The Jazz Age Through Hollywood: the Transformation of the American Culture As Represented in the Great Gatsby 2013

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People’s Democratic Republic of Algeria Ministry of Higher Education and Scientific Research Larbi Ben M’hidi University-Oum El Bouaghi

Faculty of Letters and Languages Department of English

The Jazz Age Through Hollywood: The Transformation of The American Culture as Represented in The Great Gatsby 2013.

A Dissertation Submitted in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Master in Anglo American Studies-Civilization-

by: HOUMEUR Zeyneb

Supervisor: GHENNAM Fatima

Examiner: HAFSA Naima

2014-2015

Candidate Declaration Form

I,……………………………………………., candidate of Master at the Department of English, Larbi Ben M’hidi University, do hereby declare that the dissertation entitled “The Jazz Age Through Hollywood: The

Transformation of The American Culture as Represented in The Great Gatsby 2013.” in partial fulfillment of MA Degree in Anglo-American Studies is my own original work, and it has not previously, in its entirety or in part, been submitted at any university.

Date: …. /…. / 2015 ID number…………………....

Signature of the candidate

…………………….

Abstract

This dissertation fosters a debate on the position of Cinema in portraying History as well as tracing its interrelatedness with culture. The American Cinema was subjugated to a systematic development that was inaugurated in the 1920s, and evolved to be the first entertainment industry in America. Many historians who delved in this subject demonstrated that, as a new medium, Cinema had Two-dimensional areas that tackle from one side its nature as a system that reproduces culture. And from the other side, its stance as an autonomous Industry that produces culture. Interestingly, this dissertation attempts to: First, document the History behind the Roaring Twenties and Hollywood. Second, It lends support to shed the light on the interrelatedness between history, particularly the Jazz Age, and

Hollywood. And finally, It works to examine the 2013 movie version of The Great Gatsby, and the consequential hangover of the two phenomena through the Film’s anatomy that consequently involve a potential measurement of Hollywood as a system that

Produces/Reproduces culture.

Résumé

Cette mémoire favorise un débat sur la position de Cinéma dans la représentation de l'Histoire, aussi bien que étudié son corrélation avec la culture. Le Cinéma Américain a été subjugué à un développement systématique qui a été inauguré dans les années 1920 et développé pour être la première industrie du divertissement en Amérique. Les historiens qui ont fouillé dans ce sujet démontré que comme un nouveau médium, le Cinéma a une matrice bidimensionnelle qui abordent d'un côté sa nature comme un système qui reproduit la culture.

Et de l'autre côté sa position comme une industrie autonome qui produit la culture.

Intéressement, cette dissertation s'évalue : Premièrement, la documentation de l'Histoire particulièrement les Années Vingt et Hollywood. Puis, elle envisage la dépendance entre l'histoire, particulièrement l'Âge de Jazz et Hollywood. Et finalement, la recherche et dédié méticuleusement pour examiner la version 2013 de Gatsby le Magnifique basé sur l'anatomie du Film qui impliquent par conséquent une mesure potentielle de Hollywood comme un système qui Produit / Reproduit la culture.

ملخص

تسعي هذه األطروحة إلي تسليط الضوء علي موقف السينما في تصوير التاريخ وكذا طبيعة عالقة هذه االخيرة مع

البيئة التي نشأت فيها. خضعت السينما األمريكية إلى تطور منهجي بدأ في السنوات العشريين وازدهر ليصبح مهد الترفيه

الرئيسي في أمريكا. العديد من المؤرخين الذين درسوا هذا الموضوع أظهروا أن للسينما أبعاد عديدة٬ فمن جهة فهي تعالج

و تستنسخ مادتها من الثقافة. ومن الجانب األخر فهي تدرس موضوعاتها كوسيلة مستقلة لتصدير ميوالت معينه∙ انطالقا من

هذه اآلراء تحاول هذه األطروحة إلى : أوال :دراسة التاريخ وراء ظهور عصر الجاز وهوليوود. ثانيا: إبراز تفاعل عصر

الجاز مع هوليوود. أخيرا: دراسة فاعلية العالقة بين الظاهرتين من خالل تشيح فلم The Great Gatsby 2013ˮ“الذي

بدوره يعرض مدي عالقة الظاهرتين ∙

Dedication

To my Fiancé and Parents, with love.

iii

Acknowledgements

First and Foremost, all praises be to almighty Allah for providing me with patience and courage to conceive this work. As it is apparent that film production necessitates an instrumental Film Crew: With this in mind: My deepest gratitude to my Supervisor

GHENNAM Fatima who has escorted my research with contemplation and guidance. I would like also to record my special thanks and regards to my Examiner HAFSA Naima who accepted to read and scrutinize my dissertation.

This Dissertation is devoted to dignify the soul of my Father, to my precious Mother thank you for your priceless prayers. To my lovely sisters Bouchra and Aya, thank you for your sacrifices. I am much obliged to show my devotion and infinite love to my Fiancé Azdin who with care and patience assisted to conceive this work. Huge thanks to all my family and friends, I love you all. Finally, my enormous gratefulness to the English Department, and all the teachers who worked to encourage and prompt our position as Master Students at Oum El

Bouaghi University.

List of Acronyms

3D: Three-dimensional space.

AMTV: American Television program.

BBC: The British Broadcasting Corporation.

CAPLP: Chattel Architecture, Planning & Preservation inc.

IMDb: The Internet Movie Database.

KKK: The Ku Klux Klan.

MGM: Metro Goldwayn Mayer.

MPPC : Motion Picture Patent Company.

NBC: National Broadcasting Company.

RKO: Radio-Keith-Orpheum.

UNESCO : The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization.

U.S.: United Sates of America.

Warner Bros. Warner Brothers.

WWI: First World War.

WWII: Second World War.

List of Figures

Fig. 1. View of Hollywood [graphic]…………………………………....…...……………….17

Fig. 2. Metro Studios view [graphic]……………………………………..………...………..17

Fig. 3. Beverly Hills Hotel aerial view [graphic]…………………...…………..……...……..24

Fig. 4. William R. Hearst’s Castle, San Simeon, California……………………….…………24

Fig. 5. Hollywood, Grauman’s Chinese, opening night, 1927………………...……..……….25

Fig. 6. Jack Robin, Originally Jackie Robinwitz, stand up to his dream to become a Jazz

Singer, His father is ashamed about his choice, questioning why he wanted to change his family’s patrimony of becoming a Cantor in Synagogue. The Jazz Singer 1927 ……………32

Fig. 7. The End of the movie, Jack is performing the Jazz Song, after performing the Kol

Nidre in the Synagogue. The Jazz Singer 1927…………………………..………..…………32

Fig. 8. Betty Lou cached Mr. Waltham for the first time. And astonishingly fell in love with him, and decided to pursue and get him. The It movie 1927……..………………...…..…….35

Fig. 9. After many attempts, Betty Lou wins the love of Mr. Waltham. And ultimately get married to him. The It movie 1927…………………………………………..……………… 35

Fig. 10. The Official 2013 Great Gatsby’s poster. Source: IMDb. Web April 16, 2015…….65

Fig. 11. The opening of The Great Gatsby with Noir et Blanc screen. Warner Bros. Picture

The Great Gatsby 2013……………………...…….……………………...……………….….67

Fig. 12. The opening of The Jazz Singer. Warner Bros. Picture The Jazz Singer 1927……...67

Fig. 13. Jordon Baker holds the “Town Tattle Magazine” a gossip rag of the Twenties. vi

Warner Bros. Picture The Great Gatsby 2013………………..……………………....………69

Fig. 14. 15. Daisy and Jordon bobbed haired duplicating the Flapper fashion of the Twenties.

