From the Page to the Screen – The Great Gatsby
…………………………………………………
From the Page to the Screen – The Great Gatsby
The Great Gatsby is a 1925 tragedy novel written by F. Scott Fitzgerald. It is regularly cited as one of the greatest novels of all time, but I personally found it not particularly engaging and lacking in emotion, though it’s thematically of course very strong. Throughout the years, it has had a couple of screen adaptations, but none managed to become successful. The latest one came the closest.
THE FILM ADAPTATION
The 2013 adaptation was directed by Baz Luhrmann and it was actually quite successful, earning over 300 million dollars at the box office and two Oscar wins in technical categories. However, critically, it wasn’t all that well received, though it obviously has its apparent strengths.
PLOT
Overall, the plot was faithfully adapted, but not nearly as dramatic as it should have been. Both the book and the film have their moments, but are ultimately uninvolving, especially the movie, which started off strongly, but really diminished in impact later on.
WINNER – BOOK
CHARACTERIZATION
The characters aren’t that amazing in the book itself, but at least some are very well developed. In the movie, though the women are solid, the men are horrible. Joel Edgerton, Jason Clarke and Leonardo DiCaprio all had bad accents and weak performances, resulting in weak characterization as well.
WINNER – BOOK
EMOTION
I found the movie emotionally distant, but I also found the book cold myself. The movie and the book both had a couple of tragic scenes for sure, but overall they needed more heart and more tender moments to make me invested personally.
WINNER – TIE
…………………………………………………
…………………………………………………
THEMES
Certainly in this category the book gets the win. The movie came not even close as it never at all tried to explore the class system and opulence of the twenties, but only visually hinted at it. The book, on the other hand, is very rich thematically speaking with that being its strongest suit.
WINNER – BOOK
TECHNICAL ASPECTS
I actually have to go with the movie on this one. I found Fitzgerald’s writing style problematic as his dialogue isn’t the most engaging and his descriptions are sparse. On the other hand, Baz Luhrmann infused the movie with a lot of necessary visual splendor, especially in the area of costumes and sets, both exquisite.
WINNER – FILM
BOOK 4: FILM 2
The Great Gatsby remains an overrated novel in my honest opinion, though its thematic resonance is indisputable. The movie itself was very good technically speaking, but ultimately it lost points for bad acting and characterization. Thus, the book is better, though I did not really care all that much for either of the two.
