The Great Gatsby, the Movie

     Okay, one more post about film adaptions of books, and then I promise I'll resume blogging about actual books.

     The Great Gatsby hit theaters with a whirlwind of pomp and fancy advertisements. With vibrant trailers and a star-studded cast, the movie was sold as an exciting summer blockbuster, and not so much as a film adaption of an American classic.

     I remember watching TV with my mom when an ad for The Great Gatsby came on. This was before the movie was in theaters, and I commented that I wanted to see it when it came out.

     "It looks very...stylish," my mom said, saying the last word with a tone of harsh skepticism.

     And she was right. The movie was very stylish. The graphics were fantastic, the party scenes were glittery and colorful, and the wardrobe was amazing. And really, whats more stylish than Leonardo DiCaprio in a dapper 1920s style suit?

     But unlike Anna Karenina, in which the stylishness and beauty of the film took away from the integrity of the story, I think the stylishness and pomp surrounding The Great Gatsby actually, in an almost ironic way, reinforces some of the themes of F. Scott Fitzgerald's novel.

     I mean really, if you think about it, Gatsby would love this movie. Everything about Gatsby is stylish. His extravagant parties, his mansion, his canary yellow car. The movie's star-studded cast, the visual effects, the fact that the movie can be seen in 3-D, and the ridiculous amount of advertising, would all be right up Gatsby's alley. So whether this was purposeful or not, the movie itself seems to symbolize everything Fitzgerald was trying to say about the 1920s, the superficiality, the flashiness, the preoccupation with everything new and colorful and stylish.

     So overall, I thought this movie was very successful. The cast was absolutely wonderful, Daisy's dresses were to die for, the plot moved at a decent speed, and the visuals were stunning (please note, however, that I did not see Gatsby in 3-D).

     But, as much as I liked the movie, it still was not perfect.

    The first issue I had was the music.

     WHAT WAS UP WITH ALL THE RAPPING?

     Okay, okay. I understand. They needed party music, right? They needed something edgy, music that would capture the corruption and flashiness of the 1920s. And sure, rapping is perfect for that, right? But it's completely unrealistic!

     If we traveled back in time to the 1920s and asked someone what he thought of "rap music," he  would furrow his brow and say, "Wrap music? How do you wrap music around things?"

     It didn't exist back then!

     What's wrong with jazzy flapper music?  The lyrics of the rap songs were very fitting for the movie, but it just seemed so incongruous with what was taking place on the screen. There was a blaring disconnect between the music and the movie itself that was at times very distracting.

     But enough about the music.

     Overall, I thought the actors did a wonderful job portraying their characters. However, I did feel that Tom Buchanan and Jordan Baker's characters were not quite rounded out enough. As my friend pointed out, Tom wasn't unlikeable enough. In the book, he was painted as a slightly cruel misogynist, but that did not come across very well in the movie. The scene where he slaps Myrtle, for instance, was too dramatized. It made it seem as if that act of violence was out of character for Tom, rather than something that happened frequently.

     As for Jordan, there was an important scene in the front half of the novel where Nick and Jordan were talking while out driving, and Jordan is characterized as being as reckless and superficial as Daisy and Tom eventually prove to be. In the grand scheme of things, it isn't that most important moment in the book, but it did give an important insight into Jordan's character. This scene was missing from the movie, and I think that because it was missing, Jordan's character was not fully fleshed out, and her purpose in the movie seems somewhat irrelevant other than as a plot device. Her relationship with Nick is hardly even addressed.

    For the most part, though, I think The Great Gatsby is a very good adaption of the novel and definitely worth seeing. I can say with nearly one hundred percent certainty that Jay Gatsby himself would approve.

Anna Karenina, The Movie

      Several weeks and not many blog posts ago, I discussed my mixed feelings on movie adaptations of books. Anna Karenina is a recent adaptation (directed by Joe Wright) that I looked forward to seeing, even though I knew it would not live up to the standard of the book. I mean, really, there's no way a filmmaker could ever turn 1,000 pages of Tolstoy's powerful prose into a riveting two hour movie that captures every little nuance and brings to life every character.