Warner Bros. Picture The Great Gatsby 2013…………………...……………………...……69

Fig. 16. One of Jay Gatsby’s exquisite Orgiastic parties. Warner Bros. Picture The Great

Gatsby 2013 ………………………….…………………………...…………...………..……69

Fig. 17. Walter Chaise losing money at a gambling table, usual practices of Jazz Age. Warner

Bros. Picture The Great Gatsby 2013………………………………………………………...71

Fig. 18. 19. Using Saxophone as a new instrument in the Bars accompanied with large quantities of Liquor. Warner Bros. Picture The Great Gatsby 2013………..……..…..……..71

Fig. 20. Jay Gatsby’s death at the end of the movie. Warner Bros. Picture the Great Gatsby

2013…………………………..…………………….……………………...………….....……71

Fig. 21. IMDb Users’ Votes by Age (Male/Female). IMDb. Web. April 20, 2015...... …...... 73

vii

List of Tables

Table 1: Theatre ownership by the Top Five Major Distributors, 1945……...………....……20

Table 2: Frequency of attendance per capita (Population aged between 5-79 years) for the top

10 countries for film attendance, 2005-2011……………………...……….…………………38

Table 3: Top 20 popular Feature Films released in 2013………………………..…...... ……60

Table 4: Appreciation of The Great Gatsby 2013 by IMDb Users……...... ……..…...... ……72

Table of Contents

Abstract

Dedication……………………………………………………………...……...……………….ii

Acknowledgments…………………………………..……………...………...……………….iii

Acronyms…………….…………………………………...…………………………………...iv

List of Figures……………………………………………..………...…………………………v

List of Tables……………………………………………..……………………………..……vii

General Introduction………………………………………………………..…...……………..1

Chapter One:

Section one: Theorizing the Jazz Age and Hollywood

Introduction…………………………………………………………………………………….7

I. The Jazz Age

A. A Political Atmosphere…………..……………………....…………………….7

B. The Roaring Twenties …………..…………..…..…………..…..……………..9

II. Hollywood

A. Historical Context………………….…...…………………...….……………..15

B. Emergence of Hollywood…………………………………...……..………….18

Conclusion……………………………………………………..………………….………….23

Section Two: The Jazz Age in Hollywood

Introduction…………………………………………………………………………………...26

A. Hollywood and Culture: A Problematic Issue…………...……………………26

B. The Jazz Age in the Eyes of Hollywood……………………………...………30

Conclusion…………………………………………………………….…………...…………38

Endnotes………………………………..…………………..…………………………………39

Chapter Two:

Section one: An Overview of F. Scott Fitzgerald and The Great Gatsby

Introduction…………………………………………………………………………………...42

A. F. Scott Fitzgerald………………………….……..…..………..……………..42

B. The Great Gatsby (Novel)……...……………………………..……...……….46

Conclusion …………………………………………………………………………………...54

Section Two: Adaptation Theory and The Great Gatsby (2013) Analysis

Introduction…………………………………………………………………………...………56

A. Adapting The Great Gatsby (2013)………………..…………..……...... …….56

B. The Great Gatsby (2013) and the Jazz Age………...……….…….....………..66

Conclusion…………………………………………...……………………………………….74

Endnotes……………………………………………………………………………………... 75

General Conclusion…………………………………………………...…………...………….77

Works Cited ………………………………………………………………….………..……..79

Appendences

General Introduction

The theoretical premise behind studying the Jazz Age era was not a pure coincidence.

The selection was grounded on the assumption that the age’s milieu cannot be juxtaposed to any other age in the American history. Each epoch in the United States is defined by a particular set of characteristics: The Revolutionary period and its aftermath is typified by unprecedented political foundations of Republicanism and Federalism. The Civil War is epitomized by ethnic and racial segregations. The Gilded Age is characterized by the Rise of

Industrial America and tycoons. The Progressive era is symbolized by its reforms and muckrakers. With exceptional consideration, the Jazz Age admitted liability to realign the political, Economic, and cultural dimensions of the U.S.

Hollywood lies at the heart of the dissertation. Films have been always the image of the

U.S. abroad. Their impact is immeasurable in the portrayal of the American Culture that extends from language, values, fashion, gastronomy, cosmetology, technologies … etc which are ultimately sold and advertized around the globe through movies. Quantifying the impact of films is a noteworthy issue: a recent statistical survey conducted in 2013 by the famous website for movie statistics The Numbers displayed that around 1.34 billion movie tickets were sold around the world. It is now apparent that the medium of entertainment have changed through time. For instance, Cinema in the U.S. took hold during the Roaring

Twenties: in 1920 when the population was about 106.5 million, movie goers were estimated by 40 million each week. That number skyrocketed to 100 million when the demography exceed 121.8 million in 1929. Today, with a parallel development of new technologies, mainly the Internet, Smartphone, tablet … etc access to films became an easy target for its adherents. In 2013, the Motion Pictures Association of America estimated movie goers in

North America by 228.7 million. 2

The period when Cinema was evolved in the U.S. is known as the Jazz Age, a term coined by F. Scott Fitzgerald in his collection of short stories Tales of the Jazz Age. This age is the paragon example of a metamorphosis epoch in the American History, nowhere else we could find such a revolutionary cultural change that assisted to maintain the frame of modern

America. This change was exhibited in versatile manners and trends, with a cultural dimension notably entertainment magazine like Exhibitors and Motion Picture, novels like

This Side of Paradise and The Sun Also Rises, and cinematic productions like The Jazz Singer and It were known expressive approaches among the masses. With a more administrative inclination, Legislative laws like the 18th Amendment and the 19th Amendment, Political orientation like President Warren Harding and his Normalcy agenda, and Economic boost manifested by Wall Street’s unprecedented record peaks are what defined that age. Among these different domained demonstrations, Cinema proved to be America’s main everyday meeting ground as it was the derivation of consumerism, social decorum, cosmetology and body care, ageism … etc. Despite that, Film remains a subject of speculation, a minor Art in the academic sphere, a perfidious source when it is juxtaposed to the written word.

In fact, deconstructing the assumption of the reverence to the written word at the expense of film lay bars to: when studying the past we study its interpretation i.e. history. The latter is expressed in many forms: in a written word like books, or in a more vibrant unconventional approach like films. Not to downplay the efficiency of books, and nobody will, but movies provide and engage at the same time its audience in a more vivid and realistic experience. They involve not only the audio and visual features of the audience, but also their sensational interaction with the movie. Hayden White in his influential essay “Historiography and Historiophoty” published in 1988 coined the term Historiophoty that he defined as “the representation of history and our thought about it in a visual images and filmic discourse.” He contended in the essay that Historiophoty should be exalted in its own right that is not an act 3 out of grace. However, having an in depth view about the past or history we find that its nature is visual and oral not written. More, he explicated that “the communicative convections of the human sciences are increasingly as much pictorial as verbal in their predominant modes of representation.” This assumption alludes to nothing but to establish visual representations as not a supplement-not even a superior- to the written word however it is a complement.

