Actually, the story is what took it from being an initial flop that only sold a few thousand copies to required reading in American Lit classes.

It's a periodic story of the American Dream and how that dream can lead to ruin if you're not careful. If anything, it is a story that sparked the trend which makes it, now, seem average in comparison.

However, and as you stated, the story became a part of the American literary canon because of Fitzgerald's eloquent writing. I hate to use him as an example because he is an easy comparison, but Hemingway novels are almost the exact same. The agony and pain of Old Man and the Sea just cannot be reproduced in a film, no different than the beauty of music cannot be reproduced in words. Some works of art are just not meant to be remade in different formats (or at least not under the same title).

If this movie were titled "The Roaring Twenties" instead of "The Great Gatsby" then it would probably be received better than what it is.

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Posted by FootballNostradamus

Member since Nov 2009

20509 posts

Posted on 5/10/13 at 8:56 pm to tylerdurden24

quote:
It's a periodic story of the American Dream and how that dream can lead to ruin if you're not careful. If anything, it is a story that sparked the trend which makes it, now, seem average in comparison.

This story has been hashed and rehashed hundreds of times. It's still a slow-moving, character-based, bare-bones story. As you've said, Fitzgerald's brilliant prose it what makes the book. The story could be created by any one of a million authors IMO.

quote:
However, and as you stated, the story became a part of the American literary canon because of Fitzgerald's eloquent writing. I hate to use him as an example because he is an easy comparison, but Hemingway novels are almost the exact same. The agony and pain of Old Man and the Sea just cannot be reproduced in a film, no different than the beauty of music cannot be reproduced in words. Some works of art are just not meant to be remade in different formats (or at least not under the same title).

I think a Hemingway adaptation would be very interesting. It would have to be a Castaway-esque story with one helluva main character, but I think it would be atleast interesting to watch the attempt. I also think the blunt, brutal, straight-forward way Hemingway writes would be more easily adaptable than Fitzgerald's flowery prose.