The Great Gatsby (1974) User Reviews (169)

Too Faithful Adaptation Dampens the Many Qualities of an Elaborate Production

[EUyeshima · 6/10 · 11 August 2006]

It seems something of a shame how maligned the extravagant 1974 movie version of F. Scott Fitzgerald's literary masterwork was when it was originally released. So much media hype surrounded the production, including a Scarlett O'Hara-level search for the right actress to play Daisy Buchanan, that it was bound to disappoint, and it did critically and financially. It's simply not that bad. Interestingly, looking at the film over thirty years later, I am taken by how faithful the movie is to the original book both in text and period atmosphere. The central problem, however, is that Jack Clayton's overly deliberate direction and Francis Ford Coppola's literate screenplay are really too faithful to the book to the point where the spirit of Fitzgerald's story becomes flattened and plot developments are paced too slowly. The result is an evocative but overlong 144-minute epic movie based on a novel that is really quite intimate in scope.

The focus of the plot is still the interrupted love story between Jay Gatsby and his object of desire, Daisy. Narrating the events is Nick Carraway, Gatsby's modest Long Island neighbor who becomes his most trusted confidante. Nick is responsible for reuniting the lovers who both have come to different points in their lives five years after their aborted romance. Now a solitary figure in his luxurious mansion, Gatsby is a newly wealthy man who accumulated his fortunes through dubious means. Daisy, on the other hand, has always led a life of privilege and could not let love stand in the way of her comfortable existence. She married Tom Buchanan for that sole purpose. With Gatsby's ambition spurred by his love for Daisy, he rekindles his romance with Daisy, as Tom carries on carelessly with Myrtle Wilson, an auto mechanic's grasping wife. Nick himself gets caught up in the jet set trappings and has a relationship with Jordan Baker, a young golf pro. The characters head for a collision, figuratively and literally, that exposes the hypocrisy of the rich, the falsity of a love undeserving and the transience of individuals on this earth.

Casting is crucial, and surprisingly, most of the actors fulfill the characters well. Robert Redford, at the height of his box office appeal, plays Gatsby with the right enigmatic quality. As Daisy, Mia Farrow captures the romanticism and shallowness of a character that ultimately does not deserve the love she receives. Even if she appears overly breathy and pretentious, her frequently trying performance still fits Fitzgerald's image of the character. Bruce Dern makes an appropriately despicable Tom Buchanan, while Karen Black has scant screen time as the trashy Myrtle. A very young Sam Waterson makes the ideal Nick with his genuine manner and touching naiveté, and Lois Chiles is all throaty posturing as Jordan. As expected, all the exterior touches are luxuriant and feel period-authentic - Theoni V. Aldredge's costumes, John Box's production design, Douglas Slocombe's elegant cinematography, and the pervasive use of 1920's hits, in particular, Irving Berlin's wistful "What'll I Do?" as the recurring love theme. The film is worth a look if you have not seen it and a second one if you haven't seen it in a while. It's actually better if you've already read the book. The 2003 DVD has a nice print transfer but sadly no extras.

Disturbing story of idle-rich during the Roaring 20s

[mdm-11 · 7/10 · 2 October 2004]

This lavish Hollywood treatment of the Classic F. Scott Fitzgerald novel is a visual and acoustic delight. Nelson Riddle's spellbinding score and the many brilliant camera shots capturing the splendor of an age of excesses and indulgences make for engaging entertainment. Still, the dark story will leave the viewer numb at the eventual (bitter) end. A young Mia Farrow and Robert Redford in the leads, along with excellent performances by Scott Wilson and Bruce Dern, as well as the 70s "femme fatal" staple Karen Black round out the top, with what seems to be hundreds of colorful "flapper" and servant extras in the cast. Everyone fortunate enough to be born or married or mistressed into money is living the "life", not caring about anyone and anything other than fun, fun, fun.

A series of indiscretions (by just about everyone) culminates in the "just desserts", and several deaths. The fact that life of the high and mighty seems to go on without skipping a beat, regardless of anyone's recklessness or involvement, is the tough lesson the author seems to aim for. Without conscience, what have we? All the money will not replace human emotions, though the cash seems to easily take their place. But didn't we have fun....

Don't judge a book by its movie.

[FilmWiz · 5/10 · 4 February 2006]

This version tries to stay very true to the roots of the story. It's greatest detriment is its lavish budget, made evident from scenery and costuming. Coppola does an admirable job with his script, but it is impossible to fail to realize that he borrowed heavily from the source material, often citing it verbatim. In this sense, the plot is very faithful to the novel. The film fails to recapture the feel, mood, and spirit of the novel and of the twenties. Fitzgerald made Gatsby a very personal character. For him, there was always something unattainable; and for Gatsby, it was Daisy, the lost love of his life, forever symbolized by a flashing green light at her dock.

When it doesn't try, the film captures the mood of the twenties. This is especially true during Gatsby's first party, showing people being themselves. The majority the cast, particularly Mia Farrow, and with the exception of Bruce Dern (Tom Buchanan) play their parts as if they were silent actors. Even the flickering quality of silent film seems to haunt this film stock. It goes without saying the acting was overdone for the most part. This is true of the essence of the characters and of the times, although in the film, it is overkill. The set decoration was visually pleasing and it effectively captured the mood of each scene and the twenties.

This film, more than anything else, is a scary attempt of a tribute. In the novel, the green light, and the T.J. Eckleburg sign had significant meanings. Stranded in the film, they remain merely stripped objects. The set seems to attempt to "fix" Fitzgerald's descriptions. Where in the book, Daisy and Tom Buchanan's home is very inviting, the film drowns in whites and yellows in the film.

Actors aren't exploited to its potential. Clayton fails to give us a relatable Gatsby, a crucial element to the novel. Redford could have played Gatsby very well. It's not his fault that he doesn't. When we are introduced to Gatsby, it's through a low-angle shot of a figure seen against the night sky, framed by marble. This isn't the quiet, unsure, romantic Gatsby on his doomed quest. This is the arrogant, loud and obnoxious Charles Kane, who knows he's rich and isn't shy about it. The scene where Gatsby symbolically reaches out to snatch the green light stays true to the book, but looks stupid on film.