In this sense, films transcend the written work in their capacity to frame a particular atmosphere in the audience’s mind like architectural designs, artifacts, new brand fashions, landmarks, monuments, emotional intensity, illustrious war, musical tools and character’s traits and looks … etc. On this subject, The Great Gatsby new release on 2013 emphasized to reveal the mood and the temper of the Jazz Age: features of the Age like costumes, flapper women, liquor consumption, societal deviation, Jazz music and Charleston were forcibly demonstrated by Baz Luhrmann, a director known for his powerful scripts and bombastic movies. Thus, developing and testing the idea whether cinema is a successful medium in representing factual data about history is of major concern. Tackling the subject of perception of such movies is equally important, as it prompts to address the impact of such films on the audience.

In the course of studying the subject of representing history through movies, and the perception of the audience of such representations, this dissertation is motivated by prime research questions: First, how can we study the interrelatedness between the Jazz Age and

Hollywood? Second, how can we measure the role of cinema in representing the American

Cultural transition in the 1920s? Third, Are movies a mere technique to mirror a particular historical and cultural context, or they work to add something new: be it cultural, political, or ideological concerns to shape public inclinations? And finally, How did Americans perceive the newly cultural representation of the 1920s in the new release of The Great Gatsby?

Respectively, we hypothesize that, the role of Cinema is crucial in the demonstration of the 4 orientations of the Jazz Age. It does not only represent but it advertizes some trends that guaranteed the long term existence of Jazz Age’s aspects in the modern times, therefore, transforming it into a base upon which America rests today. Subsequently, American movies in the U.S. had an immense divergent impact on the society. This impact is examined through their perception, thus The Great Gatsby’s representation of elements of The Jazz Age attracts the audience curious about the extravagant materiality of the age.

The present dissertation is designed for the purpose of investigating the ability of films to present and recreate past experiences and trace their impact on its audience. The absence of film from the academic arena as a worth reliable source for learning about history and its subjugation for prejudices compel to reconsider these views and study the status of film studies and their ability to establish themselves as an autonomous realm for scrutinizing the past. In other words, our main concern is to enquire into the position of film as both a medium of entertainment and learning about past or even present issues in a time when according to the Price Water House (PWH) that book sales (print and audio) in the U.S. will decrease from

$13.1 billion in 2011 to $7.94 billion in 2018.

In pursuing this subject, this dissertation resorts to a Historical Analytical approach to present factual data about The Jazz Age and Hollywood. Examining the nature of relations between the two phenomena is studied on the basis of synthesizing both Walter Benjamin’s theory which states that Hollywood Reproduces Culture, and Adorno and Theodor’s theory which asserts that Hollywood is a system dedicated to reshuffle the norms, ideas and behaviors of the audience. Since this dissertation is dealing with an adapted movie of The

Great Gatsby 2013 as a case study: Adaptation Theory and a micro-analytical method are applied on it. More, it draws upon films to generate any idea or opinion, reference to them as a form of testimony by means of illustration i.e. citing using shots is utilized. To adjust the format of the dissertation the MLA 7th edition is used. 5

During the course of these theories, the research is divided into two main chapters with a general introduction and a general conclusion. The first chapter is divided into two sections: the first section tackles a background information about the Jazz Age as well as

Hollywood. The Second section deals with the representation of The Jazz Age in Cinema, to examine how far the new medium revealed the Age through notable scholars Representation theories. The second chapter bears two sections: the first section is dedicated for an overview of F. Scott Fitzgerald and The Great Gatsby. And the second section is devoted to Adaptation

Theory and the movie of The Great Gatsby (2013) and its analysis.

Many writers and scholars discussed the topic of the Roaring Twenties’ depiction on screens. Therefore, this dissertation maintained a systematic use of notable primary sources like America’s a Narrative History by the famous pre eminent historian George Brown

Tindall, whose work is a lengthy book tackling thoroughly the different epochs of American history. The chapter “the modern temper” is a raw material that presents credible data about the Roaring twenties and its different dimensions. Rodney P. Carlisle’s book The Roaring

Twenties 1920 TO 1929 is dedicated to the whole epoch unlike Tindall’s book, it tackles every aspect of the Jazz Age with illustrations. Walter Benjamin’s essay “The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction” and Max Horkheimer& Theodor W. Adorno essay of “The Culture Industry: Enlightenment as Mass Deception” are also worth mentioning works that put into question the nature of Cinematic industry (Hollywood). Movies of The

Jazz Singer, It, and the case study The Great Gatsby are primary sources dedicated to cross examine the effectiveness of film in portraying their aura. Other secondary sources like

Flappers: A Guide to an American Subculture by Kelly Sagert, documentaries like The

Century America’s time 1920-1929 Boom to Bust The New York times Archives like “The

Literary Presidents” and “Depew Talks of 87 Years”. All these few mentioned works and others worked to complement each other to have an appropriate global view of the past 6 histories, to travel through time back then in 1920s when America was destined to embrace its modern mold. 7

Chapter I

“John, I can't make a damn thing out of this tax problem. I listen to one side and they seem right, and then—God!—I talk to the other side and they seem just as right, and here I am where I started. I know somewhere there is a book that will give me the truth, but, hell, I couldn't read the book. I know somewhere there is an economist who knows the truth, but I don't know where to find him and haven't the sense to know him and trust him when I find him. God! What a job!” President Warren Harding

Section One: Theorizing the Jazz Age and Hollywood

Introduction

The Jazz Age and Hollywood are two unique American phenomena that evolved in the post World War One era with an impact that extends to the modern times. The first part is addressed to discuss the Jazz Age, as well as tracing how it provided a flexible ground for the procedural changes and transition from the certainties of the traditions to espouse the vigorous waves of the modern age. The second part of the section confers the rise of Hollywood from a tiny and immature Industry at all levels, to international uniqueness leaving behind its traces that extended from the Jazz Age to the contemporary period: Its major studios as well as its architectural legacies.

I. The Jazz Age

A. A Political Atmosphere

After the end of World War One in 1918, the United States returned home with outrageous results. The number of losses and causalities, including civilian and military, is estimated by 117,465 1, and $334 Billion2. By this time, Americans, as the prominent historian George Tindall remarked, further antagonized Woodrow Wilson’s idealism and his peace treaty (Narrative History 1022). Interestingly, it seems that the most hazardous impact 8 of the Great War was fueling a hysterical ethnic and racial hatred especially towards

Communists.

In the U.S., historian Thomas Reeves in Twentieth-Century America examined the stature of Communists claiming that there were about 70,000 of them in 1919. Antagonism to this group boosted when Attorney General Alexander Palmer’s home was bombarded. The

General Intelligence Division headed by Edgar Hoover considered that the Communists were responsible. As a result, many of them were deported to Russia, and around 6,000 suspects were taken into custody (82-83).

