sequel mini-series, Children of Dune, which ably adapts Dune Messiah, but truncates Children of Dune, fares better in production values and much better in acting.
Concept: A movie. The Great Great Gatsby. It's a movie about someone trying to adapt The Great Gatsby to film.
As a fan of Gatsby for most of my life, I was SO happy to see this video come up today. I, for the most part, agree with you about the various adaptations as I have seen all of the same ones. I do hold onto my opinion that Gatsby 2013 is the best of the adaptations outside of the fact that the soundtrack feels out of place with the setting of the film. Excellent takes, Steve
I love Steve's reviews.
I'd totally buy an audiobook version of Gatsby with Steve reading. Or any of a dozen other classics. He's got a good solid baritone timbre, perfect for audiobooks.
Bravo!
Oh no. Moulin Rouge is one of my favourite films, but that's mainly because I went into the cinema cold, without having seen a Baz Lurhman film before, and not really knowing what the story of the film was (back in the day, I saw two films a week in the cinema because tickets didn't cost a limb). The style just hit me in the face and I absolutely loved it, and Ewan McGregor was incandescent in his role. I'm not as hot on other Lurhman films, although Elvis has some amazing spots, but I think that has more to do with Austin Butler's performance than anything else.
That said, I never really connected with the Lurhman Gatsby, and I did think most of the characters were insufferable, but I also thought that was the point (Babylon also had the same vibe about the 20s, although that was a much harder movie to watch). I have never read the book so I don't know if that was indeed the point, but I'll trust you when you say it wasn't. However I do think the insufferable rich people take is a valid interpretation, if not Fitzgerald's intention.
I love Moulin Rouge. Could take or leave most of the rest of his filmography. Strictly Ballroom is pretty great, though.
@@sopranohannah I think Strictly Ballroom has real heart, something his later films have lacked a bit.
@@sopranohannahYES! Moulin Rouge & Ballroom are his absolute best ❤
Me too!
Very interesting subject! 🌟
My favourite book, “A Confederacy of Dunces,” is also considered to be unfilmable. And so it remains in so-called “development hell.”
It's such an amazing book!
Another favourite book of mine, "Good Omens" was long considered to be unfilmable, but Neil Gaiman made it happen because it was one of Terry Pratchett's last wishes. And it's really good! (The first series, anyway. Haven't dared to watch the 2nd, in case it's a disappointment.)
A far superior book to TGG imho
I think the problem is that the film HAS to show Nick Caraway, but the truth is we’re supposed to BE him. The interiority of Nick is what draws the reader into the story. I think that’s why people so often connect with this book as teenagers. When you’re a kid, you’re used to Nick’s POV as the default setting of your life: You’re always on the outside looking in. There’s always so much that you don’t know or don’t understand. Because Nick is not only a stranger to Long Island, but also to the world of the frivolously wealthy, he’s seeing everything the way we do when we’re young. It goes along with being invited to your first parties where no adults are present. You see your friends and classmates in a new way and realize that people have different faces that they show in different settings. You feel very naive. That’s Nick. And when you read “Gatsby” at that age, you slip right into his skin in a way that feels different from other books. I never identified with Holden Caulfield, for example, even as a teenager.
Filming “Gatsby” requires the audience to witness everything from outside of Nick’s character and he can feel pretty pointless for that reason. It’s like Jonathan Harker. After the opening sequence, he doesn’t really need to be there. Mina’s the protagonist, after all. All you need are her and Van Helsing!
I don’t have time to be doing this today, but now I’m trying to imagine my version of the ideal Gatsby movie.
Like how you mentioned you thought you remembered the Baz bits falling away after you’re first introduced to Gatsby. Slowly shedding the bombastic over-the-top everything as you start to see the slow, almost horrific melodrama creep in. Moving along with Nick going from “wow, glamorous rich people!” To realizing “oh god, this is actually horribly tragic”, with slower paced scenes, going from showiness to actual solid drama. Maybe not QUITE Baz-levels in those early bits, but something more like a light touch of that Wes Anderson almost-cartoonish-yet-deeply-unsettling style.
