Review of The Great Gatsby

In spite of what the critics at the Rolling Stone and New Yorker have written I enjoyed the adaptation of Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby. Although I thought some of the scenes were overplayed, particularly the scene where Gatsby throw some of his shirts on Daisy to be overplayed. Perhaps it could have been jewelry instead. I don't know, the scene just didn't work for me. Also the ending was somewhat long and drawn out. I didn't really notice it too much until my friend pointed it out. I think the ending was drawn out to point to the tragedy that Gatsby endured. Certainly you could not find a more romantic and wronged hero in all of literary history, and cinematic history. The character of Gatsby is comparable to the epic characters of Shakespeare. Hamlet and King Lear certainly endured some of the hardships that Gatsby endured.

Those hardships. Of which any viewer of the film is bound to think. Gatsby from dirt poor farmers who wants the hand of a rich girl for marriage. He is doomed from the start. But, he believes in the American dream in the promise of progress of advancement. Like so many people who believed the same dream back in the halcyon days of the 1920s, and like so many people, had his bubble burst. Gatsby strikes me as a tragic hero. He attains the highest of economic highs; he throws lavish parties, has the finest clothes, the fanciest car, he has everything that should qualify him for the highest class position in American society, but, alas, he is rejected by that very society. He cannot have Daisy. This emotion is showed most cleary when Gatsby utterly loses it when Tom Buchanon reveals his shadowy past. Gatsby flies off the handle and drives away Daisy. Poor Gatsby. All of this is fairly obvious to even the most lazy analysis of the film. Yet it is the presentation of the story that is unique. The film starts, refers back to, and closes with the character of Nick Carraway in a sanatorium. This was not included in the 1970s version of the film. Neither was the angry scene in which Gatsby flies off the handle and loses Daisy. Instead the 1970s version had Mia Farrow proclaim that awful, fateful line that "rich girls don't marry poor boys" and aside from that adhered closely to the book.

I thought the film had very high production qualities. The party scenes were incredible. The acting was good, some may say subpar, but aren't the character in this tale all phony? I think so. I thought the character of Tom Buchanon was well played, perhaps even upstaging Leo's character, a good casting choice. Many of the scenes were wonderfully shot. I can't imagine how much it cost. The CGI was somewhat out of place as was the documentary footage, but it lended a realist touch for the film.

This was the first 3D film I have ever scene, or can remember seeing. I think it is the quintessential tale of 1920s America; driven by a bloodlust for money and success. In a time when the top book was how to make friends and influence people, Gatsby comes off as the most poignant criticism of the enormous lust for money that drove the 1920s boom and ended, like Nick Carraway, in a state of depression and deep introversion. I think Gatsby is not only a tale about 1920s America, but comments more broadly about America throught the years. The yearning for money and status has been found in every decade of American history, not just the 1920s. It is a commentary on the money elite, the striving for a conception of the American dream, that one can become a part of high society if one attains enough wealth, but alas, as become so tragically apparent in Gatsby, money can't buy everything.