From another angle, Dr. Todd Pfannestiel in his book Rethinking the Red Scare argued that, after WWI, the U.S. faced refractory challenges this is why they “sought a new enemy to serve as a scapegoat for the challenges facing them; radicals of all kinds proved to be easy targets” Over Plus, 4 million soldiers who returned from Europe were waiting for their social- reintegration (4-5). Indeed, economically speaking the U.S. seemed not to have a forceful plan to secure the process of transition from war to peace times to meet the needs of its citizens. In the time of war, the U.S. gasped for economic domination. It, therefore, accelerated the industrial output to meet the needs of war by opening new industries and employing new employees. However, after the armistice it closed its door in front of them, thus engendering in a large wave of unemployment. These problems were coupled with the

U.S. willingness to recoup its war loses through increasing prices. A thorough quantitative examination stated that:

By 1919, the purchasing power of the American dollar was less than half what

it was in 1913. Reports from the Bureau of Labor Statistics indicated that food

prices had risen 84 percent, clothing 115 percent, and housing 130 percent over

the same period. For the average American family in 1919, their cost of living

was 100 percent higher than it was when the war started. (Pfannestiel 4) 9

These problems pulled America to no other direction but to chaos. By the end of 1919, workers waged a series of unprecedented protestations and strikes to regain their rights. 4 million workers gathered and engaged in about 3,600 strikes, a number that cannot be compared to any other strike in the American history (Ibid). As a matter of fact, one can imagine the psychological stature of the Americans by this time. The nostalgic feelings, the fear from the future, and the thrive to return normal were elements achieved not with

Wilsonian idealism and his grand political agenda, but with Warren Harding’s humble agenda that rests upon returning America to “Normalcy”.

Indeed, the Presidential elections of 1920 went for the Republican –a former Ohio

Senator- Warren G. Harding. The character of the president as Frederick Lewis Allen put it in

Only Yesterday An informal History of the 1920s was an amalgamation of noble attractiveness and a profound ignorance that lies particularly in his misuse of language like normalcy for normality, betrothment for betrothal …etc (n. page). However, it seems that Harding did not have a concern about these problems because his only interest was to return America to normalcy. This principle was tackled in his presidential campaign “Back to Normal” uttering that “America’s present need is not heroics, but healing; not nostrums, but normalcy3; not revolution, but restoration; not agitation, but adjustment; not surgery, but serenity; not the dramatic, but the dispassionate … ”(Metcalf 36).

Practically Harding’s intentions were fulfilled, but with an extra dose that rendered the

Americans to enchant an unstoppable waves of modernization, all encompassed in one capsule The Jazz Age.

B. The Roaring Twenties

Concurrently, with Warren’s accomplishment, a unique mosaic age was formulated. As a term, The Jazz Age appeared first in Scott Fitzgerald’s distinguished work Tales of the Jazz

Age published in 1922. The age received its name due to the development and predominance 10 of the Jazz music which emerged in New Orleans and diffused by notable singers such as

Louis Armstrong, Kid Ory and Joe ‘King’ Oliver.4

The Jazz Age extends from the post WWI up till the turn out of the Wall Street Crash in

1929. It encompassed a vigorous metamorphosis that infiltrated nearly to all aspects of

American life. In her book American Culture in the 1920s, Professor Susan Curell denoted that the 1920’s are restrictively linked to the newly born phenomena such as the introduction of new mass communications notably radio programming and sound on film, the unprecedented prominence of racial and nativist ideologies in public culture, the popularization of psychoanalysis, female suffrage and the prohibition of alcohol (1-2).

Similarly, Rodney Carlisle In The Roaring Twenties 1920 to 1929, proclaimed that The

Jazz Age is understood in the light of Harding’s attitudes of laisser-fair. This policy includes economy but does not exclude the modes of life in general. After the bad experiences of

WWI, America focused more on its internal affairs rather than the international issues.

Despite the desire to proclaim the old times, the age conceived new social morals and standards, and above all “industrialization” and “urbanizations” that provided a flexible ground for such changes to manifest themselves (45-46).

By the 1920s America embraced a new urban future: “manufacturing” was accentuated more than agriculture and 51.4% of the people lived in the cities5. The city was overwhelmingly alluring, the Chicagoan Magazine reported that:

During the post–World War I years, bridges and tunnels were built, streets

widened, statues dedicated, parks landscaped, railroad stations constructed, and

forest preserves established. Office skyscrapers of enormous size, an opera

house, an aquarium, a planetarium, railroad stations, university campuses,

museums, patriotic monuments, the world’s largest fountain, the world’s

largest building (the Merchandise Mart), expanded parks, a shoreline drive, 11

hotels (including, again, the world’s largest), schools, hospitals, movie palaces,

golf courses, a huge municipal stadium, high-rise apartments …. (Harris )

Identically, Peter Jennings explained in his video The Century America’s Times: 1920-

1929 that New York was the microcosm of the Age, modernization was displayed in its streets and avenues. For instance, “Broadway” symbolized American entertainment,

“Madison Avenue” represented business activity and advertisement, and “Wall Street” exhibited economic opportunities (Goodman).

During the Twenties, Speakeasies were also seen as a manifestation of industrialization and modernization. Speakeasies emerged as a result of the National Prohibition. By January

16, 1920 the Volstead act or the 18th Amendment to the Constitution was enforced, it was “an experiment noble in purpose”6. Prohibition entails as the Amendment put it “The manufacture, sale, or transportation of intoxicating liquors within, the importation thereof into, or the exportation thereof from the United States and all territory subject to the jurisdiction thereof for beverage purposes is hereby prohibited” (qtd. in Pinney1).

In the 1920s, Prohibition came to light because it was apparent at that time that the mood of consuming liquor was changing. In his article “Prohibition”, David Locke proclaimed that “Sellers of stimulants never made efforts to extend their business; they merely sold to those who came for drink … But the nature of the business has changed entirely …” (383). Consuming liquor was growing as an industry, this is why the government sought to put hand on the matter to save the nation.

Ironically, many scholars tend to question the effectiveness of prohibition. Thomas

Reevs argued that “the Department of Commerce estimated that $40 million worth of liquor entered the country in 1924 alone” (Twentieth century America 94). Similarly, Irving Fisher in his remarkable work Prohibition still at its worst affirmed that “Detroit, by virtue of her geographical location, is the natural port of entry for the liquor distributed in the Middle West 12 and the States … at least $35,000,000 worth of liquor comes annually …” (145). Therefore, the National Prohibition, was a failure that engendered in a more moral loses, speakeasies and smugglers find it as an impetus, not a barrier, to further forge the industry around the country.

The Prohibition provided a benevolent ground dominated by smugglers and criminal activities. Al Capone was considered as the most conspicuous smuggler, also known among many scholars as the modern “Robin Hood” who paradoxically, through his illegal activities endorsed in charitable activities. He was the catalyst who changed the essence of the experiment: “In 1927, Capone’s criminal activities netted him a personal profit of $60 million through gambling, prostitution, and, most of all, smuggling illegal booze” (McNeese 90).

Ludicrously, in an article published in CNN, Laura Allsop reported that “Capon’s

Revolver is sold for about $100,000 at Christie’s auction house in London” (par. 3). However, there are scholars who gave serious diagnosis of the matter. David Critchley, for example, demonstrated in his book The origins of organized crime in America that the origin of criminal activity is attributed to Italy. Not to mention, only Al Capone who was from Italian descent. The New York Times reported in an article published in 1921 that “Niccola Sacco and

Bartolomeo Vanzetti, un-naturalized Italians, were tried for murder in the first degree in

Dedham in the summer of 1921” (par. 1). Thereupon, the government passed new restricting immigration acts taking into account southern European countries “The Emergency quota Act also known as the National Origins Act of 1921was passed by the US Congress on May 9,

1921. The main objective of this legislation was to reduce the number of immigrants coming from Southern, Central, and Eastern Europe” (O’Leary 213).