Three essential scenes make the film seem even less credible. These are times where it is essential to portray Gatsby as the one we know and love from the novel. The first is the original meeting between Gatsby and Nick. Redford's inarticulate and formality with Nick is laughable. It's the first time we hear him talk, and he's so mannered that the acting upstages the content of the scene. Nick is supposed to be so relaxed he doesn't realize that he's talking to a millionaire. Changing the location of this scene from in the party to the office is the cause for this dramatic awkwardness. This has to have been Clayton's doing. This changes Gatsby's character, and he Gatsby isn't as sure of himself as the book had made us believe. Doesn't that have to be Clayton's fault? Using The Sting, Butch Cassidy and The Candidate as examples, we know Redford has enough versatility to play this scene several other, better ways. In the Gatsby and Daisy reunion (crucial moments to the picture) we see Gatsby's smiling and Daisy's stunned reaction held for so long, we wonder why Nick just doesn't go out and smoke one cigarette, come back, and go outside again to smoke another one. He'd go through a whole pack. Any tension we might have had has been fed to ridiculousness. The other plot cliché that further adds to this product of celluloid silliness is Gatsby's final scene. The way this is presented may work on stage and it certainly would work in a silent film, but here it is so hackneyed, so irreversibly awkward that any suspense is gone, and it looks silly.

The message of the novel, in my opinion, is that although Gatsby is a crook and has dealt with the likes of Meyer Wolfsheim, gamblers and bootleggers, he is still a romantic, naive, and heroic boy of the Midwest. His idealism is doomed in the confrontation with the Buchanan recklessness. This isn't clear in the movie.

We are told more than shown. The soundtrack contains Nick's narration, often verbatim from the novel. We don't feel much of what we're supposed to feel because of the overproduction and clichés. Even the actors seem somewhat shied away from their characters because of this. We can't figure out why Gatsby's so "Great", or why Gatsby thinks that Daisy is so special. Mia Farrow's portrayal of Daisy falls flat of the novel's description. The musical quality of her voice has been replaced with shrills, and her sophistication has been stripped of her complexity. This is extremely evident by her Clara Bow acting style in this picture, especially in the scene where Redford is throwing his shirts on the floor and she starts crying.

How could a screenplay that borrowed so much of Fitzgerald's novel be portrayed so inaccurately? When one reads a novel, it is up to the author to create his symbolisms from scratch. When a book is transformed into a film, the filmmakers must be sure to covey the symbols more than by merely showing them. They must still be carefully developed, whether by dialogue or more action. In the novel it works well. When translated to film symbolism is lost in translation.

As a film on its own, the technical qualities are excellent, and can be more than worth your while catching at least an hour's worth just for the scenery, costuming, and for the few great scenes that successfully convey the twenties.

The time for a restoration of 1974 "The Great Gatsby" has come

[ancientob · 27 February 2011]

It's funny how time seems to change attitudes towards many works of art, including the 1974 film treatment of Fitzgerald's novel "The Great Gatsby." At the time of its release the movie received some of the most scathingly negative reviews I can recall for any film. The reviews were no doubt a response to the enormous publicity that preceded the movie's release with promotion people at Paramount working overtime in promoting the movie as the finest film achievement since ""Gone With The Wind". Compared to the type of promotion that goes on today, this movie's promotion machine pales, but at the time it was quite a unique approach to marketing a movie. The film was on the cover of every imaginable magazine, including the very first issue of People magazine, and primed for failure from the start from all those in Hollywood who love to build something up only to revel in it being destroyed.

None of this back story had anything to do with the actual movie itself.

I recall seeing the movie on the first weekend of its opening and being utterly enchanted by the performances, costumes and ambiance of the production. I saw the movie a second time a few weeks later, only to be disturbed by the cuts that were made to the film, no doubt as a result of that critical backlash. A number of scenes were shortened with one whole character, the Owl Man, played by Tom Ewell completely edited out of the film. These cuts became permanent, with the film today showing the evidence of the cuts by occasional abrupt traditions. I have never seen any version of the film that had these cuts restored.

Now, 36 years after it's release, the movie has undergone the type of reassessment that only time can provide with it being appreciated for the lovely film that it is. With the movie certainly on it's way to Blu-Ray, it's the right time to see these cuts restored to the film so that people can finally see the ENTIRE film as it was initially intended and not the film formed by the hostile criticism it received.

Fairly the best version by now,yet not perfect

[AudemarsPiguet · 7/10 · 1 March 2005]

Well,it is by now the best version of Gatsby,and I've seen three of the total four(all except the 1926 version,anyway unobtainable today). I think this one came closest to the original novel,yet much different from the original Fitzgerald novel-which,by the way is one of the best,if not the absolute best American novel ever to be written. The settings,music,original quotes,the acting are accurate only up to a certain point,a careful viewer discovering many inaccurate details if the film is compared to the book-Bruce Dern doesn't resemble Tom Buchanan at all,the actual Tom Buchanan being either a hulking brute(Oliver Reed or James Garner fitting much more accurately into that description,with their animal,macho-like physical structure,Reed's character from Women in Love even being a rich heir and playboy,a careless,spoiled,selfish,snobbish,hollowly narrow-minded and depraved bully)or an inexpressively beautiful all-American WASP,the cute,unimaginative,well-educated,dull,and again snobbish boy next door(even Redford could have been more convincing as Tom Buchanan:both more convincing as Dern and more convincing than his performance of Gatsby),Gatsby's Rolls-Royce couldn't have been a 1922 car because in the film we see a Rolls-Royce Corniche from 1925,actually the events even take place in 1925,not in 1922 like in the book,since eight,not five years have elapsed since Gatsby's first date with Daisy back in 1917,Gatsby's house isn't the like the one depicted in the book,certainly not the copy of an old castle from the Normandie(for example Hearst Ranch,which stood as a model both for Fitzgerald as he described Gatsby's home and for Citizen Kane's Xanadu)would have been a good choice,Daisy's hair is not blonde but dark,while Jordan Baker actually is blond,while she isn't blond in this film.... and the list of mistaken details might continue. Nevertheless,in spite of all the flaws mentioned above,the film still captures the enthralling beauty of the roaring twenties,being visually lush-the rich colors,textures,images used are so lavish,so lush,so intense that they almost seem disturbing.The costumes are stylish and extravagantly elegant,the music is authentic jazz and makes you want to get up and dance the Charleston. But some of the actors are clearly miscast,including Redford in the title role(which he even copies two decades later in Indecent Proposal,where he appears as an unhappy,mysterious billionaire craving to re-live the love lost in his shady past and willing to pay every price for it,thinking that his money and power could buy anything and anyone).Robert Redford does a fairly good job as Gatsby,but is clearly not the best choice.Gatsby is actually more mysterious than the athletic sunny-boy Redford,maybe not even handsome,however far more charismatic,expressive,even more eccentric. Probably the only actor I could imagine as Gatsby would be Richard Chamberlain,which played the best version of The Count of Monte Cristo the same year and by far the most credible Fitzgerald biopic in the following year-Gatsby is actually a sort of Monte Cristo who reinvents himself,assumes a new name/identity,acquires and spends an immense fortune both to reconquer his lost love and to come to terms with his past.Gatsby could have been depicted in a darker way,as he made his Fortune by using shady means during Prohibition("he killed a man"...or more),an elegant character exhaling a somewhat impure,demonic,oddly compelling fascination,manipulating and vindictive,seducing,twisting everything he touches. While Mia Farrow's performance as Daisy lacks originality,style,beauty,chemistry,just about everything.It's incredible that among so many actresses contemporary to her who depicted the twenties's flapper in a convincing way-Laura Antonelli,Susan Hampshire,Julie Andrews,Brigitte Bardot,Karen Black,Glenda Jackson,Liza Minelli,Lois Chiles,Natalie Wood,Faye Dunaway(the last one unjust deprived of this part in this very movie)she was the best choice.However there is something that Mia Farrow does excellently in her portrayal of Daisy-she looks extremely superficial,careless,vapid,insensitively spoiled and incapable of being serious or reasonable for one single second. The supporting cast on the other hand somewhat balances the film's flaws:Sam Waterson is credible as a mature,reliable,discreet,modest,intelligent,trustworthy Nick Carraway,just like in the book,Karen Black and Lois Chiles are also fitting well into their roles,while Scott Wilson as the mentally troubled,yet pure husband of Tom's mistress,plays his haunting part so well,that he somewhat resembles Peter Seller's genius to depict haunting,neurotic characters(Sellers would have been right for this part too). All in all this film is pleasant to watch and entertaining,but not Jack Clayton's ultimate masterpiece-is first watched it I was seduced by its visual splendor,watching it several times again,it gradually lost the magic I remembered.