Ditching the pure v/o “narrating as the PoV character is writing” to just showing Nick… talking to someone. Don’t just plop voiceover or text-over on top of fluff shots- use the framing to actually convey the mood. Have the prose you want to keep be there just because that’s how Nick himself IS- he just talks like a poetry major. Closing with Nick saying the iconic end lines, as though he’s still telling the story he started in the beginning, framing shots in a way that it looks like he’s still talking to another person. But the camera pans out in silence to show he’s completely alone. The audience gets left to just sit with it, quietly. By that ending scene, the shots look much less theatrical and much more “grounded”, “realistic.”
Maybe let it be a bit less period piece, and a little more anachronism stew. You could even drag it up into the 80s or early 90s; any other era that feels like it’s a 5-minutes-before-disaster decadence. Maybe the thing that prompted Nick into trauma-dumping this story onto Someone is a neon green version of The Eye on a rainy night.
Use more quiet shots, more whispering. Make the shouting moments actually unsettling.
I dunno, I really like when the adaptations make a point of showing Nick just trying to live his life, and narcissist Gatsby barging his way in, and Nick just getting utterly traumatized by the whole fiasco-inside-a-fiasco. Maybe I just want The Great Gatsby in an almost film noir style.
… I really don’t have time to be thinking about how to glue these pieces together, and now I just want to re-read Gatsby again. Thanks, Steve 😩
You either love or hate Luhrman just generally, like licorice. I love Luhrman but I hold no grudge against people who don't.
Steve's condemnation of the directing style of Baz Luhrmann is exactly why I like Baz's films
Which makes this a fantastic review because regardless of me agreeing with reviewer it cuts exactly to what is or isn't in the film without giving the story away
Well done Steve!
43 mins of pure steve? hell YES
I've never read the book or seen any of the adaptations myself, but that bit you read with Gatsby believing his dream must be so close yet not understanding it was already behind him in the past was wonderful.
The Baz version is legend in the 3D Bluray community. The cinematography and 3D photography is amazing.
We were subjected to the 1974 film in high school. Our very young teacher meant well, but it went right over everyone's heads.
I hated _Moulin Rouge_ and threw my shoe at the screen when Ewan McGregor and Nicole Kidman began singing their love medley. (And I liked him singing in _Down With Love_ .) But I hated The Great Gatsby in high school and unto this very day. This money is respect for an opinion I disagree with. Well done.
Gratefully received! Thank you.
"Come back, Shane!" Some film geeks remember that line, yet most of us don't remember that after that somewhat immortal moment, it's ruined. As the final THE END shows on the screen, the kid cries out, "Good-bye, Shane!" He's not torn and wistful, he's already realized Shane can't come back.
Steve, would you say the eloquences that Fitzgerald reaches toward but can't quite reach are like a green light across a bay that represents an orgastic future that year by year recedes before us?
I used to consider GATSBY unfilmable because the genius is more in the prose than the actual story. My opinion has changed recently, as I think most adaptations, including the new musical, make a couple fatal errors in translation: 1) they truly believe Daisy and Gatsby are Romeo and Juliet level starcrossed lovers and 2) they think Gatsby is the most important character.
I would approach GATSBY as a story about Nick Carroway, who comes to New York to seek his fortune, is horrified by what he finds, and returns to the “simple” middle west. He has an actual arc, unlike Gatsby who is incapable of change.
I’d even argue that Nick’s relationship with Jordan is more compelling than Gatsby and Daisy. Don’t give us needless flashbacks of the latter but actually adapt more of the former! The 2013 film ignores the Nick/Jordan relationship entirely. But Nick dumping Jordan is an important choice! Gatsby was never going to fit into the East Egg world but Nick could easily have done so. Without Gatsby, Nick probably would have remained friends with the Buchanans and perhaps married Jordan, who Daisy wants to set him up with from the start. Gatsby helps Nick realize that they are a “rotten crowd.”
