Film Adaptation Paper

LEH 352.A18 [57534] / FILM ADAPTATION OF CLASSIC TEXTS Studies in Literature

[email protected] FALL 2019 THE FINAL due 12/22

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MY GATSBY LECTURE and details of THE FINAL Part I (b) due 12/22

F. Scott Fitzgerald’s work is considered a literary masterpiece by critics and scholars and as such its story continues to rummage around in our collective academic heads almost 100 years after it was first published. Why is it so highly regarded? Well for one, it gets a great story told in very few pages (218) relatively speaking. I say “relatively speaking” because other great works that have captured the soul of a nation are books of considerable length: Leo Tolstoy’s Russian opus War and Peace (1869) weighing in at over 1000 pages; Marcel Proust’s In Search of Lost Time (recherche du temps perdu) (1913) at 3,000 pages and generally considered the greatest novel ever written, defines France at a crucial moment in time; and England is well represented by all of the books of Charles Dickens (1812-1870), some four million words that add up to ? pages. Of course, these countries are a bit older than America so there is much more story to tell. Still, Fitzgerald’s 200 pages of an examination of America’s hear beat is impressive.

Why else is the book so highly regarded? Like Proust, Fitzgerald captures a specific moment in time. The Great Gatsby was a contemporary work, an up to the minute chronicle of new music (jazz), new money and new attitudes (female independence). Any moment in time for the turbulent history of this young country would be good fodder for a great story. Consequently, we are always looking for that “Great American Novel” i.e., the book that captures this country – its definitive soul if you will. And since we are a capitalist society no story should be considered for that honor if it does not include the theme of money and its importance in America running through the plot.

Another reason for its praise? The writing of course. It is spare. It is sometimes beautiful. The Narrator’s observances of the Long Island world around him is understated yet powerful in its evocative language and we do not know at any given moment whether it is envy or disdain that Nick Carraway holds for the cast of characters he encounters during his Summer at West Egg -- across the bay from his cousin Daisy Buchanan’s more fashionable “East” Egg.*

All of The Great Gatsby Film Adaptations are considered “failures.” You have now read the book. It has first person narration like Cuckoo’s Nest but we know what happened to that Narration in the film version of Cuckoo’s Nest. How does your filmmaker solve the first person Narration of The GG for his adaptation? Why has Cuckoo’s Nest movie become more famous than the book while none of the many film adaptations of Gatsby has been able to succeed critically or financially?

Fitzgerald’s book is purportedly about the American dream – that dream being the desire for [wealth?] [the unattainable?] [power?] [acceptance?] [success?] [class?] [something else?]. Or is it about a love story? Or is it a good mystery? Or is it social commentary? You decide which one of these themes comes through in whichever movie(s) you use for this Film Adaptation Paper.

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THE FINAL Part I (b) due 12/22: Read the failed adaptations pages of the pdf file. Read the challenges for adaptations. OPTIONAL Re-read the “Novel” chapter on adaptations if you wish. Pick a chapter from The GG and view its cinematic example to weave an answer to the above bold-text questions into a coherent Paper of any length.

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*By the way, this East/West dynamic that implies class and success plays out continuously in many societies – on a grand level as it did in Germany before the Wall came down and on a miniscule level in New York City’s five boroughs.