     Usually when I see a film adaptation of a book, I go into the theater with the attitude of "They better not change anything at all," but with Anna Karenina, I had to be a little more realistic. I had to swallow my pride, temper my dogmatism, and instead I sat before the screen with the attitude of "There's no way they can include everything, but they better not edit out anything important."

     And overall, I thought that the makers of the movie were successful in capturing the story of Anna Karenina...on an extremely superficial level.

      This recent adaptation of Anna Karenina portrayed a very pretty love story; I almost felt like I was watching a ballet, not a movie. The movie's backdrop was not Russia, but  a stage, creating the illusion that the viewer is watching a play, not a movie. A curtain is drawn open upon the opening scene, transitions between scenes mimic set changes, and the actors sometimes ascend the catwalk to get to the seedier side of town.
  
     To imitate a play was a risky choice on the part of director Joe Wright, but one that I think was original and interesting. Overall, the movie is elegantly choreographed. Everything about it is just so...pretty.

     But I felt like all of the substantial moments in the book were either skimmed over or completely cut out. The story of my favorite character, Constantine Levin, especially suffered. Granted, it would be very boring to dedicate as much movie time to Levin talking about his farm as Tolstoy did in the book. Such scenes would not translate well onto the big screen, but I do feel that Levin deserved a larger role. In the book, his relationship with Kitty serves as a perfect foil to Anna and Vronsky's relationship, and I think that element was missing in the movie. Also, because Levin's character is not fully developed in the movie, the attempt, at the end of the movie, to capture his religious epiphany seems random and almost nonsensical.

     Not only did I feel that Levin was cheated, but a lot of my favorite scenes from the book did not make it into the movie. Though, perhaps in this respect I need to be more reasonable; I'm not sure anyone has the patience to sit through a five hour movie.

     Anna Karenina is a very long novel with many social, philosophical, and psychological layers. It may just be unfilmable, unable to be anything but a pretty love story on the big screen. If we must have a filmed adaptation of Anna Karenina, the novel might be better suited to a multi-part movie or a TV mini-series. You just can't capture the complexities of Tolstoy in a couple hours.

     But if you're looking for a pretty love story with pretty music and pretty dancing and pretty people in pretty clothes doing pretty things then Anna Karenina is your movie.

Sorry, guys...

     To the five or so people who have been keeping up with my blog (if y'all really do exist) I would like to apologize for not having written a post in a few weeks. With only two weeks left of high school, my teachers have been expressing their sadness that we will be leaving them by deciding to give a years worth of tests. Not to mention, AP testing starts next week...

        But enough of my complaining.

       I'm sad to say that due to a combination of tests, homework, graduation activities and senioritis, Diary of a Lit Nerd will have to take a brief hiatus. While I would infinitely prefer blogging about books over finding the limit of f(x) functions, sometimes we must dedicate our time to doing painful things, if only to please teachers and make the grade.

     Please know that this blog has not been forgotten, and as soon as I have been released from the shackles of standardized tests and public education, the blog posts will roll in once more. I am, of course, a nerd, and therefore need to get good grades, even if it means sacrificing the time I would usually spend on nerdy activities, such as reading Shakespeare, in order to study (That is The Way of the Nerd--we are quite paradoxical in this respect).

     So this is not a goodbye, but rather, an "I will be back soon. I will be back soon with more Shakespeare adventures. With thoughts on film adaptations of books. With reviews, both kind and scathing, on all the books I have read."

     But for the next few weeks, I bid thee adieu.

The Great Shakespearean Challenge: Day 83

     78 of 1194 pages read.

     The past few weeks have been uncommonly busy for me and, unfortunately, I have had very little time to either write blog posts or read Shakespeare. BUT, I did finish King Lear and have dove right into Part Three of King Henry VI.

     As nihilistic and depressing as King Lear was, I still greatly prefer it to King Henry VI. Not only is Lear a king that I can respect (despite his flaws), but there are just so many layers to the play. On the other hand, King Henry is basically the biggest loser ever, and the plot of the play seems to be the same thing over and over again. Someone wants to overthrow Henry, there's a lot of conspiring, everyone fights, people die, Henry stays king, the traitor is killed, and then someone else decides they want to be king and the whole cycle repeats itself.