Like diplomacy, great filmmaking "is the art of the possible." They said forever they could never make a successful film adaptation of Lord of the Rings or Dune. It took passion and clear vision from filmmakers who truly cared enough to make it happen. That's why I love the medium of cinema and all its magic.
The latest Dune films certainly are successful, and judging them as films alone that success is justified, but they're really poor adaptations, leaving out some critical elements to world and character building and the mechanisms for Paul's victory. I also feel like the spirit of the book has been lost in translation.
I'd argue Dune's best adaptation is the SciFi Channel miniseries, despite its low production values and stilted acting.
Just wait until Florence Welch’s Gatsby musical goes into production again. It’s the only good adaptation and it’s stunning. It does everything you want it to do, even the perspective on Natives.
When you're talking about not needing the words of Nick seeing the party, the camera sees the party... I suddenly thought, maybe there's a version that could be made... that leaves out Nick. Requires big changes... but I think it could be done.
But without Nick there's no homoerotic tension, and without homoerotic tension, what's the point of the book?
I love that idea.
Give us Myrtle's take on the story.
It’s Nick’s story though.
Take nick out and it turns into a roaring 20s version of it’s a mad mad mad mad mad world. Could work if you wrote it as a black comedy.
You know what, that sounds amazing, I’m sold.
@@politesse3914 I agree completely. I think that filmed versions of The Great Gatsby have all failed because they view the main element of the story as the tragic romance between Jay and Daisy, while the real tragic romance at the heart of the novel is Nick's unrequited romantic fascination with Jay. Corporate squeamishness about portraying queer yearning leads the book to be watered down into a roaring '20's party movie filled with lavish art deco visuals, and the movies all feel hallow as a result
I loved how you got the lip-sync absolutely right, saying the lines at the same moment as Sam Waterston and Robert Redford!
Steve, have you read Maureen Corrigan's So We Read On? It's a great study of why Gatsby endures. One of things Corrigan's book made me realize is that so many Gatsby movies focus on the hopeful romance between the characters and of the jazz age. In my opinion, films haven't explored the noir, inescapable hopelessness of the illusioned anti-hero.
Going to be thinking about this for a while. Thanks for this video!
Thanks!
And thank you!
I think a problem with adapting The Great Gatsby is also a problem of adapting its style of writing. Every film adaptation except the Baz one wants to just make a straight movie out of Gatsby without really looking at how should we adapt the genre/writing style.
Like many other lost generation novels this one is terse and yet overflowing with subtext.
Every adaptation I’ve seen is just way too bloated with a screenplay that is longer than The Great Gatsby itself.
The only Baz Luhrmann film I've seen is his _Romeo + Juliet_ -- and I think that film is one of the best Shakespeare adaptations that's made it to the big screen, largely *because* of the 'sledgehammer-to-the-face' approach. I'd love to see your take on R+J someday.
I'd love to have seen a Tarantino version 😂
My two cents for why The Great Gatsby is so difficult to film; 1) This novel is told from the point of view of Nick who is clearly an unreliable narrator (the book even opens with Nick proclaiming how impartial he is so the reader wonders if somethings up from the get go) but filming books with unreliable narrators are incredibly difficult. This is because it's a lot harder to doubt if the story being told to you is from a biased source when your are instead seeing the story play out for yourself. 2) Nick has a big gay crush on Jay, and his queer desire for this extremely charismatic and extremely unavailable man is what drives Nick to befriend, observe, and document Jay's story. Without the queer subtext, Nick is just some aimless rich guy who becomes weirdly obsessed with his mysterious neighbor for no apparent reason. By removing both the readers doubts about Nick's reliability and then removing his motivation for participating in and then telling the story, it completely decontextualized the rich people soap opera stuff that the movies adaptations tend to focus on.
While I enjoyed Strictly Ballroom, everything else by Baz is a pile of crap. And at the pinnacle of Mt Crap is Moulin Rouge. I have yet to get through the entire film because it is just that AWFUL.
That said, Gatsby 2000 definitely needs to be made by Baz. Followed by Gatsby 3000, where giant RoboGatsby is defeated by MechBuchanan.