What'll I Do

[bkoganbing · 6/10 · 4 February 2014]

Apparently there is some kind of unwritten rule that Jay Gatsby has to be played by a blond. So in three different sound versions of The Great Gatsby we've seen him played by Alan Ladd, Robert Redford, and Leonardo DiCaprio. And with that selection of players we get a different Gatsby in all of them.

You can barely catch a hint of Gatsby's plebeian origins in Redford's performance. He seems to the manor born, but his rise to the company of the movers and shakers of the Roaring Twenties puzzles all. He certainly keeps interesting company, he's about to go into business with Meyer Wolfsheim played here by Howard DaSilva who was F. Scott Fitzgerald's caricature of Arnold Rothstein.

Sam Waterston plays Nick Carraway an ambitious young man from the Midwest who happens to have a cousin in Daisy Buchanan married to the wealthy and ruthless Tom Buchanan. Tom's connections are going to see that Carraway will start rising on Wall Street. Daisy and Tom are played by Mia Farrow and Bruce Dern.

Waterston lives in a small cottage on Long Island which today would be astronomical in value given the area. Next door is the mansion of Jay Gatsby where it seems parties never stop. One night Waterston gets an invitation to meet his mysterious neighbor. And he discovers that cousin Daisy and Jay have some history.

Sometimes you can never go back and it's best to leave the past lay and push on ahead. Something that Redford just can't do as he tries to rekindle things with Farrow.

This Gatsby is one elegant film with Oscars for Costume Design and Best Musical Scoring. Given the music of the Roaring Twenties that he had to work with Nelson Riddle came up with great background sounds for the period. The film was also responsible for a bit of a revival of the Irving Berlin classic What'll I Do. The worst thing about the DiCaprio version was that ersatz rock score in that film. I so prefer this.

But I say each Gatsby to your respective taste.

I

A for Effort

[rmax304823 · 7/10 · 25 June 2002]

Quick -- name a seed you put in the garage.

Caraway. Get it? I don't know who said that the pun was the lowest form of humor but obviously he wasn't a fan of the London Times Crossword.

They keep trying to make a decent movie out of this wonderful novel and they haven't got it right yet.

Robert Redford's performance is up to par, nicely restrained, which the part calls for, but he looks fine, too fine. Gatsby, the arriviste, ought to have more of an edge to him. Redford seems to the manner born. Mia Farrow is simply miscast. Daisy should be someone who is all aflutter but a pretty tough and careless cookie underneath all that vulnerability. Farrow is simply shaky and nervous. And she's not breathtakingly beautiful enough to persist in someone's memory for so many years, although she's often photographed through a lens that seems to have a leg of someone's stocking stretched over it, so her image is almost gooey at times. Bruce Dern is a reliable actor, never failing to be interesting, but here again Tom should be something of a muscular brute and Dern is tall and thin. Rather than being naturally and unthinkingly commanding he seems to be nasty. Sam Waterston does a fine job as Nick Carraway, the narrator used to maintaining his distance from others and reluctant to exercise judgment upon them. He fits the novel's image well and this is undoubtedly one of his better performances. Lois Childs as the fraud Jordan is gorgeous but has difficulty uttering a believable sentence. Karen Black is suitably slutty as Myrtle. (Two great contrasting names: Daisy and Myrtle. Which is the elegant flower and which the vulgar growth?)

Waterston as Nick is given occasional voiceovers which almost capture Fitzgerald's impressionistic tropes. The film begins with one of them. And includes another -- "In his blue gardens, the men and girls came and went like moths among the whispering and the champagne and the stars." But for considerations of space it leaves out one of the best-known last lines in American literature. ("And so we beat on...")

And for the same reason the movie must be cluttered with expository lines, since we can't read the passages between dialog while watching the screen. Thus, when Nick visits Tom for the first time in the novel, Tom stands with his legs apart at the top of the steps, waiting for Nick to climb to him, then puts an authoritative arm around his shoulders. Tom's first line: "I've got a nice place here." (That tells us a hell of a lot about Tom.) In the film, Tom rides up with a big grin in his polo outfit and greets Nick who is climbing out of a boat. Many friendly lines of greeting and explanation are involved, all of which necessarily detracts from the muscular impact of Tom's presence.

And Clayton (a talented director) doesn't even try to reproduce the surreal effect of Nick and Tom entering the mansion's living room where Daisy and Jordan are balancing imaginary objects on their chins and the breeze is blowing the filmy curtain up against the ceiling and the whole enclosure is compared to a frosted cake with icing on it. How COULD Clayton reproduce it? How could ANYBODY?

Also missing is the garden party scene in which Nick meets Gatsby for the first time. Nick finds himself sitting next to "a man of about my own age" and they begin chatting and Nick asks if he has met their host, Gatsby. And the other looks at him curiously and says, "Why, I'm Gatsby, old sport." The main character is edged sideways into the novel. In the movie Gatsby simply sends for Nick and says, "Hello, old sport. I'm Gatsby." The somewhat cattycorner succession of events is rendered flatly, without any of the pilomotor response induced by the written word. I won't go on with the bellyaches that come from Wolfsheim's accent -- the Oggsford Gonnegtion. "You've heard of Oggsford College?"

Other symbolic points retained from the novel include Nick's realization, while sitting with the others in a room at the Plaza, that today is his birthday -- he's thirty years old. Thirty. A milestone. An age at which we can no longer easily think of ourselves as "young." An age at which people should be able to not simply accept others but to make moral judgments about themselves and those around them. And for the first time, Nick makes that sort of judgment -- about Gatsby, and about Tom and Daisy.

