“Gatsby? What Gatsby?”
Set in 1920s America, F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby is arguably one of the greatest books of the 20th century. The imagery and language is rich, the characters either loveable or deplorable, and the plot a careful mixing of the “glamour” Fitzgerald saw in his own life with the tragic love story we’ve all come to know and love.
Later this year, the film version is due to be released. The trailer seems to be dark and almost sinister in its depiction of the era, something I hadn’t picked up so strongly on personally in the book. Leonardo DiCaprio plays the Great Gatsby himself, along with Tobey Maguire as Nick and Carey Mulligan as Daisy. Is this casting right for this film? I don’t quite know. Leonardo DiCaprio isn’t exactly how I pictured Gatsby in my mind as a reader, nor is Tobey Maguire how I envisaged Nick, but that doesn’t mean to say they won’t portray their respective characters well. Only time – and a viewing of the film in December – will tell if the casting is right.
Even if the film doesn’t quite live up to expectations, it’s still a win-win situation here for lovers of literature everywhere. Most people know the book – like me – from studying, or at least reading it at school. The release of the film has provoked a mad dash to dusty old copies of the novel, as people of all ages re-read the story to remind themselves of the words on the page before watching the presentation on the screen. And, even if people don’t read the novel now, it’s likely that if the film does well, people will reach for a copy of the book to re-live the magic they saw in the cinema all over again. Just look at The Hunger Games, Harry Potter, and even, though it pains me to say it, Twilight. Certainly in the case of The Hunger Games, many people hadn’t even heard of the books until the film graced our screens, and since being captivated by the story in the cinema, many have wanted to be captivated in their own homes. Or on a bus. Or train. Or anywhere you can take a book, really.
You see, the point of having books made into films is not always that they’re brilliant, or an exact representation of the novel. In fact, almost all films are never as good as the book. Why? Because the writer’s craft can never truly be represented on screen; all those intricately written, beautiful images of other worlds, or magic, or 1920s America are never fully realised on screen. They are something which can only be experienced on a one-to-one level between the reader and the book. We build up images of how characters might look and how they might speak. We decide in our own minds how the atmosphere of a country might feel, and how exactly the landscape might appear. It is this magic that makes the experience of reading a novel a truly individual one. Of course there will always be main themes or a widely agreed theory in regards to a certain novel, but the rest is up to you. In this day and age, we often seem to forget the magic and mystery that surrounds a book. There are around 200 pages just sitting there ready for you to engage with them anytime, anywhere. 200 pages ready for you to laugh at the humour, cry at the tragedy, or feel outraged at some social criticism which lies within them. Sometimes, having the film version of a novel appear is what encourages someone to pick up a copy of the novel and start to fall in love with books.
So, what’s all the hype about with The Great Gatsby? The hype is about the fact that one of the most loved, or at least well-known, novels of the 20th Century is about to be released into the world in an updated cinematic form. The modern music in the trailer and the juxtaposition of the 20s glamour a depicted in the novel shows that the director is trying to show it’s a story we can all relate to. It’s something we can all talk about and can all go on to read, whether for the first time or for the hundredth. At the end of the day, it doesn’t matter how many times you read it as long as you find yourself falling in love with it over and over again.
