The Great Gatsby (1974)

(In French, On TV, April 2019) As someone who’s lukewarm about F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby but enthusiastic about the first half of the 2013 Baz Luhrmann adaptation, I was curious to see what the sometimes-derided 1974 film adaptation had to offer. Clearly, it couldn’t touch the CGI-fuelled exuberance of the Luhrmann version, but did it have its own strengths? As it turns out, director Jack Clayton’s earlier The Great Gatsby is far more mannered, significantly more realistic, but not distinctively dissimilar from other versions of the story: Love and lust on Long Island, and the unbolting of a man’s statue. I may dislike flapper fashions, but the party scenes are fun and the story moves through the expected beats. The film isn’t without its own stylish elements: There’s at least one good scene transition reusing symbolic imagery. Despite a remarkable cast (Robert Redford! Mia Farrow!)  The actors aren’t particularly remarkable, but the atmosphere is. Otherwise, it’s pretty much the same thing, done mid-1970s style. There is some humour: I had to laugh at the line “I’ll travel somewhere, to Montréal maybe.”  The ending does feel drawn-out, however, going on much longer after the final shocking events of the climax. Still, as an adaptation, I can see how The Great Gatsby managed to portray some tricky material, and how it clearly could be improved upon.