In the novel, when Gatsby and Daisy meet for the first time in years, at Nick's cottage, Gatsby nervously leans against the mantle and has a duel of wits with the clock there, almost knocking it down, as if fighting it, willing time to run backwards. In the movie he simply bangs against it.

I first read this novel in high school and was unimpressed with it. Neither were very many other people at the time; Fitzgerald's rep was at low ebb. Then, years later, due to circumstances I won't bother to explain, I found myself stuck on a Cheyenne Indian reservation in Montana for a summer with practically nothing else to read. That second reading was a revelation. I've since used it as required ancillary reading in classes I've taught on Social Stratification, although that part of it is a bit dated now. It just seemed a good excuse to introduce students to a literary work they might never forget. It's not a long novel, but it's beautifully done. I urge you to read it if you haven't yet. But see the movie first, so you won't unfairly compare it to the novel which will still be ringing along your synapses.

The Alan Ladd Version Is Better!

[JohnHowardReid · 6/10 · 29 November 2012]

The first sound film of the Fitzgerald novel was released in 1949. Despite the fact that it starred box-office giant, Alan Ladd, and was filmed on a comparatively modest budget, this version was actually lucky to break even – unlike the 1974 re-make which actually lost a whole packet of money. (Admittedly it was lensed on a far more extravagant scale).

Both films suffer from almost identical flaws. Both tend towards being dull, tedious and even uninteresting, although in the 1974 version, you can often (but not always) allow your eye to wander over the magnificent sets. Both Ladd and Robert Redford are none too convincing, although Redford has wisely elected to play the role in an enigmatic rather than in his usual pushy manner. The Ladd version is further burdened with a stolid performance from Macdonald Carey and hysterical over-acting from Betty Field. True, Barry Sullivan as Tom, Howard Da Sylva as Wilson and Shelley Winters as his wife, do give their roles some bite, but their commendable efforts are somewhat undermined by the movie's odd construction of flashbacks within flashbacks (which often don't return to the flashback they started with).

At least Francis Ford Coppola's wordy screenplay for the 1974 film does eliminate all the flashbacks. However, to do this he has been forced to make Sam Waterston, rather than Gatsby or Daisy, the central figure. Waterston not only narrates but appears in virtually every scene – and he gives an agreeably restrained performance as the naïve Fitzgerald character, especially considering the vapid script he's forced to work with. On the other hand, Redford, who makes a surprisingly late entrance, does virtually nothing at all. He plays the character with little charisma and in such a stolidly dead-pan, offhanded way that I assumed his constant use of the expression, "old sport", was deliberately designed to mock or annoy his guests. Alan Ladd handled this "old sport" dialogue – and the character as well – with far more aplomb. Mia Farrow, on the other hand, seems to be trying to out-do Betty Field in the wide-eyed neurosis department. Obviously striving to play Zelda Fitzgerald as a simpering, far-gone neurotic, Mia turns the character into a caricature rather than a believable or anyway sympathetic heroine. As in the previous version, the Wilsons (here played by Scott Wilson and Karen Black) come off best. (Howard Da Silva who was so impressive as Wilson in the Ladd version has a small, insignificant role in the remake as Meyer Wolfsheim).

Despite the super-abundance of flattering close-ups, neither Farrow (all wide-eyed, simpering neurosis, as said above) nor Redford (who manages to turn the expression, "old sport", into an insult, rather than play it in a bantering fashion as Ladd did – and as Fitzgerald intended) come across effectively. Even the support players seem outclassed by the Alan Ladd line-up. The main reason for watching the Redford-Farrow Great Gatsby is to marvel at its extravagances of sets and costumes and revel in the heady array of 1920's classics like "What'll I Do?" and "Sweet Sixteen".

Despite all the frenetic partying, the occasionally effective action sequences and the big-budget locations and sets, the shorter, trimmer, Alan Ladd version has something more of the right Scott Fitzgerald atmosphere, and even provides a welcome build-up to Gatsby's career which is only hinted at in the far more opulent 1974 re-make.

Much better than you think...!

[canuckteach · 9/10 · 1 June 2008]

After weighing in on the Boards about this terrific film, it's about time I posted a review, since I do have it on my Top-20 list! I love period-pieces, especially those set in the era of, say, 1918-1938. Hence, 'Eight Men Out', 'Great Gatsby', and 'Sting' are in my Top-20, and, of course, Redford appears in two of those. Redford had the required screen presence, and acting talent to play Gatsby. Those who criticize the film or Redford's interpretation are, to me, just over-analyzing or too caught up in comparisons with the fabulous novel by F. Scott. In addition to superb acting from Redford and a great ensemble cast, the costumes, music and fabulous sets/photography give this flick plenty to recommend.

I have read the book a few times -- I view it as a great American tragedy. But tragedies about larger-than-life characters are not so easy to reproduce on-screen. Anyway, maybe half the viewers haven't read the book; so, for a screenplay writer, it's a dilemma. Maybe *this* particular tragic role - a man who builds fabulous wealth in just a few years, a man who suddenly can compete with the N.Y. aristocracy in attracting the rich and famous to his parties, a man who does it all to reclaim the rich 'jewel' he lost in his youth, a man who gambles it all on one shake of the dice - is, like King Lear, almost too surreal to be performed. Think of it that way, and watch Redford again. He is brilliant. And if you want to see the role messed up, watch A&E's 2004 version. Thirty years to try to improve? And they produce an interpretation of Gatsby I call the 'grinning idiot'.

I've never heard Redford comment on the mixed opinions about his Gatsby portrayal, but I'll guess he knows he got it right, and there wasn't anyone else with the required taste and style to outfit this role. (And as Michael Caine so deftly expressed it in 'Dirty Rotten Scoundrels', "Taste and style are commodities that people desire.."). You'd be hard-pressed to name a current American actor with the same charisma (so, you go to the U.K. and get Jude Law or Ralph Fiennes, right?).

I'll touch on the comment of one frustrated IMDb reviewer who wondered why they changed how Nick meets Gatsby. In the movie, Gatsby's compact but sinister bodyguard (who has just decked a guy the size of a Buick) quietly leads Nick upstairs to Gatsby's private study. As soon as Redford appears, we know - and Nick knows - that it's Gatsby. In the book, Nick is having a conversation at a table with an amiable fellow who turns out to be Gatsby! Can you imagine filming a scene with a character chatting with Redford and - surprise - it turns out to be Gatsby? (A&E tried it that way in 2004 - note my 'grinning idiot' comment above). Furthermore, this reference to Gatsby's protective layer helps us to identify his tragic blunder later on: he fires his household help for the sake of privacy once his romance with Daisy blooms. That decision is costly.

