The Great Gatsby - Yu You

There is no point in denying the comparison of Baz Luhrmann’s film adaptation of The Great Gatsby to the original novel that is widely considered to be F. Scott Fitzgerald's highest artistic achievement, especially for those who choose to see the film out of their appreciation of the novel. It is also futile to expect the film to be as good as the book because a film adaptation is essentially a translation of the original literary work by the language of motion pictures. And there is no such thing as a perfect translation. So how did the film do as a translation of such a literary classic as The Great Gatsby?

In Tolstoy’s magnum opus - Anna Karenina, after Anna committed her adultery for the first time with Vronsky, she could not bear any words of Vronsky’s post-coital confession of love, as Tolstoy wrote ‘she felt that at that moment she could not express in words her feeling of shame, joy, and horror at this entrance on a new life, and she did not wish to vulgarise that feeling by inadequate words.’ This is how the film The Great Gatsby failed; by doing exactly the opposite of what Anna did not wish to do, i.e. vulgarising that feeling by inadequate words. In the case of the film adaptation of The Great Gatsby it means using crass bombastic visual language to convey the story in a way so callous that most of the subtleties and nuances which make The Great Gatsby great are lost.

For instance, in Mr Luhrmann’s visualisation, the glitter and glamour, buzz and bustle of the jazz age, the fantastical facade of the American Dream which is, at its core, superficial and fake equate to scenes similar to a Disney animation. Gatsby’s extravagant parties became Lady Gaga’s Paparazzi music video. Yes, the novel contains all these over the top, lavish images that are associated with the milieu in which the story was written, but Scott Fitzgerald did it with sublime style, a crucial literary merit that put The Great Gatsby in the league of the greatest novels of the 20th century. Luhrmann’s translation has little of it. 

However, the vulgar style was not what made me most uncomfortable, the impious improvisation of Fitzgerald’s original novel was. The film was seemingly suggesting, via a flashback to the occasion where Gatsby and Daisy made their first acquaintance, that the penniless soldier Jay Gatz (Gatsby’s original name) whose paucity was disguised under his uniform did not fall in love with Daisy for who she was, but the idea of a higher social standing; as he watched Daisy and her mother ascending the grand staircase of their wealthy house in the film (the symbolism of a social ladder was obvious here), Jay Gatz decided to become Gatsby, and in his own narration it was his audacious hope for self-betterment that gave him the courage to fall in love with Daisy. 

For the viewers who haven’t read the book, this interpretation of Gatsby as a blatant opportunist whose sole intention was to use Daisy as a gateway into the prosperous future may seem clever and credible in that it brought out the idea that everything about Gatsby was fake, a notion that was ostensibly align with the central idea of the novel. True, the inauthenticity and disillusionment of the American Dream were what Fitzgerald aimed to expose. But as a reader who has read the novel twice, I wasn’t convinced that this nihilistic gist was intended by the author for the book. Fitzgerald’s Jay Gatz is a much more complex and ambivalent character when it comes to how he fell in love with Daisy. Admittedly, Jay Gatz was allured into Daisy’s life by its beauty and richness in the first place, but when he did fall in love with Daisy, the love he felt for her was real. And Daisy did love him back then as evidenced in her heart-wrenching reaction to Gatsby’s letter on her wedding night. 

I am perfectly aware that Fitzgerald’s novel explores bigger themes about a period in American history where everything was a production of something, where the American Dream seemed to be ever more so ‘materialising’ and achievable, whereas in reality ‘there is only the pursued, the pursuing, the busy and the tired’. Furthermore, on the grand scheme of human existence, the novel reveals how happiness is elusive and future dreams are nothing but a journey into the past. The Great Gatsby transcends a romantic novel, but that in no way diminishes the fact that it is a love story as well! And I should like to argue that there isn’t any ‘bigger’ theme than love. So, contrary to Luhrmann’s interpretation of the book, at least one thing is real in the novel, and it is love; Gatsby’s love for Daisy, Tom Buchanan’s love for his unfortunate mistress, Nick Caraway’s love for Gatsby and Scott Fitzgerald’s love for books as captured in the dialogue Jordan and Nick had with the drunken man they found in Gatsby’s library in the midst of another clamorous party:

‘What do you think?’
‘About what?’
He waved his hand towards the bookshelves.
‘About that. As a matter of fact you needn’t bother to ascertain. I ascertain. They’re real.’

The film kept this scene but ditched this crucial narrative quoted above, sadly and rather unfaithfully. While it is appealing to focus on the falsity of the American Dream, it is misleading to make the audience walk away with the idea that ‘fakeness’ is what Fitzgerald’s novel is all about. Because it is not. It is not that love isn’t real, but how people go about obtaining it that is false; in the process of chasing love people in modern age lose sight of it and substitute it for materialistic possessions. It is the fake vis-à-vis the real that makes the tragedy of the story, of the money-driven and vanity-driven human condition, so powerful and profound, not just the fake itself. Therefore I would argue that although the film of The Great Gatsby has stuck close to narratives of the original novel, it is not as faithful an adaptation as some film critics claim it to be. 

Despite the flaws, neither do I think the film is as sacrilegious as some harsh reviews made it out to be. Luhrmann’s treatment of the scene where Gatsby was finally reunited with Daisy at Nick’s house, followed by an entire afternoon of bliss at Gatsby’s mansion was brilliant. It succeeded in assuming the weight of the episode charged with deep emotions that went from suffocating anticipation, agitation, to apprehensive awkwardness, to the culmination of rekindled joy of love and to the retrospective serenity. The sequence was so well done that I found it redeeming for Luhrmann’s vulgar visualisation of the rest of the film. Adding to that redemption was Leonardo DiCaprio’s stellar performance of Gatsby. Amongst all the actors, he stood out as the star he was supposed to be. His portrayal of Jay Gatsby was probably the film’s most faithful interpretation of Fitzgerald’s novel; handsome, dashing in his pink suit, as dodgy in his business as in his pretence of an Oxford man and above all, deadly hopeful. 

Umberto Eco on the loss of translation once said, ‘the job of translation is a trial and error process, very similar to what happens in an Oriental bazaar when you are buying a carpet. The merchant asks 100, you offer 10 and after an hour of bargaining you agree on 50.’ After over two hours of bombardment of lurid imageries, dazzling Tiffany jewelleries and lavishing tailor-made suits and dresses, with an ending that has escalated the romantic tragedy out of proportion, Baz Luhrmann’s translation of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby achieved just under 50% of the original masterpiece’s value.