Regarding Luhrmann, I love his Romeo and Juliet, the bombast, oversaturation, and overwroughtness of it all really fits it in my opinion (and his writer was doing him a lot of favors for that one. Strictly ballroom was ok, cannot stand Moulin Rouge, Australia, Gatsby, or Elvis though...
Yeah, his overwrought style really did work with one of the most overwrought cautionary tales about teenage infatuation of all time. It didn't hurt that it was a fairly surreal adaptation of a 16th c. play, set in the late 20th c, so there was a lot of room to mess around artistically there. I was okay with Strictly Ballroom, but as an ex-almost-pro dancer I have a bias for dance movies and I know it. He lost me at Moulin Rouge. Parts of that one were fun, but the lack of a consistent setting in time (or maybe the overuse of anachronism) messed with my head, and it overall broke one of my primary movie rules: don't cast actors who aren't also professionally trained singers as your leads in a musical! I know that it's an industry thing to cast the biggest names you can, but it still bugs me. As for the rest of that hot mess, I could rant for a month...
To your point that the Book Is Better Than The Movie, I would contest that The Best Book Movies are the ones that let themselves escape the limitation of Adaptation and treat the project as its own story that must be told from square one. Pace in point; How To Train Your Dragon is WILDLY different than the books they're based on. That didn't make the movie bad, the movie is damn great, but it *is a completely different beast from the books and the comparison isn't useful.* The books are full of gross out humor targeted at tween boys, the movie tells a story about coming into your own, disability, relationship building, and gave us Astrid so the cast wasn't a sausage fest from top to bottom while still getting the *feel* right.
Its not about faithfulness or nailing That One Scene, its about Getting The Vibe right while telling a screen-friendly story.
You are definitely on to something. The Princess Bride is a very different movie than the book. It shares most of the plot points, but thematically they’re almost opposed. Both are pretty great, and I honestly think the differences make both versions better.
I also think Field of Dreams would have been a slog had J.D Salinger not been so litigious. James Earl Jones made that movie.
@@sopranohannah The Princess Bride is my go to example of this, I *loved* the book, and I also love the movie - which is totally different from the book.
I can’t really disagree with your assessments of Baz Luhrmann (and also I haven’t seen his Gatsby), but it’s also why I love Moulin Rouge.
I don't like Luhrman's style either, though his vision can be interesting with the right material. He believes in the artifice of cinema and thus wants to make movies that are spectacles for the audience. His first movie, Strictly Ballroom, uses the stylisation well, but it is also an original story, set in the world of competitive dancing, with colourful outfits and make-up. The problem is that, his style doesn't work with tragedies. Moulin Rouge would be fine, if Satine didn't have tuberculous and dropped dead at the end, since that negates the whimsy of everything else. The Great Gatsby could use the style for the party scenes to demonstrate the spectacle, while having everything else be dull and boring in comparison. Sometimes you just gotta know your strengths and play to them.
Baz Luhrmann knocked it out of the park with his adaptation. I will die on this hill.
The bling and excess was very much the point-we, like Nick, are meant to work and engage to hear the frail humanity whispering underneath the shouted artifice.
Gatsby's neuroses being dialed up to eleven (the clock scene) I always read as an act-Jay trying desperately to show his "vulnerable" side to Daisy (and Nick!) even while he's really just imitating the unstable genius of a Howard Hughes or WR Hearst. The movie attempts to peel the onion while clouding the vision of his audience (and audience surrogates) as we get through each layer.
Anyway, all that said, if you're looking to crowdfund _Gatsby 2000_ I'm in for 10%.
Baz Luhrmann's films are beautiful. And I hate subtlety in films honestly. Could not disagree with Steve more on this video.
Luhrmann is far and away the closest we've gotten to a good Gatsby movie.
I also think that Luhrman's frantic hyperkinetic style captured the April of the 1920s very well.
I thought it had excellent casting choices. The scene when driving in to New York was fantastic. I can imagine that driving into New York in the 1920s felt like that. The anachronisms didn't bother me.
