A literary adaptation that continually begs detrimental comparison with the novel, this relies too much on appearance, making little attempt to explore behind the beguiling '20s façade.
Comment
06/24/06
The Great Gatsby (1974)
38 %
Reviews Counted: 26 Fresh: 10 Rotten:16 Average Rating: 4.8/10
Runtime: 2 hrs 26 mins
Synopsis: Jack Clayton's version of THE GREAT GATSBY was adapted for the screen by Francis Ford Coppola from F. Scott Fitzgerald's 1925 masterpiece about a handsome and enigmatic tycoon betrayed by the American Dream. Though self-made millionaire Jay Gatsby (Robert Redford) has been in love with the... [More]
Genre: Dramas
Starring: Robert Redford, Mia Farrow, Bruce Dern, Sam Waterston, Karen Black
Director: Jack Clayton
Screenwriter: Francis Ford Coppola
Story: F. Scott Fitzgerald
Producer: David Merrick
Composer: Nelson Riddle
Screenwriter: Francis Ford Coppola
Story: F. Scott Fitzgerald
Producer: David Merrick
Composer: Nelson Riddle
Reviews
Top Critic
Patchy adaptation of Fitzgerald's classic jazz-age tale of love, loss and excess, which, although it hovers near the edge, never really dives deep enough into the psyche of its complicated characters.
05/24/03
Top Critic
The color is rich, the photography superb, and the atmospherics of the roaring twenties are realistically and stunningly in evidence in this film version of F. Scott Fitzgerald's masterpiece novel, but that's it.
07/26/07
Top Critic
The Francis Coppola script and Jack Clayton's direction paint a savagely genteel portrait of an upper class generation that deserved in spades what it got circa 1929 and after.
07/26/07
Top Critic
Director Jack Clayton seems overawed by the opulence of the production as well as by the mythic presence of Fitzgerald -- and the result is a film of shimmering surface brilliance and almost complete lack of focus or substance.
07/26/07
The movie can't see this through all its giant closeups of pretty knees and dancing feet. It's frivolous without being much fun.
05/09/05
Top Critic
The movie is 'faithful' to the novel with a vengeance -- to what happens in the novel, that is, and not to the feel, mood, and spirit of it.
10/23/04
Top Critic
Though lush in nearly every way, under the reproachful eyes of Dr. T.J. Eckleburg, The Great Gatsby becomes ineffectual and rudderless.
08/22/04
Robert Redford offers an interesting take on mysterious millionaire Jay Gatsby.
12/05/03
...an opulent, stylish extravaganza that may be more faithful to the 'look' of Fitzgerald's novel than to its spirit, yet brings a good deal of entertainment along the way.
11/21/03
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The Great Gatsby
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