     At first, I really didn't like King Lear either. I mean, really, what father banishes his favorite daughter just because she won't shower him in flattery? King Lear, apparently. But as the play progresses, you can't help but to feel bad for the guy. While Cordelia is probably the best daughter a father could ever ask for, Goneril and Regan are definitely the worst daughters any father could be stuck with. Poor King Lear just wants someone to take care of him, but Goneril and Regan ignore him, abuse him, lock him out in a storm, and more or less kill him and just about every other character in the play.

     That's the other thing about the play King Lear. Everyone dies at the end. Well, everyone but Edgar and the Duke of Albany.

     As I mentioned in an earlier post, I read this book for my school's book club. While discussing the play, we spent a lot of time discussing the hopelessly depressing ending. Is Shakespeare giving us an pessimistic or an optimistic outlook on humanity? The easy answer is pessimistic, but we can't forget that there are bright moments in the play as well.

     One of these more optimistic moments is in when the random servant comes out of nowhere and defends Gloster when Cornwall, Regan and Goneril are plucking out Gloster's eyes. Known only as "First Servant," this guy has no ties to Gloster whatsoever. We know that he is a loyal servant to Cornwall and he's one of the few people in the play with a properly functioning moral compass as well as some courage to back it up. First Servant won't stand to see his master unjustly torture Gloster.

     So obviously this is good, right? Shakespeare is saying that some random, unnamed average Joe can fight for what it good and be courageous and heroic, right? Optimism, right? Right?

    It appears that way, until Regan slays our brave First Servant. First Servant does manage to wound Cornwall, but he doesn't save Gloster

     But First Servant isn't our only good guy. There's also Kent, Lear's faithful adviser, who follows Lear even after being exiled by the king. Kent doesn't die, but at the end of the play we get the impression that the end is near for him. My personal favorite is the King of France, who marries Cordelia even after her father disowns her and takes away her dowry. That the King of France would marry Cordelia for love and not money shows that not everyone is corrupted by greed and power, unlike the many selfish characters (Goneril, Regan, Edmund, etc.) in the play.

     And, of course, there is Cordelia herself, a character who is almost unbelievably good and forgiving. She is kind to her father even after he banished her. She'll do anything to help him out. she forgives him and loves him throughout the entire play.

     And she dies too.

     WHY? Why did Shakespeare kill everybody? Is Cordelia a Christ figure? A martyr for goodness? Or is her death symbolic of the end of goodness?

     I like to think the former is true. That maybe Edgar and the Duke of Albany will rebuild the split kingdom, and maybe unnamed First Servants will come to their aid and everything will be okay. And maybe a king as good and selfless as the King of France will emerge and maintain peace.

     But maybe I'm just a hopeless optimist.

     I'm going to have to read this play again. My head hurts.

The One Time the Book Wasn't Better

      You have to believe me when I say that it was physically painful for me to write the above title. As I said in my previous post, books are always better than movie adaptions. Always. Always, always always.

     But, my friends, there is an exception to every rule. And this exception is the TV show Pretty Little Liars.

     This melodramatic, poorly acted teen-drama is based off of the Pretty Little Liars book series written by Sara Shepard. There are fourteen Pretty Little Liar books, plus two companion books. I've only read the first four books.

     I read the books because my friend lent them to me. These four books make a complete story-arc, however at the conclusion of the fourth book there are still unanswered questions.

     I like the Pretty Little Liars books. They are certainly no works of literature, but they are entertaining. They are fast-paced and suspenseful; the kind of books that you start reading after breakfast and finish the same night, curled up in bed. The type of book that you for fun and because, for whatever reason, you just have to know what happens to those silly but strangely lovable characters.

     So as much as I wanted to know who killed Alison DiLaurentis, I stopped at book four. Why? Because I started watching the TV show and, for whatever reason, could not stop.

     I became addicted to the show; the cliffhanger endings to each episode kept me coming back every Tuesday night. But why didn't I keep  reading the books?

     The first reason that comes to mind is sheer laziness. My friend only has the first four books, so I'd have to make the effort to get off my butt and get the other books. And why do that when it would be much easier to watch the plot unfold on TV?

