The Great Gatsby (DVD, 2003)

This adaptation of the F. Scott Fitzgerald novel, scripted by Francis Ford Coppola, puts costume design and art direction above the intricacies of character. It's certainly a handsome try, and perhaps no movie could capture The Great Gatsby in its entirety. Robert Redford is an interesting casting choice as Gatsby, the millionaire isolated in his mansion, still dreaming of the woman he lost. And Sam Waterston is perfect as the narrator, Nick, who brings the dream girl Daisy Buchanan back to Gatsby. No, the problem seems to be that director Jack Clayton fell in love with the flapper dresses and the party scenes and the Jazz Age tunes, ending up with a Classics Illustrated version of a great book rather than a fresh, organic take on the text. While Redford grows more quietly intriguing in the film, Mia Farrow's pallid performance as Daisy leaves you wondering why Gatsby, or anyone else, should care so much about his grand passion. The effective supporting cast includes Bruce Dern as Daisy's husband, and Scott Wilson and Karen Black as the low-rent couple whose destinies cross the sun-drenched protagonists. In my opion Robert Redford is one of America's greatest actors and this is just one of his great accomplishments! On a rating of 1 - 10, 10 being an excellent buy I would certainly give this DVD a perfect 10!

I haven't read Fitzgerald's 'The Great Gatsby' in almost two years. I picked it up again, to-day, though, and realized the truth of the notion that one learns something new each time one returns to a book. 'The Great Gatsby' just is a novel that must be returned to periodically to appreciate it properly.
While the characters in the novel remain ultimately unknowable at their indefinite cores, Fitzgerald does a great job tying his characters to their historical setting. The protagonist of the novel, to my mind, is Nick Carraway, the narrator. The hero of his story, which frames the novel, is the legendary Jay Gatsby - a legend in his own mind. Although Carraway's narration is often heavily biased and unreliable, what emerges are the stories of a set of aimless individuals, thrown together in the summer of 1922. Daisy Buchanan is the pin that holds the novel together - by various means, she ties Nick to Jordan Baker, Tom Buchanan to Jay Gatsby, and Gatsby to the Wilsons.

The novel itself deals with the shallow hypocrisies of fashionable New York society life in the early 1920's. It is almost as though Fitzgerald took the plot of Edith Wharton's 'The Age of Innocence' and updated it - in the process making the characters infinitely more detestable and depriving it of all hope. Extramarital affairs rage on with only the thinnest of veils to disguise them, the nouveau-riche rise on the back of scandal and corruption, and interpersonal relationships rarely signify anything permanent that doesn't reek of conspiracy. The novel's casual allusions to beginnings and histories often cause us to reflect on the novel's historical moment - when the American Dream and Benjamin Franklin's vision of the self-made man seem to coalesce in Jay Gatsby, a Franklinian who read too much Nietzsche.

No matter how you read it, 'The Great Gatsby' is worth re-reading. M.J. Bruccoli's short, but informative preface, and C. Scribner III's afterword are included in this edition, and both set excellent contexts, literary, personal, and historical, for this classic of American literature.

I hate to sound like a broken record here, but the movie just doesn't do justice to the book. This time however though, it's for a different reason. This movie follows the story better than almost any movie i've seen to this very day. The problem arises though, that "The Great Gatsby" is a book that uses A LOT of symbols. In fact almost none of the story should be taken at surface level, from the everwatching eyes of Dr. T.J. Eckelburg, to the flashing green light on Daisy Buchanan's dock.
The movie features a great cast, A young Sam Waterston (Nick), and Robert Redford. The acting in this movie was fairly good on the male side (though I feel Tom could have been played by someone slightly manlier than Bruce Dern). The women however, made it fairly difficult to actually sit through this movie. As someone who really enjoyed the book, but still wanted Daisy to die, I must say that the movie is harder to enjoy, and I wanted Daisy to die EVEN MORE.
Overall I say if you've read the book and are a fan of Robert Redford or Sam Waterston I would say buy it. Other than that, i'd say rent it in the dollar section, or watch it on Bravo or some other old people channel.

In addition to the canned description and review music provided, fans need to know the rest of the story. Nelson Riddle's score is built around several period songs, with Berlin's "What'll I Do" added. The soundtrack is no longer in print anywhere. It was issued in lp and 8-track originally. I have access only to my dub of the 8-track I found in a flea market twenty years ago.
The jazzy music track adds a significant layer of meaning to the dialogue and sumptuous visuals. With the standard orchestral or vocal versions various music, Riddle transforms these themes and uses them to augment mood throughout the film. When the tragic events of the book and film work themselves toward the finale, Riddle arranges the happy, mindless flapper era music into a meaningful backdrop for the screen credits.
If you like the jazz standards of the early Twenties, don't miss this score. Riddle connects and shapes them into a fabric we associate with operatic composers such as Puccini and Wagner. John Williams deserves credit for his operatic weaving of themes in his many scores, but Riddle deserves much more recognition for this score than it has received.

Thisis one of Robert Redford's best. It is a F. Scott Fitzgerald book set in the 20's with lost love, flappers, cheaters, liars, rich and poor. With bootleg gin, great music, and a love story set in a beautiful coastal community. It is F Scott and Redford at their best!