Last Thursday we watched the movie "The Great Gatsby" (1974), and were groundbreakingly upset by all of its facets. Since the ideas of Francis Scott Fitzgerald including the one of American dream are revealed lousily in it, we made up our minds it would prudent of us to publish a brief review of the said movie:


The movie we viewed Thursday, April the 12th had to deal with the book “The Great Gatsby” by Francis Scott Fitzgerald. From my humble corner I expected the directors to convey the atmosphere of the roaring 20s of American history and to somehow outline the highs and lows of the capitalist yesteryear. And as far as history is concerned, that span of time was, disputably, the most controversial one throughout all ythe history of the United States. Yet to be honest, the flair suggested this hope will be dashed to pieces, and next up....

From the very outset it appeared quite obvious that the profundity of the novel was in no way reflected in the movie shot in 1974. Incidentally, only a handful of the so-called cinema pundits deemed that vision of the novel successful, whereas the vast majority of revered critics dubbed it the worst out of the four versions of “The Great Gatsby”. On the other hand, we can surely pick out a bunch of daft venal pressmen who would have scribbled epithets like “dazzling” or, say, “mindboggling” in reference to the movie under consideration, and it will also be a point, yet it is utterly up to a certain viewer to rate the product. The rest of the geeky movie just proved the maiden evaluation right.

The directors screwed up to unveil the gist of the novel and to anyhow depict the chasm, that stark contrast between the East and the West of the the country of boundless opportunities. Nor did they manage to toss up an appropriate cast.

Instead, what we got was a piece of sobby stuff highlighting the ritzy and glitzy lifetime of American wheeler-dealers of aristocratic mold. To make matters worse, some of the protagonists were truly misleading, for they didn’t match the characters of the book, like Jordan, an ordinary babe of the 20s according to the script, was portrayed almost as a gorgeous pin-up.

After watching one and the same scene of high-octane partying I got the impression of the director as of the one who superficially focused attention on those wild throngings featuring boisterous sprees of activities of those rich playboys of the 20s who whiled away their time in a bevy of leggy chicks and with a decent drink, to boot. Thus, if you are prone to those luche-living ideals that story will meticulously display it to you.

To sum it all up, the movie “The Great Gatsby” failed to strike a chord with my mood and reflections on reading the book. The movie emerged a commonplace for the greedy movie-guzzlers, those avid cinema freaks who don’t care about the ideas, the literary or philosophical insight but carry on watching whatever they are offered. That target audience somehow even resembles the protagonists of the on-screen “The Great Gatsby.” Hopefully, the best version of the novel is yet to be released.

P.S. Make sure there's no trace of plagiarism in this very review.

Regards,

Ilja, Alexander, Roman