Great Gatsby Review
Telegraph: was Baz Luhrman's Great Gatsby faithful to the novel | A brief response
(http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/film/filmreviews/10067605/Baz-Luhrmanns-The-Great-Gatsby-a-faithful-film-and-a-terribly-terribly-bad-one.html)
To what extent do you agree/disagree with the sentiment of the article?
To some extent, I agree with the statements made in the article, but at the same time, I disagree with the reporter’s views and opinions.
The reporter stated that the film was “lacking Fitzgerald’s gift for making a few words say a lot, for hinting rather than stating”. I agree with this statement, but I think that this is what makes it a good movie. In a book, it allows a reader to have a multidimensional imagination in each part of the book as the story progresses. This is the purpose of the book – to allow readers unleash their creativity and imagination. However, in a film, it is only one dimensional. Some might say that a film may restrict the imagination of the viewers, and in particular, a film version of any novel defeats the original purpose of the novel. However, in this case of “The Great Gatsby”, I was able to read the book first then later watch the film version of it. Through this, I was able to see things in a perspective that I would not have looked at or thought of in the first place. In fact, I think that the film version of the novel served its purpose to me as an eye-opening and thought-provoking medium, rather than it being restrictive, because it revealed and illustrated to me how different some of the descriptions in the novel can be to how I had imagined it to begin with.
Moreover, the reporter continued to criticize the film version of “The Great Gatsby” being too similar and too literal in terms of the replication of the book. Personally, I do not see the problem of this and in fact, one of the reasons why I enjoyed the movie was because all the settings, people, language and actions were all in line with the original book. In my opinion,
(http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/film/filmreviews/10067605/Baz-Luhrmanns-The-Great-Gatsby-a-faithful-film-and-a-terribly-terribly-bad-one.html)
To what extent do you agree/disagree with the sentiment of the article?
To some extent, I agree with the statements made in the article, but at the same time, I disagree with the reporter’s views and opinions.
The reporter stated that the film was “lacking Fitzgerald’s gift for making a few words say a lot, for hinting rather than stating”. I agree with this statement, but I think that this is what makes it a good movie. In a book, it allows a reader to have a multidimensional imagination in each part of the book as the story progresses. This is the purpose of the book – to allow readers unleash their creativity and imagination. However, in a film, it is only one dimensional. Some might say that a film may restrict the imagination of the viewers, and in particular, a film version of any novel defeats the original purpose of the novel. However, in this case of “The Great Gatsby”, I was able to read the book first then later watch the film version of it. Through this, I was able to see things in a perspective that I would not have looked at or thought of in the first place. In fact, I think that the film version of the novel served its purpose to me as an eye-opening and thought-provoking medium, rather than it being restrictive, because it revealed and illustrated to me how different some of the descriptions in the novel can be to how I had imagined it to begin with.
Moreover, the reporter continued to criticize the film version of “The Great Gatsby” being too similar and too literal in terms of the replication of the book. Personally, I do not see the problem of this and in fact, one of the reasons why I enjoyed the movie was because all the settings, people, language and actions were all in line with the original book. In my opinion,