It was not only the government that was unpleased by the current issues. The Ku Klux

Klan was an anti-immigrant group that advocated “100 percent Americanism.” Its roots date back to the era of reconstruction (1860) when the blacks were freed in the south. They were against any citizen who does not belong to the white protestant block. In the 1920s, the Clan 13 was revived “by a former Methodist minister named William J. Simmons … stating that his country was not a “melting pot” of different races …” (McNeese 84-86). During that time, the

Clan enlarged its sphere of interest to encompass not only African-Americans, but minorities, immigrants, communists and anarchists. The debatable movie of the famous producer G. W.

Griffith The Birth of a Nation that was released in 1915 had a great impact in enlarging members of the Clan.7

Far from the cynical issues of the Prohibition and its consequences, America during this era relished fundamental advancement in automobile, Radio, and minorities’ causes that bestowed the age its charm. Prior to 1920, Americans could not afford to buy cars as they were very expensive. However, “Ford” was a new brand that revolutionized the field of car manufacturing. Professor Sue Curell claimed in American Culture in 1920s that Henry Ford was the apotheosis of the age. His aptitude techniques of mass production scored him the front position of manufacturing cars: “By 1920 half of the cars in the world were Model T

Fords. In 1914 Ford’s Highland Park Factory alone produced 240,700 Model Ts; by 1923 this number had risen to 2,055,300” (6).

In equal position, David Sarnoff’s final arrangement of the first proper radio thrilled public opinion at that time. The Roaring Twenties 1920 to 1929 explicated that Pittsburgh

Pennsylvania is credited for the first radio station in the world “KDKA”. It further extended the idea saying that “Radio broadcasting brought the world into the home, enabling people to listen to a symphony, a drama, a comedy, or even that new Jazz music .…” Consequently,

Programs such as “Grand Oley Pry”, NBC Music appreciation hour”, “Amos n Andy Show” were very popular at that time (Carlisle 21,135-137).

By the same token, other staring achievements are credited to the stature of women.

After a long period of agitation and discrimination, women won the right to vote with the ratification of the Nineteenth Amendment in August 26, 1920. The initiator of this 14 amendment is not easily tractable, however, it is agreed that Susan B. Anthony is credited for initiating the process through her friend Aaron Sargent in Congress. The amendment called for: “The right of the citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of sex” (Finkelman 424, 1261).

It was this amendment that propelled women to reconsider their status and make enormous strides in their cause. Rodney Carlisle further clarifies this point by stating that the wives of 1920s never considered themselves in terms of domestic sphere, rather, they wanted to engage more in the outside world (Roaring Twenties 12). The new emerging women or the

“Flappers” adopted new social and cultural standards. The book Flappers a Guide to

American Subculture described the new women in a concise way “Flapper … was the ultramodern and audacious young woman who danced and drank; smoked chic cigarettes; bobbed her hair and showed her shins; and shook and shimmied in jazz halls and clubs of uncertain reputation” (Sagert 11). From then on, this new kind of Flapper is what characterized the American women that we are seeing nowadays.

Unfortunately, all good and happy times of the Roaring Twenties, turned shaky and were swallowed by the Wall Street Crash of October 24, 1929. Over 13 million people were unemployed, and over 1 to 2 million traveled the country in search for better conditions.

President Herbert Hoover stated that “we are at the end of our string ... there is nothing more we can do”. Thus, the U.S. remained depressed until the onset of WWII.8 15

II. Hollywood

A. Historical Context

Hollywood is the much publicized district in the Los Angeles County in the state of

California. Generally, the western frontier of the U.S. was not highly celebrated and so was

California, or the Golden State9 which was an immature wild place before the 1920s.

However, as Dr. Joshua Paddison argued in “1921 present: Modern California” that the years between 1920 and 1930, California turned vivid as industries of Oil and Movies began to swell in the state attracting new waves of inhabitants (par. 1).

By the 1900s, the state of California experienced growth and expansion. In the Los

Angeles County, Hollywood was the phenomenal manifestation of that growth. Ontologically speaking, the commencement of Hollywood was undistinguished and humble. Originally, it was a Spanish territory, the western part was known as Rancho La Brea owned by Antonio

Jose Rocha and Nemision Dominguez and the eastern part Rancho Los Feliz is named after its owner Jose Feliz Vincente. Later on in 1860s, the area was divided to be sold in a form of zones, the largest zone of 120 acres in the northwest was granted for Harvey Wilcox in 1887

(CAPLP 16).

According to Chattel Architecture, Planning & Preservation inc, it was Harvey Wilcox’s wife Daeida who named that zone Hollywood. The most common story behind naming it states that Daeida met a woman on a train who eloquently described her home that was named

Hollywood. Daeida Wilcox, mesmerized by the description, conferred the name on her husband’s zone. Their area, Hollywood, laid down between Whitley Avenue to the east,

Gower to Hollywood Boulevard to the north, Whitley to the west and South to Sunset. This area was characterized by its alluring and gorgeous fields and orchards. The status of

Hollywood was further consolidated when it became officially a Los Angeles district in 16

February 1910. From then on, it became mecca for movie studios and other capitalist investors and barons (17-19).

Hollywood developed out of this humble place to become the centre of movie production and studios (Fig. 1). In an article published by BBC “How the global box office is changing Hollywood”, Tom Brook suggested that “Hollywood is like an octopus with tentacles extending across the globe” (par. 1). It could not have achieved so without the twin combination of epoch- making events that synchronized the standardized modus of operandi.

In reference to the first factor i.e. the historical events, Professor Marijke de Valck postulated that “Prior to World War I, France, Italy, Germany, the UK, and Denmark dominated the film market. After the war, the new American independents (who would later be named after the location for their new film production studios in Hollywood) began to acquire an almost irreversible grip on the European film markets” (Film Festivals 88).

The second factor, that concerns the methods of work, is elucidated in the lights of

Hollywood’s major studios genres that endorsed a miscellaneous of approaches to grease the wheels of progress. Film Festivals explicated that Movie Studios (Fig. 2) appropriated the strategies of Vertical integration, feature film, film stars, and block booking that ultimately encouraged them to export their movies at an international scale, keeping the spotlight glittering up till nowadays (89).

Fig. 1. View of Hollywood [graphic]. 1910. Los Angeles Public Library. Web 25 Feb. 2015.

Fig. 2. Metro Studios view [graphic]. 1920. Los Angeles Public Library. Web 25 Feb.2015.

B. Emergence of Hollywood

Hollywood is nothing more or less than the “Dream Factory”, a nonpareil phenomenon that compels people to gasp for more. Throughout history, Hollywood was and is still the icon of the American culture. To provide an incisive definition to Hollywood is not easily tractable. The Encyclopedia of Hollywood construed the term as “ … the capital of the movie world … Hollywood— also known as the Dream Factory and Tinsel Town—was never so much a place as a state of mind … the site of the world’s future film mecca” (201). A more divergent definition is provided by the highly acclaimed anthropologist Hortense

Powdermaker. She maintained in her book Hollywood: The Dream Factory10 that,

Hollywood is a dynamic word and not a cultural specificity. It depends on the cultural baggage a person assumes:

Hollywood is a unique American phenomenon with a symbolism not limited to

this country. It means many things to many people. For the majority it is the

home of favored, godlike creatures. For others, it is a … place where

mediocrity flourishes and able men sell their creative souls for gold; an

important industry with worldwide significance, or an environment of

trivialities characterized by aimlessness; a mecca where everyone is happy, or a

place where cynical disillusionment prevails (19).

