Word: redford
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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Stubborn Caprice. Robert Redford's Gatsby is rather more successful...
...Redford does not have the mystery or the rough edge required for the role, but he is surprisingly good at conveying Gatsby's uneasiness. The social graces are not natural to him. He has a tenuous poise, a mask that falls away when he is introduced to Daisy's small daughter or when Nick pays him a sincere compliment that makes him, for the first time, smile genuinely. Redford also has a sense of Gatsby's obsession. His look of longing, fulfillment and hopelessness when he sees Daisy for the first time has, momentarily, the depth...
...actors, says Redford, were very much aware that Paramount was trying to steamroll a superhit and that they were expected to cooperate with the game plan by producing superhit performances. If the picture flopped, Redford understood only too well, "there would be a lot of whisperings about how Redford was wrong for the Gatsby role...
There was less pressure on Redford's co-star Mia Farrow, 29, simply because she no longer takes her career so seriously. "She has spent her life being treated like a butterfly who needs to be protected," says Jack Clayton in a burst of romanticism. This is not strictly true. In her Hollywood days, Mia ground out TV's Peyton Place until she briefly became Frank Sinatra's wife. She almost became a major star in Rosemary's Baby. But after marrying Conductor Andre Previn, she opted for domestic life in England with the couple...
...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...