I think I like the Baz version and for me it is the best adaptation of Gatsby, but I don’t think it’s a very good film and best adaptation is pretty faint praise
Agree with you about Luhrman. But when you say you can't think of another director who puts himself between the movie and the viewer, I immediately thought of Wes Anderson. Let's face it, Anderson has almost as big an issue with this as does Luhrman.
It’s not often I see a video essay that I haven’t seen before in some form or another, this is one of those times. Thanks Steve!
This felt less like a comment on Gatsby screen adaptions and more like a Baz Luhrmann rant 😂
I believe the book almost always feels better because reading is a collaborative art between author and audience. For example everyone knows what Poe’s House of Usher looks like even though he only tells you there’s a crack in the foundation of it while throwing in a bit of Roderick’s study. He knew we would build our own house from that. So even if the film version is noticeably better than what each of us imagined, it isn’t OUR House of Usher. Also, short stories leave a lot more to flesh out while novels usually have too much to include. And we all know how possessive fans can get over canon. You have to take each version on its own terms. Best example: The Princess Bride which I loved past words and so only went to because the screenplay was by the book’s author (William Goldman). Of course I noticed some changes, but could see why even as they passed (the zoo of death worked largely because of narration). Plus it wasn’t until afterwards I realized they left out a side bit on Princess Norma which was superfluous to the plot. Funny, but unnecessary even if it would not make the film drag (which is a big if.) I expect Gatsby is short enough for someone to do it justice in film some day. My problem with it is there’s no truly likable character to root for. At least there wasn’t when I had to read it for 11th grade English. Everyone seemed like a self absorbed pile of nothing. Nor could I grasp the glamour they were supposed to have. They were either the celebrities of their day without any notable talent for being old money, a successful bootlegger and/or the low class gold digger seen through the eyes of a young, if not green country boy. Or at least, this is how I remember them coming across some 56 years ago. I’ll have to give it another try.
You should review the two different Great Gatsby musicals that are currently out.
Speaking as someone who has never read The Great Gatsby, certainly not at school (In the UK school system it does get some attention, but typically at more advanced levels which not everyone gets to. Shakespeare tends to get more attention overall, with the most common piece of American literature at lower levels being Steinbeck's Of Mice and Men), and therefore someone who hasn't developed that reverence to the novel, I do wonder what would happen if you gave Gatsby to a team of people who have that same kind of background, reading it for the first time in preparation for an adaptation. I feel you'd find yourself ridded of that reverence that you've mentioned hinders the more recent adaptations. It makes me wonder if there's any other works of fiction you could do the same thing with.
Maybe the problem is that it's a story about tiresome rich people and it's just not as good to sit and watch as it is to be in Nick's head with him.
It is weird to me that they’ve had such a hard time making a movie of it, because The Great Gatsby is such a visual book.
Maybe the key is to eliminate the character of Nick. He’s superfluous when we can see what’s happening.
I would love to hear what you think of the movie Poor Things.
Oh I hear ya about Luhrmann for sure!!!! Yet I did love Romeo & Juliet and I loved this movie. Granted it is an acquired taste but in this Gatsby rendition he took the time to tell the back story of Gatsby who I was there to hear from and witness. It allowed me to understand more about the WHY Gatsby would go bonkers over this chick. But it wasn't just Daisy - it was the World where Daisy comes from. The life of the truly Wealthy has driven the average and poor to do horrid things from their mind and into reality. Leo DiCaprio brought a dark intensity that was lacking in the other movies of Gatsby. I thoroughly enjoyed this movie but yes I get the "bust a nut" analogy for sure.
It's worth noting that the behind-the-scenes drama of the lead-up to Gatsby '74 is better than the movie.
I really do appreciate how you always tie your work to the themes of your critical subjects. The holism adds real substance to your takes.
May have to revisit. I recall hating the shallowness of the story and all of the characters in it. No one has any real problems, but insist on being self-interestedly insufferable anyway.
