Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #518 in DVD
• Released on: 2003-12-15
• Rating: Parental Guidance
• Aspect ratio: 1.78:1
• Number of discs: 1
• Format: PAL
• Original language: English
• Subtitled in: Turkish, Arabic, Croatian, Czech, Greek, Romanian, Dutch, Norwegian, Slovene, English, Hebrew, Spanish, Bulgarian, Polish, Swedish, Hungarian, Portuguese, Icelandic, Finnish, Serbian, German, French, Italian, Danish
• Number of discs: 1
• Running time: 135 minutes

Amazon.co.uk Review
Perhaps no movie could capture F Scott Fitzgerald's novel The Great Gatsby in its entirety, but this adaptation, scripted by Francis Ford Coppola, is certainly a handsome try, putting costume design and art direction above the intricacies of character. Robert Redford is an interesting casting choice as Gatsby, the millionaire isolated in his mansion, still dreaming of the woman he lost. And Sam Waterston is perfect as the narrator, Nick, who brings the dream girl Daisy Buchanan back to Gatsby.

The problem seems to be that director Jack Clayton fell in love with the flapper dresses and the party scenes and the jazz age tunes, ending up with a Classics Illustrated version of a great book rather than a fresh, organic take on the text. While Redford grows more quietly intriguing in the film, Mia Farrow's pallid performance as Daisy leaves you wondering why Gatsby, or anyone else, should care so much about his grand passion. The effective supporting cast includes Bruce Dern as Daisy's husband, and Scott Wilson and Karen Black as the low-rent couple whose destinies cross the sun-drenched protagonists. (That's future star Patsy Kensit as Daisy's little daughter.) The film won two Oscars--not surprisingly, for costumes and musical score. --Robert Horton

Synopsis
The story of Jay Gatsby the dashing millionaire who takes a shine to the spoiled Daisy Buchanan. Based on the novel by F. Scott Fitzgerald.

Customer Reviews

A Great "Gatsby"
This stunning production with its splendid cinematography and its intelligent script by Francis Ford Coppola captures the essence of F. Scott Fitzgerald's novel of the man who pursues his preposterous dream. Robert Redford is utterly convincing as the enigmatic protagonist, Gatsby, whose personality "seemed to face . . . the whole external world for an instant, and then concentrated on you, with an irresistible prejudice in your favor" [Fitzgerald, Chapter 3]. Young Sam Waterston portrays a believable Nick Carraway, Fitzgerald's narrator and empathetic observer; and Mia Farrow is pitch perfect as the shallow, spoiled young woman whose "artificial world was redolent of orchids and pleasant, cheerful snobbery and orchestras which set the rhythm of the year, summing up the sadness and suggestiveness of life in new tunes" [F. Ch. 8]. Farrow's performance makes us understand how Daisy's porcelain beauty and fecklessness could ignite the obsession of a man who has, after all, invented his own persona. Both of them are equally unreal.

The production values are superb. The settings, the music, and magnificent costumes--the pastel beaded silks and satin pumps, the feathered head-dresses--convincingly portray privileged wealth of the 1920s, which would soon plummet into the Depression--the great Valley of Ashes that infected the 1930s and indeed contaminated the entire twentieth century.

Nowhere near as good as I was expecting
Well, this was a film that I never got round to seeing when it first came out, and I was looking forward to seeing it for the first time. I've never read the book but have read some of Fitzgerald's other work.
So I was disappointed as the film was very dated in my view, the use of music in particular cliched and far too obvious for today's tastes. I wasn't convinced by either Robert Redford's or Mia Farrow's performances - it seemed to me that neither had the acting depth to really carry off these parts, and at times the dialogue was very stilted, as another reviewer here has stated. Two and a half stars would have been more accurate perhaps but the performance of Bruce Dern in particular was much more convincing and helped to save the film.

Faithful and sumptuous adaptation
F. Scott Fitzgerald, himself, battled with self-depreciation, as he believed his literature was a failure. If you have read his work, you would find this incredulous, he was a man of great wit and value. Turning Gatsby into a film would be easy, after all the book is written in the style of flashback and has the contemporary use of the cinematic cut-showing how Fitzgerald was very avant garde by incorporating the most modern and fresh ideas in his work.
Perhaps as the novel is short, it does not receive enough acclaim to the likes of Vanity Fair or War and Peace, however, it is no matter. The sharp social satire mixed in with casting which no one could protest at- Mia Farrow as Daisy is a particularly refined and polished performance-and the entire allure of the novel has been transfered into the spelendour of technicolour.
A plot that unfolds itself reveals the cold nature of the frivoulous 1920's high flyers, whom consequence to their actions is unheard of. Gastby, played by a much younger Robert Redford, is an enigmatic millionair who's desire for the cold hearted Daisy (Farrow) uncomprimisingly brings the film to an unsettling climax.
Packed full of witty observations and a potent emotional punch, this adaptation if Fitzgerald's masterpiece allows people today to appreciate just how celluloid an author he was.