     But as I think about it, I realize that laziness cannot possibly be the answer. If I had really wanted to finish the series, I would have happily gone to the library or coughed up the money for the next few PLL novels. Rather, the reason I did not finish the books is that I was not missing anything.

     As I mentioned in my previous post, the book To Kill a Mockingbird is superior to the movie adaptation because the beauty of the prose is missing. There is no play of syntax in the TKAM movie, but there are also no great syntactic moments in the Pretty Little Liars novels. Not to say Sara Shepard is a bad writer, but she is certainly no Harper Lee. Her books are entertainment, not literary revolutions. And for whatever reason, I find the TV show more entertaining than the books.

     Why the TV show is more entertaining than the books, I'm still not sure. Maybe it's because I am able to find humor in bad acting and bad screenwriting, while mediocre prose just makes me cringe. Maybe its just because Wren's British accent sounds better on TV than in my head. Whatever the reason, Pretty Little Liars is the first (and most likely only) time I was drawn more to the movie/TV adaptation than the book.

     But other than Pretty Little Liars, books always win.

     Always.

A Few Thoughts on Turning Books into Scripts

     A couple months ago, I was sitting in physics when I noticed a nearly-dictionary-sized book resting on the binder of the girl sitting across from me.

     "Watcha reading?" I asked the book's owner.

     "Les Mis," she said, "I want to read it before the movie comes out."

     Sound the sirens, everyone, books have invaded Hollywood. Or, rather, screenwriters have invaded libraries and bookstores, stealing ideas from paper instead of using that thing called "originality" to come up with interesting movie plots.

     In truth, though, it's been happening for as long as movies have been made. Gone With the Wind, The Godfather, Schindler's List, The Lord of the Rings Trilogy. Google "Best Movies of All Time" and you'll find that quite a few of them were based on books. Even the recent zombie-apocolypse-romance movie, Warm Bodies, is based off of a book by the same title.

     For as long as I can remember, I have always been uncomfortable with the idea of making books into movies. I have always felt that doing so shows a lack of originality on the part of the screenwriter and laziness on the part of those who would rather watch the movie than read the book.

     I think the only reason the laziness aspect annoys me is because the movie is never as good as the book. Never. Ever. Never ever ever. (Well, never except for one book series, but I'll get to that later.)

     Why is it that the book is always better?

     I used to blame the defects on the obvious things. This character wasn't included, they took out my favorite part, or so-and-so is supposed to be blonde but they made her a brunette (yes, I am directly referring to how Annabeth in the movie version of The Lightening Thief was not blonde, a detail honestly ruined the movie for me, even though there were a lot of other serious faults. But I digress.)

     Yet I have come to realize that it is not always the parts that the screenwriters leave out, or the characters they tweak that makes the movies inferior. Some of those changes can even be forgiven, if one considers time and casting limitations. (But only some changes; Annabeth's hair can never be forgiven.)

     Rather, the reason (at least for me) that books are always better, is that the beauty of the language is lost. There are just things that can be done with the written word that cannot be done on the big screen.

     I think the best way for me to explain myself is to give you an example. Here is an excerpt from To Kill a Mockingbird:

  

      Just look at that. That lovely syntactic jump from one paragraph to another, where Mrs. Merriweather unknowingly completes Scout's unfinished thought while simultaneously displaying her hypocrisy. The irony and genius of it all makes me embarrassingly happy. I could go on for awhile about this passage, but I'll save that for another post.

     For now, back to my point. And the point is that you cannot have ingenious syntactic paragraph  jumps in a movie.

     They made a movie out of To Kill a Mockingbird. It was a fantastic movie and it won many awards and it changed many lives. But there is one thing missing in that movie, and that one thing is Harper Lee's writing.

     I guess, in the grand scheme of things, Harper Lee's writing is not the most important part of the book. The most important part of the book is the story itself and that story's themes. But, when you read the book and then watch the movie (like I did), it just seems like something is missing in the movie.

     And that something is the prose.

     Is it unfair for me to judge movies like this? Perhaps. If I had seen To Kill a Mockingbird the movie before reading the book, then I no doubt would have found it more impressive. As I watched the movie, I acknowledged that it was a great representation of the book, was well-written and well-acted, but I still found myself preferring the book.