However well written, and with whatever intent, I have great difficulty enjoying a story without a single character I would want to meet.
I think that Steve misheard, and that he were actually told, "The Great Gatsby (like most books) is inflammable."
Maybe someone should approach Gatsby broadly the way west side story approached Romeo and Juliet
I read the Great Gatsby in high school and wasn't impressed by it. I then reread it as an adult, and fell in love with Fitzgerald's beautiful, musical command of the language. It's now one of my favorite novels.
10:27 Robert Redford was better as the 1920s stunt pilot/WWI flying veteran Waldo Pepper, and that was the period piece* Redford did the year after "The Great Gatsby". Like watching a prototype for Han Solo stride across the screen.
*"The Great Waldo Pepper"
When you said the film would have been better with a "tighter edit", I swear I heard "Tiger in it." - Both are true.
"The Great Gatsby" is my favorite American novel. "The Count of Monte Cristo" will always be my favorite book, but "Gatsby" is a very close second. The 1974 Robert Redford movie is...OK. Baz Luhrmann's 2013 adaptation is something I enjoy, because I am a fan of Baz Luhrmann's movies and how they break reality while not breaking reality and talking to the audience.
However, I honestly don't think they can ever film a movie in a way that does the book justice. It needs to be brief and evocative. You need to cast the leads well, and they need to UNDERSTAND the character. Nick, Gatsby, Daisy, and Tom are hard to do justice if you don't really get them. Tom is supposed to be a man who thinks he's intellectual, but is really simple--a true nepo baby, only not insufferable as so many are portrayed today. Nick likes him because he's affable, and humors him when he's around for his cousin. Daisy comes off as airheaded and sweet, but is really very intelligent, observant, deceptive and jealous, and that's not an easy thing to play well. Nick is a good man with good intentions; however, he's easily awestruck by the glamour all around Tom, Daisy, and Jay Gatsby. Now, I will say Redford plays Gatsby exactly how he should be played. He's at heart a decent man who has been in love with the girl he met in the past. He has held onto that image solipsistically in his mind, and all of his work since coming home from The Great War has been aimed at capturing her. He can't see that Daisy Buchanan is no longer that girl who stole his heart all those long years ago. And in the end that naivete is what gets him killed. His sacrifice saves Nick, making him cast off his blinders and see Tom and Daisy for the wretched people they really are.
That's the entire point of the book. And none of the movies have ever really done well getting that point across. Everyone goes and is like Nick at the beginning - struck to awe by the excess of the Jazz Age. Very few come out of the movie changed the way Nick is at the end.
I appreciated your commentary in this video. Very articulate and well-constructed.
Baz never lets the camera sit still, and loves the moving close-up shot. The anti-Fincher.
It would be fun if they made it a musical.
It would fit the melodrama of the book.
I'm not surprised it's hard to adapt.
The Great Gatsby is the one book where I continuously found sentences that were actively pleasant to read.
Supposedly, Thomas Wolfe told Fitzgerald that the secret of their successful writing styles was "I'm a putter-inner while you're a taker-outer." Thus, any adaptation of FSF should always err on the side of leanness. If you come away from a Gatsby film thinking the story is straightforward (shady character tries to win back former love who may not want to be won back) but you wonder "What's really behind all that?", then you may have seen the best adaptation yet-- one that asks as many questions as it answers.
I find it ironic that you detest the bombastic and overly stylish take of Baz Luhrman when the original text itself is so flowery and purple.
eh, in all honesty i don't think the great gatsby is all that great, certainly nowhere near my top 10 novels of the 20th century. I'm sure a competent director could more or less do it justice. There are plenty of other books that are much more reliant on the medium itself that i think would be a lot more difficult to translate (something like ulysses or gravitys rainbow)
Gatsby 2000 actually sounds incredible. I’d love a sci-fi version
"Rich girls don't marry poor boys, Steve Shives. Haven't you heard? Rich girls don't marry POOR BOYS!"
How dare you suggest that Paul Rudd was not yet a movie star in the year 2000, when he had already graced our screens with his powerhouse performance in the universally-beloved character-driven arthouse film, "Halloween 6: The Curse of Michael Myers."
