Cinematic Appropriations of The Great Gatsby

Cinematic Appropriations of The Great Gatsby

Although Paramount's 1974 version of The Great Gatsby - the one with Robert Redford and Mia Farrow - is probably the most famous, there have actually been six attempts to flatten Fitzgerald's novel into two dimensions. The first was a silent film released in 1926. The second version, with Alan Ladd as Gatsby, appeared in 1949. Two television adaptations followed, one with Robert Montgomery in 1955 and the other with Robert Ryan in 1958. The controversial 1974 adaptation rings in at number five. The sixth version of Gatsby is slated to run on the A&E cable network early next year - Mira Sorvino will play Daisy and Toby Stephens will star as Gatsby. Six! All lacking. All critical failures. [1] So why do they do it? What is it about the novel that tempts Hollywood producers, directors, and the occasional ingenue?

Hollywood screenwriter DeWitt Bodeen wrote in the preface to Gene Phillips' Fiction, Film, and F. Scott Fitzgerald:

"Youth is the keynote of every Fitzgerald tale - its careless ecstasy during one's twenties and the inevitable loss of it in one's thirties . . . His characters are all sad young men whose flame of life has burnt down to a lambent glow by the time they've got out of their twenties. This has become the basic problem of translating to the screen the stories of F. Scott Fitzgerald: very few actors who have names are young enough to interpret them believably." [2]

Bodeen sees youth as a necessity to play Gatsby. I would agree, but for a different reason. Hollywood is in love with The Great Gatsby. Every leading man wants to play Jay Gatsby and every starlet Daisy Buchanan. But each successive Jay G...

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...iction, Film, and F. Scott Fitzgerald. Chicago: Loyola University Press, 1986 (117).

[6] Irene Kahn Atkins, "In Search of the Greatest Gatsby", Literature/Film Quarterly, 3, Summer 1974 (217).

[7] DeWitt Bodeen. "Preface: Hollywood and the Screenwriter", Fiction, Film, and F. Scott Fitzgerald. Chicago: Loyola University Press, 1986 (xviii).

[8] Elliot Nugent. Events Leading up to the Comedy: An Autobiography. New York: Trident Press, 1965. (213-214).

[9] Minty Clinch. Robert Redford. Kent: New English Library, 1989 (114).

[10] Ibid (116).

[11] Ibid (116).

[12] Ibid (119).

[13] "Wanted: Aristocrats, $1.65 Per Hour", Time. July 23, 1973. (87)

[14] Minty Clinch. Robert Redford. Kent: New English Library, 1989 (118).

[15] Ibid (122).

[16] F. Scott Fitzgerald. The Great Gatsby. New York: Scribner's, 1991 (116).