Gatsby the Mirror: Why No-One Has Successfully Adapted F. Scott Fitzgerald’s Anti-Hero for the Big Screen
By this time the verdict is in: Baz Luhrmann’s amped-up version of The Great Gatsby (2013), while visually arresting and frenetically paced (at least for the first half), is yet another failed attempt at bringing the titular character to life. There have been many attempts over the years, most notably that other equally frustrating Jack Clayton-helmed 1974 version with Robert Redford as the elusive romantic (anti-)hero. Many theories could of course be served up about directorial approach, casting, scripting, and so on, but my theory is a purely literary one, based solely on Fitzgerald’s characterisation of Gatsby. The issue is that of authorial perspective. Those who have either read the novel or seen the film(s) know that Gatsby is not the central protagonist. It is Nick Carraway, a once misty-eyed Mid-Westerner who narrates his encounter with Gatsby and his clan after a short but intense summer on “that slender riotous island which extends itself due east of New Yo