'The Great Gatsby' by F. Scott Fitzgerald

TOPIC OF THE BLOG:-

This blog is a part of a thinking activity given by Dilip Barad Sir from The English Department, MKBU, Bhavnagar. Check out Dilip Barad sir's Blog Site (Click here) for more information and knowledge about For 'The Great Gatsby' by  F. Scott Fitzgerald and other works and writers. In this blog I like to tell something about 'The Great Gatsby' and movie based on that as per my understanding. 

 F. SCOTT FITZGERALD:-

Francis Scott Key Fitzgerald was born on September 24, 1896 in St. Paul, Minnesota, U.S. and died on December 21, 1940 in Hollywood, California. He was American short-story writer and novelist famous for his depictions of the Jazz Age (the 1920s), his most brilliant novel being The Great Gatsby (1925). (Mizener)

NOTABLE WORKS: 

• “Tales of the Jazz Age” 
• “Tender Is the Night”
• “The Beautiful and Damned”
• “The Crack-Up” 
• “The Diamond as Big as the Ritz”
• “The Great Gatsby” 
• “The Last Tycoon” 
• “This Side of Paradise” 
• Other 

THE GREAT GATSBY:-

Writer:-  F. Scott Fitzgerald

Written:- Fitzgerald completed a rough draft of the novel in 1924.

Published:- April 10, 1925 by Charles Scribner’s Sons

Genre:- Tragedy 

It is Set in Jazz Age New York, the novel tells the tragic story of Jay Gatsby, a self-made millionaire, and his pursuit of Daisy Buchanan, a wealthy young woman whom he loved in his youth. Unsuccessful upon publication, the book is now considered a classic of American fiction and has often been called the Great American Novel. (Martinez)

For more information about this novel and detailed summary visit this (Click here) site of Britannica.

ADAPTATIONS:-

THE GREAT GATSBY (1926)

It is a silent movie based on the novel 'The Great Gatsby' by F. Scott Fitzgerald. This movie was directed by Herbert Brenon and produced by Jesse L. Lasky and Adolph Zukor. 

STAR CAST:-

• Warner Baxter as Jay Gatsby
• Lois Wilson as Daisy Buchanan
• Neil Hamilton as Nick Carraway
• Georgia Hale as Myrtle Wilson
• William Powell as George Wilson
• Hale Hamilton as Tom Buchanan
• Carmelita Geraghty as Jordan Baker

Mordaunt Hall—The New York Times' first regular film critic—wrote in a contemporary review that the film was "good entertainment, but at the same time it is obvious that it would have benefited by more imaginative direction." (Hall)

THE GREAT GATSBY (2013):-

This movie based on novel named 'The Great Gatsby' by F. Scott Fitzgerald. This movie directed by Baz Luhrmann and produced by Baz Luhrmann, Catherine Knapman, Douglas Wick, Lucy Fisher and Catherine Martin.

STAR CAST:-

• Leonardo DiCaprio as James Gatz / Jay Gatsby
• Carey Mulligan as Daisy Buchanan
• Tobey Maguire as Nick Carraway
• Isla Fisher as Myrtle Wilson
• Jason Clarke as George Wilson
• Joel Edgerton as Tom Buchanan
• Elizabeth Debicki as Jordan Baker
• Amitabh Bachchan as Meyer Wolfsheim

Let's see some interesting things about movie...

JAZZ AGE, THE ROARING TWENTIES PRESENTED IN THE MOVIE:-

First, let's understand what is jazz? Basically, jazz is American music developed especially from ragtime and blues and characterized by propulsive syncopated rhythms, polyphonic ensemble playing, varying degrees of improvisation, and often deliberate distortions of pitch and timbre and popular dance music influenced by jazz and played in a loud rhythmic manner.  (Merriam Webster)

How it's presented in movie? Let's see though the photos and videos of the movie. 

So, through these photos one can easily understand that it is a party going on but it is a party of Jay Gatsby which totally have remarks of Jazz Music and that style of the Roaring Twenties.

For more understanding let's look at a article named "GATSBY", THE JAZZ AGE, AND LUHRMANN LAND by David R. Shumway. (David R. Shumway - click here to visit the article)

• This novel has an unusual combination of Romance and Realism.

🌲Now, I am not any high positioned people and knowledgeable person so I am just trying to give my opinion on this article that how much I am agree with it and not. So, it has indeed a bit context of Romance but it is more Realism that Romance in my opinion cause more in this novel it is seems that almost everyone's love life or life is destroying and can't be happy couple. 

One can see the party scene of the movie in this video clearly. Luhrmann perfectly captures Jazz Age in the movie which can be noticed by anyone easily. 

SOURCES:-

🐮Hall, Mordaunt. “Gold and Cocktails.” The New York Times, The New York Times, 22 Nov. 1926, www.nytimes.com/1926/11/22/archives/gold-and-cocktails.html. 

🐮Martinez, Julia. "The Great Gatsby". Encyclopedia Britannica, 3 Jan. 2023, https://www.britannica.com/topic/The-Great-Gatsby. 

🐮Mizener, Arthur. "F. Scott Fitzgerald". Encyclopedia Britannica, 17 Dec. 2022, https://www.britannica.com/biography/F-Scott-Fitzgerald.

🐮Shumway, David R. “‘GATSBY’, THE JAZZ AGE, AND LUHRMANN LAND.” The Journal of the Gilded Age and Progressive Era, vol. 14, no. 1, 2015, pp. 132–37. JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/43903071.