      Maybe this is just The Curse of the Lit Nerd. Maybe I'm just crazy and word-obsessed. But the prose will always beat out the cinematography.

     After seeing Les Miserables with my parents, I was talking to my mom about how much I enjoyed the movie.

     "That was one of the best movies I've ever seen," I said, wiping my eyes (for the rest of the day, I could barely even think about that movie without tearing up), "I can't imagine how good the book is. I really want to read it now."

     Maybe, just maybe, it isn't so bad that Hollywood is making books into movies. I used to always hate when people would say, "Why should I read Harry Potter? I've seen all the movies." 

      BECAUSE THE BOOKS ARE BETTER!

     Ahem. Excuse me.

     I still hate it when people say that sort of thing. But let's be honest, with that attitude, would they have ever really read the book? Movie or no?

      The cynical (and therefore more likely) answer is no. But at least that person was still exposed to the story of Harry Potter and the themes of friendship and courage.

     The people who often get overlooked are those like myself and my friend in physics. The people who heard about or seen the movie, and want to read the book because of it. Would I or my classmate have wanted to read Les Mis if it had never been made into a movie?

     Maybe, maybe not. The point is, the movie encouraged us to read the book.

     For whatever reason (perhaps out of sheer stubbornness) I'm still not quite one-hundred percent okay with books being made into movies. But I'm getting there. In fact, as mentioned before, there is one exception to the rule; one book series that I prefer to see on screen rather than on paper (but just slightly, I do like the books).

     But, I've wasted enough of your time with my rambling, so The Exception will have to wait until tomorrow. Stay tuned for my next post!

     

  

 

The Great Shakespearean Challenge: Day 41

     58 out of 1194 pages read

     Before I start talking Shakespeare, I would like to thank +Marian Allen for mentioning Diary of a Lit Nerd in her blog! I truly appreciated your kind words, Marian.

     As I mentioned in my previous post, I've been simultaneously reading King Lear and Part Two of King Henry VI. King Lear has proven a much more engaging play than Henry VI, Part Two. Though, I will say, now that I am nearing the end of King Henry VI, the plot has become increasingly more interesting.

     The entrance of the character Jack Cade has livened up the play. Cade is a "labouring man" who is leading a revolt against Henry VI and hopes to take the crown for himself (just about every character in this play wants to take down King Henry). He is portrayed as a fairly terrible person, but his strong personality has brought a degree of excitement to the play.

     So far, my favorite Jack Cade line is "Away with him, away with him! he speaks Latin!"

     Okay, I admit, the line doesn't sound that special, especially out of context. But, for whatever reason, it made me laugh; probably only because when I read it, I imagined a frustrated classmate yelling those words at my Latin teacher.

     And, of course, sitting in my second hour Latin class the next day, that line kept popping in my head. For a fleeting moment, I was tempted to jump from my seat and yell, "Away with him, away with him! he speaks Latin!" but I had a feeling that doing so would be frowned upon, despite the literary origins of the outburst.

     Still, I prefer reading King Lear over King Henry VI. Not only is the story more interesting, but the copy of King Lear that I'm reading for book club is illustrated! How do you illustrate Shakespeare, you ask?

     You don't.

    That's why the illustrations are so entertaining. Take a look:

     Obviously, someone thought it would be clever to try to pictorially represent Shakespeare's metaphors. Take, for instance, the top left image, which is a visual representation of the line "the cart draws the horse."

     Umm...I don't think Shakespeare meant that literally, but okay.

     So, as you can well imagine, it is always a pleasant surprise to turn the page and see an awkward snail, what looks to be a sketch of Oz's City of Emeralds, or a guy barbequing his friend.

     But seriously.

    What King Lear has that Henry VI does not have is Shakespeare's wit. Not to say there is no wit or clever wordplay in Henry VI, because there definitely is, but the wit in King Lear is much more searing. It's clear that Henry VI is one of Shakespeare's earliest plays; the genius is there, he just hasn't embraced it yet. Furthermore, as far as personal preference goes, my favorite literary device (yes, I have a favorite literary device; don't hate) is irony, and King Lear is practically oozing irony.

     I look forward to seeing how both plays conclude. I have plenty of reading to catch up on, so I will live you with this parting image, courtesy of my King Lear book: