We keep remaking old movies. Why doesn’t anybody rewrite old books?

novel

AP English was like 900 years ago. Whatever The Great Gatsby is supposed to be about, I’m sure I didn’t care. And if I had cared, I lacked the perspective to appreciate it. Does anybody in high school care about somebody who forgets it’s his 30th birthday?

1974

Before Sam Waterston was a big deal district attorney, he was a lowly bond salesman trying to make it in the big city. Follows the book fairly closely as far as I can tell.

2013

Leonardo DiCaprio. Great Gatsby or Greatest Gatsby? I honestly think he’s better cast than Redford (more urbane than folksy charm). However, Redford played the part with more cool confidence, which is how I’d like to think of Gatsby, but DiCaprio may be closer to the book? Hard to tell.

Don’t think I’ve seen a more anachronistic movie. If it’s necessary to freshen things up, then just go for the full effect as in Romeo + Juliet, but don’t overlay a 1920s period piece with Jay-Z and electronic beats. Or completely tacky Moet product placement. If you need an original soundtrack, I think sticking with Lana Del Rey wouldn’t have been so bad, and then I could overlook lesser transgressions (I find it unlikely that Carraway would be unpacking Joyce’s Ulysses in 1922, even if he did have aspirations as an author).

Complaints aside, probably close enough to the book to pass English class, too.

modern take

Apparently Gatsby didn’t sell well in Fitzgerald’s life. Would a modern rewrite do better today, when the only decent character in the story is selling bonds on Wall St.? Yeah, right. Maybe The Bonfire of the Vanities is that rewrite.

Mr. Ripley

Regarding Mr. Ripley and morality, a point of view about the meaning of evil from BBC Magazine.