Oh.
So, I haven't posted in over a month.
I guess this post should be interesting, then.
So, in the time since my last post (some lake pictures- perhaps you recall), there's been a tremendously popular new film on the market called The Great Gatsby, featuring Jack Dawson, Sally Sparrow, and Spiderman- I mean Leonardo DiCaprio, Carey Mulligan, and Tobey Maguire. Poorly orchestrated pop culture joke aside, this film has attracted a large quantity of moviegoers in the past three weeks it's been out. However, despite the film's impressive winnings of over 117 million dollars thus far, its professional reviews have been less than stellar, garnering a C- from USA Today, a B- from the Denver Post, and a C+ from People Magazine*.
So, what was director Baz Lurhmann's "fatal flaw" in his final product? I think one F. Scott Fitzgerald might have a theory.
Obviously, F. Scott Fitzgerald's name is known throughout English classrooms as the man who penned the "Great American Novel"- that would be The Great Gatsby. Seeing as I'm reading the book right now (and throughly enjoying it), I can't give a full summary of what it's about. All I can say is, considering it's known as the "Great American Novel", it's probably pretty good. Chock full of underlying themes, metaphors, parallels to society of the day, and all that jazz.
However, as is the case in many Page-to-Screen adaptations, Mr. Luhrmann has appeared to forfit these themes, metaphors, and parallels for the three Gs- gold, glitz, and glamour. In short, a film that's more technically than substantially impressive- kind of like those confections we see on Cake Boss.
And, sure, this can pass for a movie with no prior basis- a superhero film, for example. They need extra explosions for the plot to work (Disclaimer- I love superhero films). But, for a film whose idea comes from a novel- especially the Great American Novel, for Pete's sake -wouldn't it be somewhat logical for it to contain at least some ideas from the original story?
What you just read wasn't even the main point of this post. Yes, it stinks that Mr. Lurhmann neglected to award The Great Gatsby with the plot-satisfying film adaptation it deserves. What really aggravates me, however, is the fact that millions of moviegoers went to see and will see the movie with no prior knowledge of the book, and came out and will come out of the theatre shielding their eyes from the sun and thinking that what happened in the movie they just saw was an accurate representation of the real book, and is therefore equivalent to reading the book itself. Cue Bruno Mars's "The Lazy Song".
GRRRR!!!! As a reader, this is one of my ultimate pet peeves! There have been so many page-to-screen adaptations in the past few years- The Hobbit, Les Miserables, The City of Ember, One Day, The Time Traveler's Wife, The Lovely Bones, The Golden Compass...the Harry Potter films, for crying out loud! All of them had elements that did not hold true to their original manuscript, but people went to see them anyway, without having read the book at all. How is this okay?
If people continue to see movies without reading the often iconic novels they stemmed from- without which the film would never exist -, the standard will continue to go down for movies written from books, until the only thing they will share is their title.
So, whether it's with a book as iconic as The Great Gatsby to Silver Linings Playbook, whose book inspiration was virtually unknown before the film- read the book before you see it! For the love of better movies!
*Thanks to http://www.ew.com/ew/package/0,,20483133,00.html for these grades.
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