The Great Gatsby (2000)
I read The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald a few years back and looked forward to seeing this movie. There are several versions and I chose one at random. This version, released by A&E in 2000, starred Toby Stephens as Jay Gatsby, Paul Rudd as Gatsby’s neighbor and friend, Nick Carraway, and Mira Sorvino as Gatsby’s irresistible crush, Daisy Buchanan. Daisy is also Nick’s second cousin once removed so he has an “in” to go visit her at her husband’s estate across the bay on Long Island’s north shore near New York City. The time is the Roaring Twenties, the summer of 1922 to be exact, and the cars are amazing.
Cars figure prominently in this movie. Jay Gatsby is newly rich, has a huge mansion, and a flashy white car. Daisy and her husband, Tom Buchanan, are of the old money rich. Nick is not rich at all. He is the observer, the go-between, the doormat willing to go along with Gatsby’s plan for want of anything better to do. He falls in love with Daisy’s friend, Jordan Baker, a famous and intriguing female golfer.
The themes here are love and money. Can rich people truly love?
Jay Gatsby is hopelessly infatuated with the married Daisy Buchanan. He met her while, as a serviceman, he was in her town for a short time. She was a rich teenager and they fell in love, but since Gatsby had no money, her parents couldn’t approve. She promised to wait for him, but within a year or two married Tom instead. That she lacks strength of character is obvious to anyone but Gatsby. She’s also a terrible mother. She dotes on her daughter in very small doses only. The child is being raised by a servant.
Gatsby got out of the service and set about becoming rich so he could impress her and win her back. His process in amassing money (in a disreputable way) is not shown in the movie. The movie focuses on events during the time he owns his mansion and re-encounters Daisy, trying to get her away from her husband. It also provides a few sweet flashbacks to the earlier Jay/Daisy romance.
The movie is slow, romantic, tense and suspenseful. There are plenty of shocking moments, for example, when we realize Daisy’s husband is involved in an abusive affair with the wife of a pathetic mechanic who lives in poverty not far from New York City. He has bought her a beautiful apartment in the city, and promises her husband a car. One cannot like Tom, considering his use and abuse of Myrtle and his lack of faithfulness to the beautiful Daisy.
More shocks ahead, but I cannot tell them. If you are one of the millions who read The Great Gatsby as a teenager in high school you may remember already. Or perhaps you’ve seen another version of this movie – for example, the one released in 2003 starring Robert Redford and Mia Farrow. I find them an unlikely Gatsby and Daisy, but I definitely want to see it now to compare with this movie. I enjoyed watching the cast of this 2000 version. Mira Sorvino made a beautiful Daisy, just as she should be, and Paul Rudd’s portrayal of Nick was flawless. I was a bit dismayed with Toby Stephens as Gatsby, because he looked so young. Later in the movie he even looked unsure of himself, and I found it hard to believe Daisy could be in love with him. I believe this is exactly the feeling the director was trying to express, so that too was a success. Overall, Toby Stephens gave an excellent performance.
I was surprised at how many people who commented on the movie at Amazon didn’t like it. Some did, and many didn’t. Well, I am among those who loved the movie. I love classic books. I love to see movies based on classics I loved. I love to read the books first and enjoy the movies later, so I don’t usually watch movie versions of classic books I’ve never read.
I decided to read The Great Gatsby a few years ago because I started reading a book about novel editing called The Artful Edit: On the Practice of Editing Yourself
My partner, the Mystic, is not impressed. He will not even watch this movie. He probably was one of the kids who read the book in high school. He said, “That’s one of those movies my mother would have loved.”
I said, “I wish I could have watched it with her.”
Biography
The A&E DVD version of The Great Gatsby contains an excellent in-depth biographical documentary of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s life. This alone is very much worth watching. Fitzgerald’s novels were highly autobiographical so a true understanding of his fiction is based on a thorough comprehension of his life, his marriage to Zelda, and their extensive difficulties. Fitzgerald ended life as an alcoholic, possibly attempting recovery, in the company of his mistress, while his beloved Zelda was incarcerated in a mental hospital, labeled schizophrenic. A true tragedy, especially when he died at age 44 from a myocardial infarction (heart attack).
Buy this movie: The Great Gatsby (A&E)
Buy the book: The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald
Buy the earlier version with Robert Redford and Mia Farrow: The Great Gatsby (1974)
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