Ep. 50 - THE GREAT GATSBY (1974) at 50: Love, Lies and the Illusion of the American Dream
Mia Farrow as Daisy Buchanan, and Robert Redford as Jay Gatsby in THE GREAT GATSBY (1974) Paramount Pictures
It’s been 50 years since the release of the 1974 film THE GREAT GATSBY, based on F. Scott Fitzgerald’s 1925 iconic novel. Directed by Jack Clayton, and featuring Robert Redford as Jay Gatsby, Mia Farrow as Daisy Buchanan, and Sam Waterston as Nick Carraway, the film is a window into the roaring 1920s or the Jazz Age, as Fitzgerald is credited for coining the phrase. The story is also a mirror on American social constructs for wealth, class, and illusion, as well as the destructive power to recapture the past.
THE GREAT GATSBY is another opportunity to talk with author and professor of English Emily Bernard about the 1920s and the themes in the film that continue to resonate with our own times. Our lively conversation with Emily about the film adaptation of Nella Larsen’s 1929 novel PASSING (episode 2), remains one of our Top 3 all-time podcast downloads. In this conversation Emily talks about how these two New York stories and their social and class “passing” themes overlap. We also discuss the 2013 Baz Luhrmann adaptation of THE GREAT GATSBY featuring Leonardo DiCaprio and Carey Mulligan as Jay Gatsby and Daisy Buchanan.
NOTE: Spoiler alerts - if you haven’t seen any film or television adaptation or read the The Great Gatsby.
GUEST
EMILY BERNARD
Emily Bernard is the author of Black is the Body: Stories from My Grandmother’s Time, My Mother's Time, and Mine, which was named one of the best books of 2019 by Kirkus Reviews and National Public Radio. Emily is the winner of the 2020 Los Angeles Times Christopher Isherwood Prize for autobiographical prose.
Her previous works include: Remember Me to Harlem: The Letters of Langston Hughes and Carl Van Vechten, which was a New York Times Notable Book of the Year; and Some of My Best Friends: Writings on Interracial Friendship, which was chosen by the New York Public Library as a Book for the Teen Age.
Emily Bernard’s essays have been reprinted in Best American Essays, Best African American Essays, and Best of Creative Nonfiction. A 2020 Andrew Carnegie Fellow, Emily is the Julian Lindsay Green and Gold Professor of English at the University of Vermont.
Connect with Emily Bernard
Listen to Episode 2: Emily Bernard talks about the adaptation of Nella Larsen’s 1929 novel, PASSING
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Click on the book covers to order copies of these cookbooks and non-fiction titles including The Great Gatsby, Passing, and titles by Emily Bernard. Your purchases support the production of the Historical Drama with The Boston Sisters podcast and independent booksellers.
THE GREAT GATSBY (1974)
THE GREAT GATSBY is a poignant commentary on social climbing, the illusion of wealth, and the destructive nature of the American Dream. In the 1974 film, director Jack Clayton paints a vivid picture of the era, capturing the frenetic energy of jazz music from the 1920s, with score by band leader Nelson Riddle. And costume designer Theoni V. Aldredge brings in extravagant fashion from cool pastels to electric flapper attire, masking the moral ambiguity lurking beneath the surface.
THE GREAT GATSBY cast includes Robert Redford as Jay Gatsby, a man with enormous wealth and a mysterious past who yearns for a love long out of reach. Mia Farrow embodies the captivating Daisy Buchanan, torn between societal expectations and a past forbidden passion.
Sam Waterston (whom many know from the TV series “Law & Order”) is Nick Carraway, Daisy’s cousin, who is also guide and narrator of this opulent world. Nick has come to New York City from the Midwest to seek his fortune in bond sales. He spends this fateful summer in a cottage on the “new money” West Egg side of Long Island and befriends his next door neighbor, Jay Gatsby.
Bruce Dern is Daisy’s East Egg old money, wealthy, arrogant, philandering husband Tom Buchanan, who attended Yale with Nick. Tom’s mistress, Myrtle Wilson, played by Karen Black, dreams of leaving the Queens’s “Valley of the Ashes” with Tom and ending her disappointing marriage to George Wilson, an owner of a gas station and garage who’s played by Scott Wilson.
Lois Chiles, who also starred in THE WAY WE WERE with Robert Redford (listen to our past episode for the 50th anniversary of that film), is Jordan Baker, an independent yet aloof single woman and golf pro. Jordan is the modern flapper, but her honesty handicap remains un-calculated.
The screenplay for THE GREAT GATSBY was written by Francis Ford Coppola (of THE GODFATHER fame). Though the 1974 film received mixed critical reactions, THE GREAT GATSBY received two Academy Awards for Best Music by Nelson Riddle and Best Costume Design by Theoni V. Aldredge.
The 1974 adaptation of THE GREAT GATSBY is available for streaming with a subscription or fee. Do a search to find out which streaming services offer THE GREAT GATSBY. Also check your local library.
