Feel free to disagree, but I believe there were a few steps the film took that portrayed the novel better. Modern audiences are used to faster paced films, it grabs our attention better. As a videographer I’ve experienced how easy it is to lose people’s attention when your video is too slow. Considering the novel covers 3 months, and the 1920s flowed much slower, the film seems to fly through the events. I think the brevity of everything held my attention better, and made the film overall livelier.
Now I know a lot of people disliked the music, but I think it actually contributed. This is where I need to bring up the whole equivalence of meaning for this to make sense. The driving scenes were much faster than they’d have actually looked, the parties were much more upbeat, and the dancing obviously wasn’t the Charleston that you’d expect from the 1920s. What does that have to do with anything? Well, I think the film was trying to put things in terms an audience 80 years later would understand. When Gatsby was driving 50 miles per hour, maybe seemed as fast to someone from the 1920s as it did to us in the film. Maybe the parties, which would have looked dreadfully slow to us, would have seemed to them as wild as the one the film showed looked to us. The music caused a distraction since it was modern music contrasting the 1920s appearance. That’s a fair point, but how distracting would the party scene have been if it were set to the actual music of the 1920s? I think by attempting to put things in terms a modern audience would understand, they helped to better capture the spirit of the novel.
As much as I enjoyed this film, and felt it represented the novel well, there were a few issues I had in terms of it faithfulness. I may just be nitpicking, you can call me out on it, but there were two things story wise that I disliked. The scene where Daisy has Gatsby over, in the book Gatsby is introduced to Daisy’s daughter. I couldn’t recall seeing this in the movie, unless I just missed it. It wasn’t a major event in the novel, but I thought it was an interesting event. The child was a manifestation of Daisy and Tom’s relationship, which would still be present regardless of how things went for Gatsby.
There was also a slight twist at the end too that I personally didn’t enjoy. Originally the press just claimed that it was a random murder by a madman, and in the movie the press turned it into a major scandal. Gatsby’s death in the novel felt quiet and lonely, which the movie didn’t capture very well in my opinion. Having the media trying to storm his mansion was a turn around from the novel where no one seemed to notice the passing of Gatsby. I couldn’t help but be disappointed by those details, but does anyone feel that the changes were an improvement? Anyone feel that the film was just as fair as the novel regardless of those details?
Think back to the dance scenes in both films with the difference in music, it does seem like they each were as wild as they should have been. As far as the changes to the final scene, I actually liked how they had the media storm the mansion. I mean, if he was as widely talked about as everyone says (I mean people were always at his parties), then of course the media is going to be getting whatever details they can. How many people show up to pay respects? What kind of casket was he buried in (since he lived extravagantly, you know)? Who was left what? I think, for us, it just makes since. As far as them turning it into a scandal it didn't have to be in there, but it didn't really bother me either.
ReplyDeleteI'm interested in your discussion of pace. How and why does Luhrmann's Gatsby seem so much faster to us? The fast pace seems necessary to convey the erratic changes and issues occurring in the 1920s. Of course, the focus for each film seems different, as does the technology available. How might the 1974 version work for a 1970s audience while the 2013 version suits a present-day audience? You present some good contrasts between the two films.
ReplyDeleteI think with Lurhmann's Gatsby, it felt much faster to us because the average shot length of films are constantly decreasing over time. There is less time spent on one shot before jumping right into the next. That combined with the fast CGI vehicles, and the dramatic camera zooms, it just seemed to flow faster overall. I think the 1974 version would have worked better for a 1970s audience, since it was probably paced closer to the films released around that time. The 2013 version might have seemed incredibly quick to a 1970s audience, as the 1974 version seemed incredibly slow to a modern audience. A modern audience has the option of shutting the movie off at any point, and finding some other show or movie to watch instead. This is why a fast pace suites a modern audience better, because it's competing for attention, and a fast pace holds the audience's attention better. It was less of a fight to maintain an audience's attention back in the 1970s.
DeleteI think the media storm fits more with what would have happened if this story had happened in the present. In a way, it feels like they were trying to pull off the same thing with this scene as they did with the music. In my opinion the music works very well while this change wasn't wonderful. However, their added story about Nick being in a mental hospital is almost justified by this change. I have an easier time imagining Nick being considered a "mad man" and sent to a mental hospital if he were in the middle of the news frenzy shouting that everything was a lie.
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