Monday, April 30, 2007

Gatsby on Screen: Film Review

Brothers,

As part of your screening of the 1974 Academy Award-nominated adaptation of Fitzgerald's novel, please answer the following questions with detailed explanations.

1. How are characters portayed on film? Do these portrayals match your own characterization in light of reading the text? Explain.

2. How about setting, imagery, and dialogue (i.e. character interaction)? Explain.

12 comments:

Gianni Campellone said...

I don`t think the characters are portrayed well in the film version of THE GREAT GATSBY. There dosen`t seem to be much life in the characters.What I mean is they don`t seem to be acting. They seen to just be reciting the lines right out of the book. Now sticking to the plot is key to a movie adaptation, however it is good to have some things changed. The movie however dosen`t change a thing which can make it boring. As for the setting everyting matched my own portrayal. Everything except Gatsby`s house. I thought it would be bigger and that it would look more like a mansion yet it dosen`t. It just looks like a large house. The imagry was the best adaptation out of everything. It really followed the book but, the way it transcribes emotion is great. Over all ith movie was an ok version of the book yet,there was no good acting preformances by the actors and, like I said it seems that they are reading the book out loud.

Pat Monteith said...

Side Note: Answering both questions in paragraph structure

The characters in the movie seem to precisely portray the characters in the book. The thing that i did not like is that the way the movie was done matched, in my mind, exactly to how it was in the book which bothered me and seemed to make the movie lack pizaz(sp?). And as ive said in class, it just seemed like when i was watching the movie, i was reading the books words, thats how perfect the movie seemed and i don't really like it like that.
The dialogue in the movie, also, is the exact same in the book as if the director was, in fact, the author. In terms of imagery, all that i remember from the book seems to be portrayed very well in the movie. However, the party scene seemed more lively in the film than in the book. It kind of gave the dreariness to the story some light.

Bill Franks said...

i dont think that th characters were depicted as well in the movie as i imagined from the book. in the movie Daisy is depicted as a "dumb blonde" who is somewhat shallow and wil change her mind if the price is right. in the novel she seems to be closer to Gatsby wheras in the film she seems unattached, distant and uninterested. the setting seems fitting but somewhat confusing because it seems that they are so close the novel but appear so disant i the film adaptation.

Bob Kelly said...

Personally, I do not believe that the film version of The Great Gatsby is that good of an adaptation of the novel. The movie is almost exactly like the book, which is true to the book, but it can also bore the audience who has already read the book. I also feel that the actors do not do a very good job of portraying the characters. While watching the movie, I was reminded of the acting in Ethan Frome, which I thought was pretty bad. This is because the actors seem like they are almost reading the book as a script, and doing so with little emotion. I thought that the book and the movie were somewhat different in setting. One particular thing that I imagined differently was how far away the dock/green light at Daisy's house was from Gatsby's house. In the movie when he is looking at the green light you can barely see it off in the distance. I had imagined that there was a much smaller distance between the houses.

Rlonergan said...

I believe that the characters in the movie correspond very well to my image of them I got when reading the novel. The one exception to this is Gatsby himself - when reading the novel I had the impression that Gatsby was much more imposing and mysterious than he appears after the party in the movie. The beginning of the movie works well to portray the feeling of mystery, but once Gatsby's character is introduced he loses this air.
I believe that the setting and imagery are perfect. When reading the book, many examples of the scenes were given and I think the film did a great job of portraying each of those scenes as closely to the book as possible. The eyes of dr. TJ eckleburg worked to create the effect created in the novel and the landscaping really added to the plot of the movie, possibly even more than the descriptions in the book. The atmostphere of the party was also a great contribution to the film.

Tom O'Neill said...

I agree with the above. The movie's characters and settings portray the book's fantastically. But I disagree with the above when the only part of the movie that not only Gatsby was portrayed differently, but Dasiy as well isn't seeing me eye to eye as it trys to portray the book's character. I agree that Gatsby is not as mysterious in the book, but also he seems more stricter than the Gatsby in the book. Daisy doesn't seem as fantastical in the movie as she is portrayed as from the book. She made most of the class laugh with her serious talk, which shouldn't really happen, but that's the only reason that I can think of that difers from the book's character. But everything else I agree with the above.

MC-Devitt said...

I feel that the movie is not a good adaptation but an excellent copy of the book. There is absolutely no creativity on the directors part in either selecting characters or setting the scene. Every single scene, every word can be traced back to the book almost in order. Any group of people who had access to a camera and the book could have shot a more creative adaptation of The Great Gatsby. The book and plot are good, but this movie shows absolutely no creativity or skill on the director's part. I would not be surprised if there was no director and each actor just memorized the book itself instead of a written script. Overall I like the book and it's plot, which the movie never strays from, but as an adaptation, I don't think that there was enough effort put into the producing of the movie.

Mike McKibbin said...

The director and actor did an excellent job of adapting the Novel to a film. The characters were portrayed exactly as I had imagined them while reading the book. Having said this, I found the book a great deal more interesting than the film. The film is somewhat dull, and it feels as if it is no different than the book. If a novel is adapted in to a film, I feel it should contain more than the book, and not be shown as an exact copy. The dialogue felt very lifeless, and did not bring much excitement to the movie. The setting was captured well, especially the scenes at Gatsby's house and the valley of ashes. They felt exactly as they did in the book, and were very well done.

p.drisk said...

The characters in the movie The Great Gatsby are not as acurately portrayed as they are in the novel. In the movie it seems as though the actors are not real actors, they are just reading the line out of the book wihtout much emotion at all. The characters do not express emotions like they should be doing. This doesnt give the mood setting the movie needs. The setting is just how i pictured it in the novel. The setting seems like an acurate portrait of novel. The actors and actress are the only problem with the movie.

Sean Gillespie said...

I feel that the characters in the film portrayal of The Great Gatsby are very similar to my visions of them in the novel. The descriptions and ocurences of the book are directly transferred to the screen. However, the acting in the film is very poor and forced, so that characters can accurately portray the novel. In this way the setting of the film directly correlates to descriptions of setting in the book. But at the smae time the dialogue in the movie was extremely dissapointing. The dialogue was very dry and forced in order to bring the exact lines from the novel to the screen. This causes the actors to force their roles and directly leads to a boring plot and film. At the same time, the film is very accurate and true to the themes of the book.

Phil said...

I think the characters are portrayed well on screen but like all movie adaptations of books are never quite what I saw in my head. It does somewhat change my view on the characters in the book and that isn’t good. Nick is not quite what I saw in my head. Gatsby is good but I thought he was blond. Tom was ok but I thought of him being much bigger. Daisy was pretty close to what I saw but I thought of her being hotter. Jordan was pretty close too. I also saw Wolfsheim being more Jewish looking.

The setting is actually pretty much exactly what I saw. Gatsby’s house though is a little different on the outside than what I saw. I saw it being more of a castle looking, more Victorian. Smaller too.

Chris Thiers said...

I think that the characters are pretty well portrayed in the movie. In the book, Daisy struck me as the perferct model of a dumb blond. True you have to feel sorry for her, but still, she isn't the brightest. Tom, however, was less arrogant and mean in the movie than I expected. Nick was portrayed as a nicer and more lovable guy than I imagined from the book. But overall, these small differences do not change my view of the movie. The interaction between the characters was also interesting. Nick and Jordan have the relationship I imagined in teh story but Nick and Gatsby are more separate and farther apart than in the novel. Tom is also nicer to Nick than I would have imagined. Still the director filmed the movie through his own understanding and that was fairly accurate overall.