The book was described somewhere as a 'story in perfect balance'. In practice, that includes characters that are neither too villainous nor too heroic -- neither too loose (morally) nor too prudish. Our eyes and ears for the story, Nick, probably does not whole-heartedly approve of Tom's fling with Myrtle, but he's not about to blow the whistle on him either. He observes, and goes along for the fun with a crowd that clearly is more prosperous than he is. Later, he has good reason to assist in brokering the romance between Daisy and Gatsby (Nick has a growing friendship with Gatsby - and he is no big fan of Tom). At the same time, he finds Gatsby's affectations a bit annoying - and he only pays him one compliment (at the end - remember? "they're a rotten crowd - you're worth more than the whole lot of them put together").

Anyway, once again, portraying all this on screen is no easy matter. So, relax and enjoy the show, a sparkling period-piece that relates to us a tragic tale about the folly of wealth. Meantime, I will try to track down the 1949 version with Alan Ladd, to see how *they* did! 9/10 - canuckteach (--:

"her voice was full of money"....

[MarieGabrielle · 7/10 · 17 March 2008]

The best line throughout the entire story. I agree, the part of Daisy Buchanan with a fragile and flighty Mia Farrow was miscast. But this is a movie, not Fitzgerald. Anyone who has read F. Scott Fitzgerald and entered the rarefied world he and his wife Zelda Sayre Fitzgerald, lived through, will astutely realize it is a long gone world difficult to re-create on film.

Visually, this film succeeds. The stark whites, Redford as Jay Gatsby, the frivolous parties of summertime. Part of the film was taped at the historical Falaise mansion on Long Island, and you will have the sad feel of an era long gone-by, never to return.

The Karen Black character is representative of crude realities which never intrude on Daisys charmed life. Is this real? No. It is Fitzgerald. While Daisy may be guilty, she never pays the piper, her world is left untouched as she and Tom carelessly leave for Europe after they have destroyed several lives in America.

Sam Waterston as Nick Carraway is the most appropriate. A moral, decent man, the objective observer viewing from the outside, and seeing all the horror and clash created by class distinction, as Americans blithely deny it exists.

Read the book as well. It will portray the missed themes, which are difficult to convey through any film. 7/10.

Addendum: This film much better than the recent cheap and banal DiCaprio remake. Do yourself a favor and watch Redford as Gatsby. No remake in today's culture will do Fitzgerald's beautiful novel justice.

Beautiful but flat

[TheLittleSongbird · 5/10 · 16 November 2013]

F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby may not quite be among the great literary classics, but it is a lovely book and a sentimental favourite. This film at least takes a noble stab adapting it, but it does come up well short. Its good points are really beautiful, but it does have too many flaws and it also comes across as flat. It is visually stunning with period detail most lavish and some of the loveliest photography of any 1970s period drama. The music is very authentic to the 1920s era and manages to be catchy and lushly orchestrated without being too glib or mushy. The Great Gatsby is also one of those films where the supporting performances are better than the leads with Sam Waterson and Scott Wilson giving the best performances. Waterson's Nick is like the glue of the storytelling and does it with charm, sympathy and dignity, while Wilson is very touching and haunting as Georhe, a very conflicted character. Karen Black has a ball, Lois Chiles is entrancing and witty(part of me thinks that she would have made for a better Daisy) and while Bruce Dern may not fit the role of Tom physically he is very oily and brutish and gets the attitude and mannerisms spot on. Aside from being too overlong and too leisurely paced, the major debits are the lacklustre leads and that it suffers from being too faithful, sorry about parroting what others have said but it just goes to show that it is the general consensus. Robert Redford is very handsome but his Gatsby rather uncharismatic and too restrained, while Mia Farrow is the anti-thesis, playing Daisy much too stridently that she comes across as irresponsible and annoying. The two don't have much chemistry between them either. Francis Ford Coppola's script and Jack Clayton's direction do deserve credit for making an effort to be faithful to the book, that's never been compulsory in adaptations but it does help. Sadly that doesn't work, an example of being too faithful suffering from sapping the life, passion or emotion out of the content. The script is far too dry and wordy, also more skimming-the-surface quality rather than having depth, and while Clayton does try to allow the drama breathe because the drama is so stillborn as a consequence of how it is written it comes across as too languid. All in all, very beautiful to watch and listen to with a good supporting cast but the lack of depth and the dull pacing as well as the leads being not up to the task it is also very flat. 5/10 Bethany Cox

Excellent Adaptation

[gavin6942 · 8/10 · 20 March 2014]

A Midwesterner (Sam Waterston) becomes fascinated with his nouveau riche neighbor (Robert Redford), who obsesses over his lost love (Mia Farrow).

What we have here is a big name cast, though not as stylish as Baz Luhrmann's version forty years later. Luhrmann does seem to follow the same plot and use much of the same dialogue, suggesting at the least both enjoyed certain lines from the novel, or perhaps even that Luhrmann used this film as his cue. A few scenes, such as the clothes-tossing, seemed to be a direct borrowing. Also, Redford says "old sport" more naturally than Leonardo DiCaprio.

I have seen some criticism for this film being too literal. So, is being literal good or bad? I imagine if they strayed from the novel there would be just as many critics (or more) complaining... you just cannot win when adapting classic literature (though I personally loved this).

A great use of Karen Black. All I need to say.

The original script allegedly had homosexual undertones, and I think that comes through here. Also, when thinking of this as a tale from an unreliable narrator, it is interesting to wonder what is strictly true and what is puffed up from Nick's obsessive and doting point of view.

This is America

[deickos · 7/10 · 15 July 2023]

The closing words of the film are "these people are so careless, they always do what they want and expect others to deal with the mess". Fitzgerald's remark was prophetic for his era - but at least then it was FDR who put America on its feet again. It was prophetic again when at the turning of the century America was led by irresponsible incompetent idiots and psychopaths - America now is a shadow of its former self. I have not found another writer capable to portray this country like Fitzgerald and in this aspect this film is a must-see. The film itself was prophetic on its own right when it came out after the worst decade in America's history, then. Unfortunately the worst were and are still to come.

All Surface And No Feeling.

[Flagrant-Baronessa · 4/10 · 7 May 2006]

The high-profile, big budget American adaptation The Great Gatsby of the same-titled novel by F. Scott Fitzgerald bombed when it was released in 1974. Jack Clayton directs a star-packed cast and uses a script by Francis Ford Coppola written a few years earlier. Coppola disowned his The Great Gatsby screenplay when he saw the movie, because he felt the movie adaptation ruined his work.