Steve understand why movies are often not as good, and very definitely different - it is that they are very different mediums, and usually the book is much too long
Look at the successful ones, either the book is a short story, or could easily have been a short story, or a really good writer who did the screenplay managed to leave out 90% of the book and still left a very good story in the movie - not always the original story ... Gatsby is filmable... it just needs a really good screenwriter
This is very good, I had no idea there were other adaptations before the 74 version. Also, I’ll never forget watching it in Highschool back on 2001 and the majority of the people in class thinking Karen Black was very attractive and should’ve played Daisy.
What if I said The Great Gatsby is a trans allegory and didn't elaborate why I think that so you can think about it yourselves.
Can't wait to hear this... Since I know there have been a couple of movies made😂
You know you've messed up pretty badly when the best thing about your film is the performance of Leonardo DiCaprio...
This is why Batman The Animated Series was so good. They took elements from the source material, but they weren't bound by it, and they would make changes that worked better in their type of media.
Chuckled at the Shane reference. Totally agree on Moulin Rouge. Did a marathon watch of all the Oscar nominees that year. That’s two hours I’ll never get back.
I am a big fan of Baz Luhrmann, and I will happily say that he is a TERRIBLE choice to direct The Great Gatsby.
I also get why he wouldn't be appealing to some. He's completely over the top and ridiculous. But he is very good at capturing how magical something can feel. For example, Strictly Ballroom doesn't just have great dancing. It conveys how magical and powerful and vulnerable dance makes you feel. As someone who has been dancing for years, used to teach and do exhibition performances, his film perfectly captures how dance feels. Everyone I know who does ballroom dancing says there is no film that truly gets it like Strictly Ballroom.
thinking of adaptation, i have a ticket to see the great gatsby on broadway, and im looking forward to seeing how theyve adapted it
Godfather, Fight Club - movies better then books.
If Dune can be filmed anything can be filmed. It wil just take the right director.
And Steve's points at the end 💯 explain how Lynch's film was so perf-oh, you meant the Villeneuve trilogy.
In all seriousness, I haven't made it to the theater to see _Dune 2_ yet, but the first film did an amazing job strictly because it adapted the _story_ and not the Scripture. It also deconstructed the overt messaging and themes of the novel and went straight for the _anti-_ colonial, _anti-_ messianic themes in the first 90 minutes that took Frank Herbert *five books* to hit his readers on the head with.
Ok, I snickered a little at the Shane joke
Somehow missing the rule that every high schooler is made to read Gatsby, I first read it at 38 years old and was in tears at the palpable sense of loss and self-delusion Gatsby engages in to make time go backwards instead of forwards. I really loved the Baz Luhrman/ Jay Z version, especially for its handling of the visual symbols the novel is filled with. Self-delusion crumbling and the real self being left bereft is powerful. I agree that the 1970s version was too in love with the era and the beauty of its stars to do justice to the darkness. Losti s the knowledge readers h d in that era, that all of life following the Great War was tainted by their lost youth and innocence.
It is of a post great war period that cannot be replicated by contemporary actors. Same goes for "Easy rider".
You're high. The Mia Farrow, Robert Redford, Bruce Dern, Sam Waterston version is a masterpiece.
8:15 heh, Shane
Damn. I thought that I was the one film nerd to whom Steve was referring.
I think one of the reasons the book never stuck with me in high school, other than not being in a head space to relate to it, was that it was overhyped as this great american novel when it was rather a quaint book. Maybe I'll adapt it myself one day, if I succeed in making movies. Maybe it'll be a futuristic take, maybe not. I think I'd make an animated film, one resembling a Silver age Disney film. Like Lady and the Tramp. As someone who appreciates the ideas of the book while not being obsessed with it, I feel confident that I wouldn't overhype the content, but perhaps that wouldn't sell
Gatsby is about ideas. The plot is theadbare.
The Scarlet Letter is all internal monologue, unfilmable too.