An Extremely Disjointed Critique of The Great Gatsby (film)
So, how did I feel about the Great Gatsby? I didn’t like it. I felt like everyone is focused on the story—like, the actual narrative—and that’s totally not the point.
I felt that the movie makers did a good job on the technical aspects and on the casting (with the exception of Nick). I didn’t care about the CGI or the music—because it’s not the part that matters—but I thought it got the point across. I felt like the emotions were always at a high and everything was at an extreme point…which is how it should be…what bothered me was that the film was everything Afton hated about the novel. A group of rich, which people who only suffer from their rich whiteness. I didn’t like the therapist aspect—sure, it made sense from narrative perspective, but it oversimplified Nick and turned him into a victim (Nick was a third wheel but he wasn’t a victim). They oversimplified history and romanticized Gatsby into a tragic hero when he was just as much a villain as Tom or Daisy.
No one is innocent in the novel; this includes the reader. Everyone shares some aspect of blame or deserves some aspect of guilt. The point is to walk away disillusioned and hopeless (because that was how Fitzgerald was feeling). You’re beating back against and impossible current: time. The Great Gatsby is not supposed to be a feel good story but it should make you think because you, as the reader, are both within and without. Through Nick’s disillusioned, critical, objective eyes you see a time of confusion, youth, frivolity, and carelessness that is both enticing and revolting; and, at the same time, you are irreparably apart from the entire affair. The Great Gatsby is merely text on a page…
The movie took out parts that I felt to be important and changed things I thought mattered.