The above mentioned definition alludes to think that Hollywood is not a phenomenon that evolved all of a sudden; however, it witnessed an undergoing procedural progress. In their Book Donald and Christopher argued that the advent of a series of inventions notably photography in 1826, George Eastman’s flexible Plastic base in 1888-1889, and Edison’s moving pictures 1894-1895, are pivotal for the expansion of movie industry (Silent years of

American cinema 1-2). In 1908, Tino Balio, and expert in film Industry, indicated in United

Artists that Thomas Edison constructed the Motion Picture Patent Company for one objective: 19 to monopolize the film industry. His company was constructed through a coalesce between

Edison Manufacturing Company and the American Mutoscope and Biograph Company. Both companies controlled the essential patents on motion picture film, cameras, and projectors for about three years (6).

Meanwhile, Independent Movie Firms struggled to withstand Edison’s challenge. The first step to face the challenge was to decentralize movie industry and move it from the East

Coast to Hollywood. In A History of American Movies, Paul Monaco asserts that

“Hollywood…became a place for making movies when Col. William Selig relocated his production company, Polyscope, there from Chicago in 1909” Very soon, the famous director and movie producer D. W. Griffith left Edison’s Company and went to Los Angeles, over a span of one year i.e. in 1915 he released his controversial movie The Birth of a Nation (3-4).

Movie Producers like Griffith, Selig and others knew that California was one of its kind at all levels. Paul observed denoted that it was a multi-faceted terrain with green pastures, mountains and sandy beaches. A sanctuary to escape from the burdens of Edison’s trust, and most importantly it was far away from the political, economic and notably cultural pressures of the American culture (History of American Movies 4).

With the demise of MPPC in 1917 “… Hollywood was acknowledged as the centre of motion picture land …” (Addison 34). Independent movie industries began to put down roots in Hollywood. The highly acclaimed studios were recognized as the “The Big Five” that entail within its ties: Paramount (1914), 20th Century Fox (1914), Warner Brothers (1920),

Metro Goldwyn Mayer (1924), and Radio-Keith-Orpheum.11 These Studios worked to reaffirm and refine cinematic production through the introduction of new standardized and methodical approaches to their industries. David Thompson Wrote that “THE MAJOR studios in the Golden Age of Hollywood owed their position to vertical integration: they did not only 20 control production, but also distribution companies and the cinemas where their films were shown” (par. 19). The book Media Industries: History, Theory, and Method demonstrated a keen observation of film industry at that time. Claiming that improvements in movie industry of the 1920s were by dint of three macro-Industrial biases, Oligopoly 12 which implies that, in this case, movie production is absorbed only by few powerful industries. Vertical Integration, which means that the production, distribution and exhibition of movies are attributed to one company. And production control, that comprises the regular outflow of products in the marketplace (Jennifer and Perren).

By far, the best illustration of this is to be found in Prof. Victor Tremblay’s book

Industry and Firm Studies where he maintained that the upmost example of vertical integration was Paramount Distribution Company which was sold to Lasky Studio. In 1919, they vertically integrated with theaters. At first, they obtained 300 theatres later in 1920 they acquired 600 theatres. The forthcoming years have exalted the operation of such strategies

(186). Another illustrious example is to be shown in the following table:

Table 1: Theatre ownership by the Top Five Major Distributors, 1945:

Source: Conant, Michael. Anti Trust in the Motion Picture Industry, Economic and Legal Analysis. Berkeley: U of California P, 1960. 49. Web. 23 Mar, 2015.

Indeed, the Big Five Studios’ success is perceptible and extravagant. A quantitative illustration is provided by Jill Nelmes who conjectured that the major studios relished 70% of

Michael Conant

Éditeur : Berkeley : University of California Press, 1960.

21 the first run movie houses in the U.S., and flamboyant earnings estimated by 75% (Film

Studies 7). In spite of that, a legal mission was launched by the federal system to break up

Oligopoly to preserve small and burgeoning businesses and grant fair competition among industries through the Sherman Anti Trust act.16 The supreme court of the United States formally put it in United States v. Paramount Pictures that:

The suit was instituted by the United States under § 4 of the Sherman Act to

prevent and restrain violations of it. The defendants … : (1) Paramount

Pictures, Inc., Loew’s, Incorporated, Radio-Keith-Orpheum Corporation,

Warner Bros. Pictures, Inc., Twentieth Century-Fox Film Corporation …The

complaint charged that the producer defendants had attempted to monopolize

and had monopolized the production of motion pictures … It charged that the

vertical combination of producing, distributing, and exhibiting motion pictures

by each of the five major defendants violated § 1 and § 2 of the Act. (140-141)

The Supreme Court’s decision was not decisive and the Court was adjourned. The

Attorney General Clark stated that the court’s decision will be bequeathed to the District

Court to arbitrate the conviction of the Movies Studios (United States v. Paramount Pictures

181).

Despite all the encountered problems, Hollywood as a system succeeded in conceiving a reputable legacy that was evoked in the Roaring Twenties and protracted clout in the present times. The first striking legacy was ingrained in “The Beverly Hills Hotel” (Fig. 3). In 1900s,

Burton Green, an oil investor, along with his co-founders purchased a ranch in Los Angeles

County which they called Beverly Hills. These investors intentionally came for oil exploration, however, instead of oil they found water. Green knew that water equals community, this is why he wanted to take advantage of water and the green pastures to establish the Rodeo Land and Water Company to invest in the lands. His efforts of 22 establishing a community were culminated with establishing the Beverly Hills Hotel in 1912

(Wanamaker 17).

In 1912, the hotel opened with an impact that cannot be measurable. Norma Zager suggested in Erin Brockovich and the Beverly Hills Greenscam that “The Beverly Hills Hotel, or “Pink Palace”, quickly became the social centre of the city’s elegant lifestyle and the place for movie stars and moguls to be seen” (139). Its reputation was much more consolidated when superstars began to sell land near the hotel. In 1919, Mary Pickford and Douglas

Fairbanks settled near the hotel in their Pickfair (Bible et al. 93).

Another remarkable monument is as gigantic as its owner, the Mogul William Randolph

Hearst who built the “Hearst Castle” also referred to as “San Simeon” (Fig.4) named after the town where it was constructed Sana Simeon, San Luis Obispo, California. The castle was built between 1922 and 1939 costing more than $30 million what equals $277 million today

(Capel and Wendy 67). The book Frommer’s USA expressed that Hearst Castle cannot be juxtaposed to any other fascinating architectural designs. The Castle reveals nothing but the glamorousness of the Mediterranean revival style (David Baird et al 863). Michael Cervin further explored the castle’s structure with astounding numbers “38 bedrooms, 61 bathrooms,

19 sitting rooms, and 41 fire places, all housed in 90.080- square foot complex of buildings: a massive main house and three guest cottage ranging in size from 2200 to 5800 square feet…there are two swimming pools, tennis courts, a private 200 an airship … movie theatre

…” (Cambria and San Simeon).