We follow a group of morally decadent upper-class flappers in Long Island in the 1920s, seen through the eyes of our narrator, Nick Carraway (Sam Waterson). Central to all of them, and arguably the main character, is Jay Gatsby (Robert Redford) who is living the American dream; he is extremely rich, throws lavish parties and fights for the woman he loves, Daisy Buchanan (Mia Farrow). Gatsby is a working class hero who started with nothing, only he lies and puts on a charade to get ahead in life. The movie follows the novel almost religiously, scene-by-scene, paying great attention to details like colors and scenery. It is a faithful, but lackluster adaptation that lacks any depth. It tries, but it never succeeds to do the Great American Novel justice and instead it drags on for two and a half hours without making a point or addressing any of Fitzgerald's themes.

Director Jack Clayton was a born and bred British citizen and perhaps this is why he fails in recreating the great American novel. What is curious to note is that Clayton seems to fully grasp the complexity of Fitzgerald's characters, the significance of the American dream and the importance of the setting. Yet, he only succeeds in translating one of these onto the screen, namely the setting.

The Great Gatsby is visually astonishing, much like the novel, but scratch the surface and you find nothing. The visual realization is the one redeeming achievement in the movie. The great attention paid to details such as hair-cuts, period suits and sophisticated design and setting impressively captures the essence of the roaring twenties. The lavish parties thrown by Gatsby at his beautiful house are the most noteworthy as they capture the spirit of the times and stay true to the novel. This visual authenticity was rewarded in the form of two Oscar grabs for best musical score and best costume at the 1975 Academy Awards.

Similarly, all characters look the parts well enough, the exceptions perhaps being the all-too-pleasant-looking Bruce Dern as the brutish Tom Buchanan and his mistress, the-too-gaunt-looking Karen Black as the curvy Myrtle Wilson. Robert Redford is perfectly debonair as the mysterious Jay Gatsby; even his clear blue eyes embody the idealism of the character. That takes care of the visual. It ends there, however, as Redford struggles to add depth to the character of Great Gatsby, leaving us with a 'mediocre' Gatsby who is too self-assured and not dreaming enough. I found the beautiful Lois Chiles to be the light of this film. She is perfect for the part of Jordon Baker, a jaded, tomboyish flapper who cheats on the golf-course and surrounds herself with entertaining people so as to not snooze off.

My biggest problem with this book-to-film adaptation is lack of depth around Gatsby's and Daisy's relationship. It appears to have been transformed into a lustful love-story (bordering on triangle with Nick present and heavily breathing by Gatsby's side) and strayed away from important themes and motives, such as why the characters feel the way they feel or do the things they do. Rather than make Daisy out as the characterization of the American Dream and the unattainable and add some depth to her complex character, she is made out as a lackluster soap opera queen with an occasionally hysterically high-pitched voice. This is the voice that F. Scott Fitzgerald described as being "full of money" in the novel, which suggests more subtlety and sophistication than what Mia Farrow achieves.

I appreciate the difficulty in translating The Great Gatsby onto screen as the strength of the novel is its richness of language, symbolism and imagery. To include all of these aspects in a film would make it visually overblown and perhaps detract from important details (like the bright flowing dresses that Daisy and Jordan wear symbolizing carelessness and coldness). In this sense, Clayton succeeds as he gets us to notice the little things. The symbolism of the novel is mostly lost, however; the color green which is so important in The Great Gatsby is present, but neglected. In the novel, it represented the American Dream and, indeed, the first time we see Gatsby his mysterious silhouette takes this color. It fades as the movie plays on, instead of integrating it into Gatsby's character and dream. The lack of green grass visible during Gatsby's vivacious parties was a low point as the grass holds great symbolism for Gatsby's yearning to renew his life and start over again with a fresh start, new friends and a new outlook on life. A subtle background use of the color green might also have helped this movie in addressing the American Dream.

The Great Gatsby is a fantastic portrayal of an era—the 1920s—but does not do F. Scott Fitzgerald's novel justice in the least. Perhaps this is why, being a fan of the source material, that Coppola disowned his screenplay.

Looks great, tastes awful

[gf212121 · 8 July 2002]

This adaptation may have worked with the mute button on, but the cheezy movie-of-the-week score, the shrill cries of Mia Farrow, and the pallid reading by Robert Redford doom this film. Bruce Dern as Tom Buchanan makes as much sense as Jimmie 'J.J.' Walker as Muhammad Ali - the physical strength that defined Tom is totally missing.

The staging, costumes, and incidentals (cars, etc.) are gorgeous, but the beauty of Fitzgerald's prose is nowhere to be found. This must be a difficult work to film, and it shows.

The Great Gatsby

[niazalavi · 7/10 · 27 April 2008]

The twenties, one is either super rich or extremely poor. Jay Gatsby (Robert Redford) is a man that started from the bottom and worked his way up into the world of the super rich. Money is apparently not an issue for him. Parties, cars, houses, big feasts, he can have everything! He is willing to risk it all in order to win his childhood love Daisy (Mia Farrow) back, whom he lost to a rich boy 8 years ago . An attempt, which ends in disaster ....As a reader of the novel you will realize that some scenes are missing, or that you have imagined some things differently. For those who have not, the movie will be a sensitive and entertaining romantic drama. The film, despite its age is still worth seeing, especially because of its great performances and its magnificent facilities.

Niaz Alavi

Long, Languid Version of Fitzgerald's Classic

[l_rawjalaurence · 7/10 · 2 March 2014]

This version of THE GREAT GATSBY has its share of detractors, and possibly for good reason: the narrative crawls along at a snail's pace, while the period atmosphere, although lovingly evoked by designer John Box, appears strangely false. Everything is just too shiny, even the interior of the Plaza Hotel, where Gatsby (Robert Redford) and Tom (Bruce Dern) have their climactic confrontation. On the other hand Jack Clayton's adaptation offers several visual pleasures - for example his use of symbolism. There are numerous shots of birds flying away, except for one sequence, where Nick (Sam Waterston) discovers a dead seagull on the seashore near his home. This reminds us of how the protagonists - especially Gatsby and Daisy (Mia Farrow) - are imprisoned by their existences. They might have money, but they cannot fly off like the birds into a new life. The film also includes several shots of Gatsby and Daisy reflected in mirrors, or in the water of the outdoor pool at Gatsby's mansion, drawing attention to the doomed nature of their affair. It is as if they cannot endure the idea of face-to-face contact; when they do get close, they seem ill-at-ease, despite their protestations of love. While Gatsby believes that the past can be recreated, Clayton's film proves otherwise. Redford is strangely muted as Gatsby; he certainly looks the past, especially when photographed alone standing on the jetty against the early evening sky, but he seems reluctant to show Gatsby's passionate nature lurking beneath the civilized veneer. Bruce Dern is quite outstanding as Tom - a thoroughly odious person with scant regard for anyone else's feelings, especially those of his wife. Waterston's Nick acts as the narrator for the entire piece; his delivery of the book's final lines in voice-over is incredibly moving, especially when he contrasts Gatsby's naive hope for the future with Daisy and Tom's "carelessness" (Fitzgerald's phrase). This GATSBY is definitely worth watching as an example of Clayton's meticulously precise style of filmmaking.

