A lot of the failure of this drama about a drug dealing mobster who is cool, is that it relies on the fallacy that it's possible.People who aren't born in the upper class know better. This movie is for the most naive of idiots.A lot of it is due to F Scott himself, but the real blame always goes to the ones making the movie. Coppola could have adapted it in any way, and once written, the director actually has the final say over everything.Even when this movie came out, and I was graduating high school, I thought it was contrived and ridiculous. The Sam Waterson character as narrator of the story, is full of obvious propaganda. His message is sheer hate and lies. We can't possibly believe his "side of the story", because he goes to such extremes to make us think the gangster is nice (thus played by Redford), and the only man against him is a bigot (so he is played by villain star Bruce Dern).The overkill is not possible to believe. There is a credibility problem. If anyone is the bigot, it's obviously the mobster, and the Narrator simply looks for little phrases to back his demonic hatred.It's so obvious, a caveman can see it.Add to this that everything is so predictable that it leaves you flat, with every cliché imaginable, and the fact remains that this is drivel.

This film seems to be largely out of favour, and it does have problems, but taken as an Ibsonian study of 20s flapper society, it's fine. Class, money, personality and style form a cocktail that looks far better than it tastes and this film captures the vacuousness being absurdly rich quite effectively. The tendency to overblow this story is strange though, as it's basically a chamber piece.For a classic novel, Fitzgerald's story is ungainly, with an unconvincing mix of themes, the metaphorical nature of which is too transparent - such as the sordid road between Manhattan and the Eggs. Mainly it is misogynistic, and the film doesn't attempt to elucidate the real subtext of the story - Gatsby's implicit bromance with Carraway. Of course, Gatsby was not meant to be gay, only codedly gay - it was impossible for Fitzgerald to be literal, being firmly in the closet himself. That angle, as in the book, is more obviously portrayed by Jordan, whose role is to provide the clue.It also perhaps simmers too long - it's a while before we meet the man, and the improbable lifestyles and flapper parties have to carry things along until the mystery of Gatsby's personality takes over. Unfortunately it is also a mystery why he is so attracted to shrill, neurotic Daisy (Mia Farrow) and that undermines what ought to be the driving dynamic of the film.The tension does mount steadily in the latter part of the film though, amplified by the (now rather stock) stifling weather trick (did Tennessee Williams get it from here?). If Coppola's meandering script were a little more incisive, Farrow replaced by someone that Gatsby might have actually found desirable, and the camera pulled back a little from all the perspiring faces, this could have been a classic.

This film is wonderful. It is true to as a time period piece and in that regard the timeless realities of it translate. Sam Waterston is wonderful. His contrast and tonality of speech contrast to Gatsby making Gatsby's voice bigger, larger. Gatsby's voice tonality contrast to that of Nick Carraway and makes the the quasi-narrator Nick have a larger than life voice in an away that is not overt. It is nuances such as this that interplay though The Great Gatsby that make this movie quite beautiful that allows for revisiting in conversation and the subject matter when talked about in The Great Gatsby has more dimensions of authenticity because of this without becoming stale conversation.Daisy played by Mia Farrow, is wonderful with Bruce Dern as Tom. The casting especially shines through as not only do personality potentialities exist to realize character potential, but so does the physical look of each actor compliment those archetypes. Great casting.

Apparently there is some kind of unwritten rule that Jay Gatsby has to be played by a blond. So in three different sound versions of The Great Gatsby we've seen him played by Alan Ladd, Robert Redford, and Leonardo DiCaprio. And with that selection of players we get a different Gatsby in all of them.You can barely catch a hint of Gatsby's plebeian origins in Redford's performance. He seems to the manor born, but his rise to the company of the movers and shakers of the Roaring Twenties puzzles all. He certainly keeps interesting company, he's about to go into business with Meyer Wolfsheim played here by Howard DaSilva who was F. Scott Fitzgerald's caricature of Arnold Rothstein.Sam Waterston plays Nick Carraway an ambitious young man from the Midwest who happens to have a cousin in Daisy Buchanan married to the wealthy and ruthless Tom Buchanan. Tom's connections are going to see that Carraway will start rising on Wall Street. Daisy and Tom are played by Mia Farrow and Bruce Dern.Waterston lives in a small cottage on Long Island which today would be astronomical in value given the area. Next door is the mansion of Jay Gatsby where it seems parties never stop. One night Waterston gets an invitation to meet his mysterious neighbor. And he discovers that cousin Daisy and Jay have some history.Sometimes you can never go back and it's best to leave the past lay and push on ahead. Something that Redford just can't do as he tries to rekindle things with Farrow.This Gatsby is one elegant film with Oscars for Costume Design and Best Musical Scoring. Given the music of the Roaring Twenties that he had to work with Nelson Riddle came up with great background sounds for the period. The film was also responsible for a bit of a revival of the Irving Berlin classic What'll I Do. The worst thing about the DiCaprio version was that ersatz rock score in that film. I so prefer this.But I say each Gatsby to your respective taste.I