The Hollywood’s Golden Age Documentary maintained that Hearst castle’s sides have an amazing view of the sun, mountains and beaches. His mistress actress Marion Davies was the catalyst: under her, the castle was more zealous and gratifying. Celebrities like Carol

Lambark, Charlie Chaplin, and Mary Pickford were usual guests. The Los Angeles Times has reported in an article “Hearst Castle’s Julia Morgan is the first women to win AIA’s gold 23 medal” that the American Institute of Architecture’s gold medal of 2014 is going to the famous Architect Julia Morgan who designed Heart’s Castle (par. 1-2).

The last worth mentioning landmark was the “Grauman’s Chinese theatre” (Fig. 5). Sid

Grauman was known for being fond of the Chinese art. Prior to establishing the hotel, he scrutinized around 20 000 images and photographs of the Chinese Architecture and spent nearly $5 million, and $2 on original Chinese sculptures (Forsher). Richard Verrier reported in “Grauman’s Chinese Theatre” that originally it was built by Sid Grauman and financed by

1920s famous actors Mary Pickford and Douglas Fairbanks. After one year of construction, the theatre opened in 1927 with the premiere Cecil B. DeMille’s movie The King of Kings.

The same writer provided a clear description of the theatre “ One of Hollywood’s most iconic landmarks [a] 6 multiplex, located in the adjacent Hollywood and High retail mall … Known for its giant, red Chinese pagoda, signature Chinese dragon guard dogs at the entrance and cement block footprint and hand prints of famous Hollywood figures …” (par. 1-3).

What this theatre is famous for is quite bizarre. According to Laura E. Davis, when Sid

Grauman along with actresses Norma Talmadge and other actors visited the hotel which was under construction, Norma accidentally stepped in the wet Cement. Grauman seized the opportunity of establishing the hall of fame where every superstar is going to print his hand and foot on the cement (“Handprint in Hollywood” par. 2).

Conclusion

To conclude with, long after these fascinating landmarks’ construction, their establishment is for sure not a pure coincidence. However, they are a socio-cultural representation of their milieu, a concrete testimony of an architectural creativity that assisted and insured the perpetual advancement of Hollywood. As much as this section was about, tackling the subject of The Jazz Age and Hollywood is not about investigating the past, but is 24 about giving a thorough examination to a revolutionary Cultural change that marked a platform which underlay whatever means necessary to achieve the inescapable future of the

U.S. that we are witnessing nowadays.

Fig. 3. Beverly Hills Hotel aerial view [graphic]. 1924. Los Angele Public Library. Web. 12 Mar. 2015.

Fig. 4. William R. Hearst’s Castle, San Simeon, California. 1947. Library of Congress. Web. 12 Mar. 2015.

Fig.5. Hollywood, Grauman’s Chinese, opening night. 1927. Library of Congress. Web. 12. Mar. 2015

Section two: The Jazz Age in Hollywood

Introduction

The process of chronicling the mutual relations between a vigorous Age and a uniquely

American phenomenon that existed at the same period of time purveys a state of uncertainty of whether Hollywood did really embody The Jazz Age’s prospects or not. To explain the nature of the relationship between them, one can look at the nature of Hollywood, whether it is a product of culture, or a phenomenon that is produced by culture. Examining the different movies that were released during the Jazz Age may lead to a clear understanding of the matter. This section, then, strives to demonstrate the status of Hollywood in the American culture, and how it evolved to be the forefront source of entertainment in the Twentieth

Century.

A. Hollywood and Culture: a problematic issue

The nature of Hollywood was addressed by many scholars who appropriated either poles of the subject, whether Hollywood is a cultural production or it produces culture. philosopher and historian Walter Benjamin in his remarkable essay “The Work of Art in the

Age of Mechanical Reproduction” argued that Hollywood is a production of culture. The origins of mechanical reproduction date back to earliest arts such as stamping and lithography14 in the primitive ages which facilitated to illustrate everyday life and contain nothing that is beyond the scope of nature. Then, with the development of printing and photography, the pace of mechanical reproduction was advanced. In a more modern age with the synchronization of photography and sound, the world has witnessed very sophisticated techniques of reproduction (217-220).

A movie, like any other arts, is an approach toward mechanical reproduction of the histories and traditions. However, it surpasses them in its ability to display some features that 27 may not be at the reach of the audience’s natural vision. The audience undeniably is aware of what to absorb, but this cannot downplay the role of movies in spreading particular ideologies and ideas (Ibid). For instance, the movie of The Birth of nation (1915) was a biography of the

KKK, despite the fact that it was considered as a racial terrorist group. When it was released,

Americans re-evaluated their opinion, and many of them have joined the Clan. Other examples, The Titanic (1997), Enemy at the Gates (2001), Troy (2004), Alexander the Great

(2004), 300 (2006), are all legendary epic movies that elucidate the past histories in a memorable fashion.

In a sharp contrast with Walter, Critics Max Horkheimer and Theodor Adorno appropriated the other side of discussion. In Dialectic of Enlightenment, both writers noted that entertainment in the U.S. is another faceted totalitarian regime like Germany in both

World Wars. Movies are an industry that transcends its artistic form to engender unprecedented values that are beyond the contemplation and scrutiny, and are took for granted among the masses. For example:

The way in which the young girl accepts and performs the obligatory date, the

tone of voice used on the telephone and in the most intimate situations, the

choice of words in conversation, indeed, the whole inner life

compartmentalized according to the categories of vulgarized depth psychology,

bears witness to the attempt to turn oneself into an apparatus meeting the

requirements of success, an apparatus which even in its unconscious impulses,

conforms to the model presented by the culture industry. (Horkheimer and

Adorno 136)

So, with a dissimilar opinion with Walter Benjamin’s assertion which denoted that the camera presents nothing that is beyond the ordinary everyday life … etc. Horkheimer and

Adorno contemplated that a film is not an artistic form that bears the duty of merely 28 exhibiting the common. However, it works to construct particularly younger generation beliefs and inclinations. As an illustration, the BBC documentary Hollywood Lost Screen

Goddess pronounced that the Roaring Twenties were paralleled with equal development with new fashions like cosmetics (Diamond). Max Factor, a cosmetic technician, did much to change famous actress Clara Bow’s style, the color and the shape of her hair, her eyebrows.

As a result, many fans applauded the change and began themselves to consume cosmetics

(Ibid). So, in the process of watching, the audience does not criticize as Walter contends but appropriate what they see in their real life. Horkheimer and Adorno claimed that: “film denies its audience any dimension in which they might roam freely in imagination––contained by the film’s framework unsupervised by its precise actualities––without losing the thread; thus it train those exposed to it to identify film directly with reality” (100).

When examining both sides, at the first sight it seems that Walter’s view is as right as

Horkheimer and Adorno’s view. This is what Derrida’s theory suggests that there is no such idea that is more true than the other.15 When examining the first view of Walter, we can say that for instance, The American dream is part of the American Culture. Hollywood adopted this notion and intensified it in movies like The Pursuit of Happyness (2006), The Devil

Wears Prada (2006). From the other side, Hollywood also conceived new ideas and possibilities. Actress Mary Pickford revolutionized themes of the movies, she created a new woman, the charming, and romantic Victorian one was changed to a vulnerable, tough woman who fights back (Williams, Mary Pickford Documentary) Thus, Hollywood is a system that draws upon society and makes it up.

