Fiction into Film: A Story of Heartbreak

"It wasn't as good as the book" is the mantra of turning fiction into film.  And for obvious reasons.  It's hard to bring the depth of a novel onto the big screen.

Last summer Baz Luhrmann's adaptation of The Great Gatsby was released in theaters.  I had been looking forward to this for years.  YEARS.  It was my favorite novel, and obviously anything with Leonardo DiCaprio can't be bad.  As a film major I've sat through a lot of bad movies, and you start to appreciate even the most boring things.  As a result, I've never understood why people walk out of movies, especially when you're paying $10+ to see it.  I almost walked out of Gatsby.  I kept waiting for it to get good...but it never did.  I would even go so far to say it's my least favorite film ever, and I've seen a lot of crap.

My point is not about how much I absolutely despised this version of The Great Gatsby, though.  Rather, it is about a style that Luhrmann used.  As the release date got closer and closer, I read an article in some magazine about the film, and Luhrmann was quoted saying that he felt the novel was really a modern piece.  It was a taste of modernity when it came out, and so he wanted to hold onto that feel almost a century later.  He tried to achieve this by using modern music instead of pieces more appropriate to the period.  Even if I hated Gatsby, there is something to be said for that.  Film and fiction are so different, and it's interesting the kinds of liberties people can take when adapting one to the other.

And here's a picture of Leo to make everyone's day a little better.