Great Scott, Lesser (Much) Clayton

[writers_reign · 6/10 · 9 August 2007]

This is the kind of film - Billy Wilder's The Private Life Of Sherlock Holmes is another - in which the Opening Credits montage is actually better than the film itself. The Wilder film was, of course, butchered and a whole central sequence jettisoned but so far as I know that didn't apply to Clayton's movie. It's flawed from the outset when the credits state unequivocally from the 'novel' by Scott Fitzgerald and if Francis Ford Coppola - who gets a sole writer credit - and Jack Clayton are unable to distinguish between a novel and a novella then they may just be the wrong creative team to be entrusted with one of the few authentic literary masterpieces of the twentieth century. The second - of three - adaptations, released in 1949 and featuring Alan Ladd as Gatsby has been cited as the finest version but until I am able to see for myself I can't comment. What is beyond dispute is that this is something of a Curate's egg - West or East, take your pick - with some aspects, like the aforementioned credit sequence which shows in succession all the key components; the Gatsby residence, the 'death' car, the pool where it all ends in tears, the lavishly appointed interior of Gatsby's mansion, the possessions, the portraits of Daisy etc, being more or less on the money whilst others - the casting of non-acting joke Mia Farrow as Daisy, for example, falling woefully short of adequate. Daisy needs to be an amalgam of Ava Gardner and Audrey Hepburn, a combination of the virginal and the carnal that would captivate just about any heterosexual male and render believable if not necessarily rational the lengths to which Gatsby was prepared to go to win her love. So many elements of the novel - the conflict between East and West, the equation of the green light at the end of Daisy's dock with money, the satire on Horatio Alger etc - are ignored, possibly on the grounds that these concepts are difficult to pictorialise but perhaps the greatest omission is the last magnificent paragraph of the book in which Nick speaks eloquently of boats and currents. Sam Waterston as Nick and Scott Wilson as Wilson (a part played in the Alan Ladd version by Howard Da Sylva who appears as Wolfsheim this time around) turn in the best performances with Redford just about adequate as Gatsby which is not really good enough for someone described as 'Great'.

Not the same... It never is.

[trinity_pulse · 7/10 · 26 May 2004]

I happen to immensely enjoy this book. But the movie did not capture it the way that literature could, through Nick's eyes. The book also was not laden with cheesy horror music that was, needless to say, grotesquely misplaced.

But in the book, Nick adds a humanity and depth to the story that it would not have otherwise had. Nick's first-person standing is what makes the book good in the first place. It is what makes the characters human, what makes the events at all relevantly to each other, and even what makes Gatsby great. I feel that this was compromised in movie form.

That's all I have to say. Go read the book.

A worthy adaptation of Fitzgerald's novel, with only the really necessary drawbacks.

[Anonymous_Maxine · 8/10 · 6 February 2003]

The Great Gatsby is a book that is very much expected to be made into a movie, and has been adapted several times before this one. It is an intricate story that entails an enormous amount of meaning and significance to society, but the literary version is not one that is capable of being adapted into a film that can capture the entire effect, because so much of the quality of The Great Gatsby lies in the words that are used in the novel, the way things are described, the way people think, etc. This can never be completely transferred to film, and this version of Gatsby leaves out a huge amount of the language and even unnecessarily changes several important scenes.

I have heard Robert Redford criticized for fitting the upper-class half of Gatsby's personality too closely and not capturing his darker side well enough, but this is a completely superficial argument. It's true that Redford looks right at home in Gatsby's mansion and his clothes and everything, but it's also true that he walks through the entire movie as though he's not quite sure where he is or how he got there and, above all, that he's nervous about something that he's done or is about to do. I can understand someone thinking that Redford doesn't look like a bad enough guy to play Gatsby, but if there is any problem with him portraying Gatsby's darker side, it's probably more a result of the fact that so much of his hidden dealings are hidden or removed from the film than any weakness on the part of Redford's performance or his appearance in the role. We see one suspicious phone conversation and we realize his intentions with Daisy and how he came to be where he is, but this is told rather than shown.

Mia Farrow gives a satisfactory performance as Daisy, although she does not capture many of Daisy's characteristics from the novel, most importantly, I think, the stunning beauty of the sort that would cause a man like Gatsby to spend several years completely transforming his life and becoming filthy rich (and becoming a criminal while he's at it), only to keep his mind occupied with thoughts of Daisy despite all his money and the fact that his ocean-side mansion is constantly crawling with celebrities and beautiful people. Daisy has to be a ridiculously beautiful woman to justify that kind of behavior, or else Gatsby would have to at least be a completely obsessive nutcase. Neither is true.

Farrow's shortcomings as Daisy are hugely overshadowed, however, by the character of Tom Buchanan, who is changed from a `hulking brute of a man' in the novel to a tall and skinny guy who only has the slow intellect and harsh jealousy toward Gatsby from his character in the novel. Bruce Dern is hugely miscast in this role, but does a decent job going through the motions of his character, at least the verbal ones that he's given. Sam Waterson probably gives the best performance in the film as Nick Carraway, although there is something of an awkward feel with his character if only because he is the narrator in the film, telling the story through his own eyes, while in the film he is an external character and the vast majority of his internal thoughts are necessarily erased.

More than the performances, however, there are some scenes that are changed from the novel that just shouldn't have been. I can understand changing or reducing a scene or some dialogue here and there (although in the case of a classic novel like this, changing anything is almost always a dangerous proposition), but there were some scenes that were very important in the novel, either to the story or to the process of characterization or anything else, that were changed for no good reason and with no good affect.

The introduction of the characters of Tom, Daisy and Jordan, and most importantly, Gatsby himself were enormously altered for the film, for no apparent reason. Tom has a self-involved introduction in the novel where he introduces himself to Nick by making a comment on his own success, Daisy and Jordan are introduced sitting carelessly in the gigantic living room at Tom and Daisy's house amidst an atmosphere the likes of which no film is likely to reproduce, and Gatsby, most of all, has a wonderful introduction where he is sitting talking to Nick at one of his parties, and Nick casually mentions that he has been invited by some man named Gatsby that he's never met or even seen. Gatsby looks at him in surprise, saying, `I'M Gatsby.'

This is the perfect way to introduce Gatsby as a man with the means to put on a social event of this caliber but without a clue in the moon about how to interact with his guests. Rather than this simple introduction, however, Nick is approached by one of Gatsby's servers and asked to come upstairs. This is a creepy scene which makes Nick feel nervous as though he's in trouble (which is understandable since the man who approached him won't say a word and gives him a sly smile here and there as though Nick's the enemy and he's being taken prisoner by the mob boss).

