Word: claytons
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Directed by JACK CLAYTON Screenplay by FRANCIS FORD COPPOLA...
...spirit. Much of Fitzgerald's prose has been preserved, especially in Nick Carraway's narration, but it only gives the film a stilted, stuffy tone that is reinforced by the dialogue. Fitzgerald wrote dialogue to be read, not said; and the Coppola screenplay (much rejuggled by Director Clayton) treats Fitzgerald's lines with untoward reverence. When Daisy sighs, "We were so close in our month of love," she sounds like a kid in a creative-writing course reading her first short story aloud...
...also one of the few moments that survive the delirium of Clayton's staging. He shoots the love scenes in gauzy soft focus. Everything gleams: bracelets, sunlight on glasses, leaves on trees, even eyeballs. This is at best. At worst, when Clayton photographs the lovers dancing together in a vast, empty ballroom or kissing, their images reflected in a goldfish pond, he seems to have lapsed into some middle ground between self-parody and self-flagellation...
...Clayton makes his most deadly error by transforming Gatsby into a dandified elegy. The novel was tough-minded, hard-edged in its social insights...
...lavish budget used intelligently. Acknowledging the movie's opulence, one guest said that it is "very slow in getting started, ran awfully long, and the characters were about impossible to get into at all." Part of the problem apparently is the pace. Both Coppola's script and Clayton's direction treat Fitzgerald reverentially, giving each scene almost equal emphasis. Another problem, surprising in a Coppola script, is wooden dialogue. Several viewers complain that the actors cannot speak long stretches of straight Fitzgerald prose convincingly. Unfortunately, the chief victims seem to be Redford and Farrow...