The book by F. Scott Fitzgerald
The movie
(2 hrs & 23 min, color, 2013)
What does it profit a man if
he gains his millions by however the means, fair or foul, but loses his heart
as well as his soul to romantic illusion and high minded expectation? How can even hope become superficial and
dangerously risky? A major writing of F.
Scott Fitzgerald sheds fervent light upon these questions.
Few novels of the twentieth
century have corralled the kind of interest and fascination and earnest study
among the literati as his 1925 portrait of life among lavish moneyed society in
post-World War I America. At least six
movie adaptations of “The Great Gatsby” have emerged over the past nine decades
and the best seller has never during all that time been out of print. It has found its way into college curricula
and is generally recognized as Fitzgerald’s signature creation.
What makes it so? The novel is anything but a sweeping
epic. It is not a panorama or a
multifaceted account of history or a magnum opus. All the action occurs during one summer. In fact, the text is compact, terse and
concise, a relatively short read. Some
may think of it as an extended short story.
There are actually only four major characters, and one of those narrates
the entire flow of events and provides the sole sustained viewpoint. The other three are objectified, seen only
through his eyes. The story does not
carry us into a wide assortment of settings; the action is confined mostly to a
remote point on the shores of Long Island Sound. The bulk and complexity that attract most
readers to works of fiction are not present.
There is nothing racy, controversial, exotic, or horrific about it, and
the only incident of violence comes near the very end. So how do we explain its phenomenal
commercial success?
The plot is rather simple
too. The time is the early 1920s. A young war veteran from the Midwest named
Nick Carroway pursuing a career as a bond salesman in nearby Manhattan decides
to settle in a modest middle class house by himself on Long Island Sound to be
near his rich second cousin Daisy, who is married to a corrupt and philandering
scion of wealth Tom Buchanan. Nick is
curious about their lifestyle and a bit tempted to try it out. In his exploration he is soon distracted and
further enticed by an even wealthier next door neighbor, a man who calls
himself Jay Gatsby. Gatsby is noted for
his elaborate and sumptuous parties to which all New Yorkers can invite
themselves on weekends, while he himself is a private individual seldom seen by
anyone, hidden away behind his own walls.
His palatial mansion is directly across the Sound from the Buchanans,
unbeknownst to them. Nick discovers that
Gatsby, veteran of the war himself and a man from a very poor background, is an
old lover of Daisy’s who by shady means has made himself a multimillionaire. Nick through Gatsby’s chicanery becomes the
reluctant catalyst to reunite his cousin Daisy with her ex-boyfriend. It seems that Gatsby is still carrying a
torch for Daisy and is determined to win her back from the husband he does not
think she really loves. Little does Nick
know that his accommodation to Gatsby’s wishes will have tragic results.
This summary would not give
anyone who has not read the book any idea why it continues to be regarded as a
literary masterpiece. The answer lies in
the writing itself. Fitzgerald’s prose
is beautiful and mesmerizing. In fact,
much of it is more poetic than prosaic, and that is why translating it into
narrative linear terms has dogged the efforts of many to frame it on the silver
screen. This is the fourth attempt I
have seen, and in my opinion it is the best rendering thus far. Not that it is without its flaws. Baz Luhrman directed it and co-wrote it with
Craig Pearce; he loves glitz, flash, stardust and even a little fireworks and
has used them to some excess, especially in the party scenes. But despite his over indulgences the poetic
phraseology comes through, uncompromised and unvarnished.
Primarily what makes this a
superior adaptation is the choice casting of Nick and Jay. Toby McGuire gives Nick a pulse beat that I
have never felt before. He is more a
restless presence than earlier adaptations have made him, not just a
mouthpiece. We seem to hear more from
him than in previous films. And Leonardo
DiCaprio is quite captivating as Gatsby.
He gets something slightly edgy into the man that hints of a desolate
child hiding beneath his veneer of self-imposed refinery and shrewdness. (I have always had difficulty accepting
Robert Redford in that title role in the 1974 vehicle. There was something too callow and even
keeled in the way he handled it.)
But despite all DiCaprio’s
good work, Gatsby, as in the novel, remains somewhat of a mystery, as he is
intended to be. Even to Nick, who comes
to know him better than anyone else, he seems to be a dreamer reaching in the
twilight that he believes is morning for an objective that has already left him
behind. He is a singular embodiment of
romantic illusion, which Nick in his reflections calls a “romantic readiness,”
all dressed up in an immaculate conceit.
The mystery consists of the form his secret pacts with the forces of
darkness have previously taken and how in such a short time he, a child of
poverty, “sprang from his Platonic conception of himself.” His pursuit of Daisy becomes more pathetic as
it unravels and carries him to a fatal face-to-face with his very soul.
Daisy too, beautifully
portrayed by Carey Mulligan, is something else underneath her refinery. She is a fluttery, somewhat flighty young
woman on the surface. She rhapsodizes in a dream of her own and has become inured
to Tom’s (Joel Edgerton) infidelities, but you do not have to dig down far to
get some idea of the repressed pain they have caused her. In the novel someone comments that “her voice
is the sound of money.” She has always
lived in the lap of luxury; she threw Gatsby over because he was poor. But now that he is rich and she has the
chance to have both her first love and her sumptuous lifestyle, she lands on
the horns of a dilemma from which she is not morally or constitutionally
equipped to extract herself. Nick has to
witness this sad little “holocaust,” as he calls it in the book, helpless to
stop the heartbreak he sees coming. In
this movie it is enough to sour him altogether about life on the east coast and
the emotional blow it delivers to him lands him in a mental institution where
in retrospect he tells Gatsby’s story to a therapist.
Nick slowly comes to the
realization that Tom and Daisy and all their plushy acquaintances are “a rotten
crowd.” His last words about them are
brutal in their indictment: They
“smashed up things and people then retreated back into their money and their
vast carelessness.” In contrast Gatsby,
victimized by their sly machinations, wins his begrudging respect as the most
“hopeful” man he has ever known. But we
know, if Nick does not, that hope divorced from realism is a fool’s errand to
nowhere. Hoping does not begin by
returning to a place from which you once started; hope begins at the present
moment.
All those of us who make a
habit of exploring the vicissitudes of the human heart with an understanding
mind would do well to either see the movie or read the book that has enthralled
millions over the past century. You can
pick up a copy of it from just about any public library. And of course the movie is available from
the renowned Netflix.
To read other entries in my
blog, please consult its website:
enspiritus.blogspot.com. To learn
about me consult on the website the blog entry for August 9, 2013.
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