Nick gets upstairs and Gatsby is standing alone in a room looking out over his party, and there follows a creepy scene in which Gatsby stumbles over his words trying to introduce himself, and no a scrap of his joviality is captured from the novel. In the book, Gatsby is a man who doesn't know the social rules of his parties but is glad to have a grand old time with Nick even though they'd never met, while in the movie he nervously stumbles through plans to go out boating the next day, leaving Nick to stand there still not quite sure what he's supposed to do.

I watched this version of The Great Gatsby just after watching the 1993 version of The Secret Garden, which is a film that takes a magical novel and makes a wonderful film out of it, but only really captures the basics of it, the necessary parts that are needed to have the film present the story and make sense. This version of The Great Gatsby is similar in that it is an enjoyable film that captures the story of the novel, but because of the richness of the language used in the book and some of the things that were, for some reason, changed for no apparent reason other than to be different from the original text, it doesn't capture the same experience as the novel.

Maybe a Great Work of Literature Should Not Be Made into a Movie

[Hitchcoc · 6/10 · 22 December 2016]

Before the disappointing adaptation of this film in 2013 came another disappointment. It would be the Robert Redford/Mia Farrow version mentioned here. I agree with the criticism of one earlier reviewer: the casting was the problem. I'm a great fan of Robert Redford. I never bought him as Jay Gatsby. He was in his pretty boy period and didn't have the bruises of experience to come across as Fitzgerald portrayed him. Mia Farrow seem like a weak Daisy. And then there is one of the strangest actresses of all time, Karen Black, with those beady little eyes, having an affair with Tom Buchanan. There is a dancing around everything with the missing angst that is the novel. I love this book and the book is the language and when you have basically poetry, except for occasional narration, it just doesn't cross over. There are many books that really should not be made into movies. I have to admit, I've never seen the first effort at this. Maybe it worked better.

Stagger Through Glamor With The Doomed and The Damned

[Dan1863Sickles · 1/10 · 8 February 2006]

Glorious and poetic, glamorous and mysterious, the Great Gatsby is second only to Huckleberry Finn as the Great American Novel. Yet this bloated, solemn, sleepy movie fails to connect on every level. Every single performance is false, and the script is a work of butchery.

Nick Carraway, the novel's narrator, should be urbane, cynical, but also idealistic and genuinely interested in people. But Sam Waterston twists and befouls the character, making Nick a sleazy voyeur who sniffs Daisy's panties and peeps at Gatsby relieving himself on the beach with an idiotic look of arousal on his face. By the end Waterston's narration is reduced to mere heavy breathing, as he keeps repeating the phrases "golden Gatsby" and "beat on, beat on" as if at the edge of climax.

Jay Gatsby, the novel's hero, should be a golden god, handsome and dashing but also with a streak of blue-collar toughness and gangster ruthlessness just under the surface. Robert Redford plays Gatsby as if he's just escaped from the Island of Zombies. Sleepwalking through every scene, Redford makes it look as though Gatsby's "dream" is the literal, out-cold type of snooze, not a vision that fills him with fantastic energy and purpose.

Daisy Buchanan, the glamorous and sexy heroine, should be playful, funny, exuberant, vivacious, charming, and irresistible. Only deep under the surface should you sense weakness, coldness, and cowardice. Mia Farrow plays Daisy as dazed and confused. Instead of looking like a girl who loves to dance on table tops she looks like she's on the edge of passing out cold at the end of every scene. Instead of being a fairy tale princess who comes down from the stars she's like a stiff someone just fished out of the meat locker at the morgue.

Tom Buchanan, the villain, should be a hulking brute. He should look coarse and menacing, muscle-bound and vicious, a gorilla of a man. Bruce Dern looks more like Nick Carraway should look -- lean and thoughtful, not brutal and stupid. The movie has Tom do pointless things to look evil, like stealing a jazz man's trumpet and twisting it into a pretzel shape, or babbling incoherently about Daisy's lust for delivery boys and punching the walls for no reason.

Beyond all this, I can't stress enough the crude, ugly way the director and writer use "obvious" symbols to get their point across. A dead sea gull floating in the water. The jazz man's twisted trumpet lying in the driveway. Sam Waterston clearly not acting as he eyeballs a young Robert Redford in his briefs. Nick's hand snaking into his pocket at Daisy and Gatsby kiss. The literal meaning of every scene is beaten to death, while the actors roll their eyes and try to look insane.

Such a dull, sour film -- one would never guess that the book is full excitement, life and the beauty of dreams.

Redford is the only actor ever to capture Gatsby

[bobjm · 8/10 · 12 January 2001]

Critics tended to pan this version of what may be America's greatest novel. I've read the book three times and seen several movie, TV, and theater productions. I'm not at all a Redford fan, but have to admit he captures Gatsby perfectly. Every other actor wants us to see Gatsby's rough past in his character, only Redford lets you feel that just below the surface - just as Fitzgerald wrote it.

Maybe they disliked Mia Farrow as Daisy, and well they should. But then again, no one has ever captured Daisy and prbably never will.

A cable channel doing a 24 hour run on 'The Great Books' gave an hour to Gatsby. Lots of subtle fuzzy images, a beautiful but mute and distant blonde, and Donald Sutherland's cool voice as narrator captures Daisy. There is no other way to do it. Of course I believed no one could capture Gatsby until Redford came along.

This movie is very much worth your time.

Got the Soul

[Tweetienator · 6/10 · 17 October 2021]

Eye and soul candy with some good acting. A jump back in long gone times, nice costumes, settings, fine music. The movie adaption from 1974 is for sure no masterpiece but a colorful extravaganza (like the movie starring Mr. DiCaprio). But I got to admit, that the novel written by F. Scott Fitzgerald is in my opinion also no masterpiece but just a solid piece of literature too.

Positively embalmed

[moonspinner55 · 3/10 · 11 May 2002]

F. Scott Fitzgerald's celebrated novel about king of Long Island high society in the 1920s and his tumultuous relationship with a married beauty comes to the screen in the 1970s via the hand of Francis Ford Coppola (as writer) and star-leads Robert Redford and Mia Farrow. So why is it so bloody awful? Could be the mismatched, miscast actors: Redford might be a plausible Gatsby if he were focused, but he's not in character here and his immobile face reveals nothing to us; as his Daisy, Farrow has some catty lines and works her little-girl smile and big eyes to some effect, but she looks like a child playing dress-up and has no chemistry whatsoever with Redford. Production is appropriately opulent, the jazz age is captured vividly, but the direction is deadly slow and the wordy script is a bummer, veering dangerously on the edge of soap opera (surely not Fitzgerald's intent). A hazy snooze. Perhaps this book is singularly unfilmmable? *1/2 from ****