I haven't seen the newest cinematic version of Fitzgerald's "The Great Gatsby," which comes out today, but I'm worried about it. Seriously. That may sound nuts, but anyone who's a true fan of a particular novel almost always approaches a Hollywood interpretation with unease.
Why? Because Hollywood has a knack for screwing up classic literature. And "The Great Gatsby" is one of the most egregious examples of this. The last large scale version of the novel starred Mia Farrow and Robert Redford and was about as lifeless as one could possibly imagine.
That's not to knock the film makers, however. As William Burroughs once stated, the power of "The Great Gatsby" comes from Fitzgerald's style of writing. The last ten pages of the book, for instance, are the best ten pages of fiction I have ever read. Period. Yet they mostly deal with things like a man sitting alone on a beach at night.
You have to be talented, very talented, to make that sort of thing effective, much less brilliant. You also have to be talented in a very specific way. Fitzgerald was able to make a pensive man on a beach personally relatable to the reader. In doing so, the author turned something potentially bland into something nearly spiritual.
How can a film-maker do that? Truth is, I don't know. Film and literature are two entirely different artistic mediums, after all. What makes "Gatsby" great is the fact that Fitzgerald allows the reader to feel what his narrator feels – in the exact same way his narrator feels it. That's it. The book's brilliance has absolutely nothing to do with riches and parties.
Yet riches and parties are apt to be incredibly appealing to those who work in the visual arts. It's safe to assume most film makers are more drawn to a Prohibition era bash than they are to the interior workings of a thoughtful observer. And that's where the danger of "The Great Gatsby" lies. In order to succeed, film makers have to delve beneath the bling and actually enter the world of the abstract. It's an exceedingly difficult thing to do...but not impossible.
Let's hope they pulled it off this time.
