Anyway, I have high hopes for this movie. Am I setting it up for failure though? I am sure we all remember watching the older versions in our high school classes. Awful. Also, it is rare for a movie to live up to the expectations that the book set. However, Leonardo DiCaprio. Enough said. I mentioned before that I am rereading this novel because it has been quite a long time since I have read it. As I read it now, I can only picture Toby Macguire and Leo DiCaprio. Don't you all hate it when you can only picture the actors in the movie while reading? Hopefully, they won't disappoint in the movie. Also, this movie has the same writer as Moulin Rouge. If anyone can bring the roaring twenties to life, it is Baz Luhrmann. I have to give kudos to them for giving a film version another try. I just hope that they can do F. Scott Fitzgerald some justice.
Side note: the movie has not even come out yet.... but I feel like there are many people who are freaking out about it, yet they did not like the novel. So this makes me wonder...should we treat the movie and book like two separate things? Do people have an obligation to read the book along with seeing the movie? Just a random thought.
I think we HAVE to treat the novel and the movie as two separate things. Anybody who has read Harry Potter and watched the movie versions has to agree with me on this: the movies just weren't as good.
ReplyDeleteMovie versions are shared experiences. The audience sees the same images, hears the lines spoken the same way, gets the same overall feel. There are always going to be differences in opinion on quality of the finished product and meaning of hidden layers, but the audience all sat through the same movie.
Books are completely different animals. Reading a book is a totally personal thing to do. Everybody directs, casts, runs cinematography, takes care of special effects on their own when reading a book. This means that, by the end, everybody reads every book in a completely unique way. And how you read a book can and will change every time you come back to it, because you have changed.
It is a sad fact that what we see in movies does color what we read in books. It takes away a little bit of the personal in book reading. This is why I think it is so important to conceptualize books and movies separately, no matter what name they happen to share. I love movies, I love books, I love movie versions of books; but I try to keep my experiences with each medium of story presentation as far apart in my head as possible.
I also think it is really important to treat the movie and the book separately. I have been very excited about the release of the movie, but so far it has been getting awful reviews. Many critics claim that it does not match the meaning of the book and that it is inaccurate adaptation. While this was at first utterly disappointing to me, I had to remember that nothing will ever be the same as the experience you get from reading the actual book. This film is an artistic adaptation done in true Hollywood spirit. I can't go into it thinking that it is meant to replicate the book exactly, but rather must remember that it is a separate experience. I think it will be interesting to see how they bring a modern feel to it, especially after listening to the soundtrack. Which, by the way, you must listen too! It's pretty good.
ReplyDeleteI hope, for everyone's sake, that this movie lives up to the hype, which is usually the case. It's really interesting that you bring up reading the book and watching the movie or just watching the movie without reading the book. You said yourself that you picture Toby and Leo while reading the book and that reaffirms the point - of the movie. When you find that happening it means the movie won. Next thing you know there will be copies coming out of the book featuring Leo's broodingly handsome face and just like that the movie has transcended past what it means to just be a film and has done it's part to represent Fitzgerald. Where it all goes wrong is when faithful readers feel that the work has been done an injustice. What if Leo butchers the film and the screen version is a far cry from a Fitzgerald masterpiece? For the solely-movie watching crowd - no harm done. They didn't read the book anyway. For the readers it's tragic. Especially because Fitzgerald isn't around to defend himself. In the book-to-movie world it's truly a hit or miss. I just hope that for everyone's sake Luhrmann hits this one.
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