In this sense, Hollywood embraced a complex amalgamation of appropriating culture, and genuine creativity. Addison’s Heather book seems to reconcile both Walter and

Horkheimer-Adorno views. She asserted that Hollywood is not only an industrial system that magnetize social ideas and display them. However, it generates new concerns such as diet, 29 fashion, physical glamorousness and notoriously youthfulness, cosmetics and outdoor sports that are disclosed by famous stars such as Douglas Fairbanks, Clara Bow, and Gloria

Swanson (Hollywood and Culture 1, 29, 30).

Indeed, this view seems to be neutral because the Jazz Age movies encircle a variety of genre filmmaking. This diversification was due to rising population about 106,021,537 in

192024; therefore, movie producers knew that they have to adjust films to fit the wider public tastes. The book Guide to the Silent Years of American Cinema delved systematically in this issue. It specified that there was a lot of experimentation with themes during the Twenties.

Mainly, the historical epic, social consciousness drama, adventure, crime and gangsters, modern period romance and comic drama were common themes. For example, The Way

Down East (1920), Flaming Youth (1923), The Perfect Flapper (1924), were typical examples of modern women of the Jazz Age. The Birth of a Nation (1915) was the famous historical epic in the history of American cinema. Manslaughter was Cecil B. DeMille’s famous Social

Drama. Dancing Mothers (1926) was the important social conscious drama that represented the dysfunction of the family. Underworld (1927) was the typical example of gangsters and crimes. Adventure movies were typified with famous actor Douglas Fairbanks’ movies such as The Thief of Bagdad (1924) and The Black Pirate (1926). And Finally, The Gold Rush

(1926) was the finest comedy of Charlie Chaplin (Jacobs and McCffrey 306-307, 309).

When studying these movies in the lights of Walter Benjamin’s theory that asserts that

Hollywood is a mechanical reproduction of culture, there is much to say about the issue.

Among hundreds of movies, The Jazz Singer (1927) was a clear manifestation of the clash between the old and the new in the Roaring Twenties, an element that assimilates the age until its demise. Therefore, the next part is going to put into question Walter, Adorno and

Horkheimer theories through analyzing the movie of The Jazz Singer and It.

B. The Jazz Age in The Eyes of Hollywood

The Jazz Singer, a Warner Bros. film directed by Alan Crosland and Al Jolson as the main character Jack Robin. Prior to 1927, all the movies that were released were silent, the premiere of The Jazz Singer on October 6, 1927, marked the advent of talkies.17 The film is about Jack Robin, a son of a Jew, who decided to go against the will of his father of becoming a cantor, and choosing instead to become a Jazz Singer. The movie typically reveals an important ingredient of the Jazz Age which is the departure from the certainties of tradition to embrace the new. Jack seemed to allude to Fitzgerald’s opinion about this issue when he stated “for one thing, I do not like old people–– They are always talking about their own experience, and very few of them have any! But it is the old folks that run the world; so they try to hide the fact that only young people are attractive or important” (Fitzgerald 16). Jack also seemed to mistrust his father’s superannuated view of the present, when he confronted his father (Fig. 6). Jack claimed that “You are of the old world, if you were born here, you’d feel the same I do, Tradition is all right, but this is another day, I’ll Live my life as I see it”

(Crosland, The Jazz Singer).

Jack did not have an interest in his father’s rationale, instead he was committed to his dream. He defied his father and the whole society with an unstoppable marathon of work that granted him at the end a performance in Broadway Avenue, New York. The movie’s climax was a challenge to Jack’s commitment to his dream. He was at the crossroads between the shades of the past and the roar of the present. On the D-Day, while Jack was preparing for the performance, his mother showed up stating that his father is dying, and he must replace him in

Synagogue to perform Kol Nidre.18Jack pronounced that “It’s a choice between giving up the biggest chance of my life––and breaking my mother’s heart–– I have no right to do either”

(Crosland, The Jazz Singer). Jack, only to please his mother, sang on the Atonement the Kol

Nidre, but he has never abandoned his dream to be a popular Jazz Singer (Fig. 7). 31

The structure of the movie was crucial to the evolvement of its plot. It was built on the

Aristotelian-type logic i.e. the beginning of the movie reveals Jack singing in a saloon, followed by a religious scene of Yom Kippur and performing the Kol Nidre. And it ends up with Kol Nidre in the Synagogue followed by a Jazz Song (Jonathan 24). Many associations have praised the movie for its depiction of the events. Professor Charles Musser argued in

“Why Did Negroes Love Al Jolson and The Jazz Singer?” that “The weekly American

Hebrew” greeted Al Jolson’s sentimental performance and applauded the Kol Nidre. Equal reaction was received from African American Newspapers which reported that the Black race had great emotional reactions to the movie (198).

One day after the movie’s release, Mordaunt Hall reported in The New York Times that the story of the movie is similar to Al Jolson’s life, the actor who performed Jack Robin. And that the father-son clash appealed to the audience because it is something they could sense. Al

Jolson seemed to have and intimate relationship with the movie. He stated to the Saturday

Evening Post that:

The Jazz Singer appealed to me more than any other role because it was a story

of my own experiences. I was reliving part of my own life—my early

environment and upbringing, my refusal to follow in my father’s footsteps and

become a Rabbi, my unbreakable preoccupation with singing and acting. As I

started making the picture in 1927, I was thrilled by the fact that it was to be the

first picture to have singing in it, but I didn’t dream that it would also introduce

dialogue to the screen …. (qtd in. Monaco 25)

The Jazz Singer assimilated Walter Benjamin’s assumption. However, this does not mean to downplay Horkheimer and Adorno View. The It movie (1927) provided new heroin propensities. Clara Bow advertisement and exhibition of her personal view of the Flapper, is a clear example of engendering new social dimensions and possibilities particularly for women. 32

Fig. 6. Jack Robin, Originally Jackie Robinwitz, stand up to his dream to become a Jazz Singer, His father is ashamed about his choice, questioning why he wanted to change his family’s patrimony of becoming a Cantor in Synagogue. Warner Bros. Picture, The Jazz Singer 1927.

Fig. 7. The End of the movie, Jack is performing the Jazz Song, after performing the Kol Nidre in the Synagogue. Warner Bros. Picture, The Jazz Singer 1927.

It a particular movie story produced by Paramount Picture, directed by Clarence

Badger, and performed by the legendary actress Clara Bow. The film transcends the old cultural canon and presents itself as a paradigm that typifies the female’s contemplation about their character. The title is so controversial, despite being short, it bears many meanings. It refers to “that quality possessed by some which draws all others with it magnetic force. With

It you win all men if you are a woman–– and all women if you are a man. It can be a quality of the mind as well as a physical attraction” (Badger, It). This fashionable quality was personified through Betty Lou Spence a sale girl in Mr. Waltham’s Shop store, the new boss whom she adored from the first sight. The movie is centered on the poor Betty’s attempt to win both the attention and love of Mr. Waltham. To achieve so, the heroin revolutionized women’s perception of romance through the changing status quo towards that issue. In the old times, it was customary that men strive for women, however, Betty Lou reversed that code

(Fig. 8) through her tactic that entails looking, desiring, and pursuing without any cultural restraint (Oregon 87).

Indeed, looking extremely close at Betty’s Lou character reveals her audacious character that lacks propriety. Through the movie, we see how she beholds her dream with great eagerness that surpasses any cultural, not to mention religious, boundaries. For instance, she exaggerated with uncovering her sexual and seductive propensities that compel the audience to question her sense about public sphere decorum, an element that characterized and is exceptionally associated to punctilious women. Thus, Betty did not just portray the new women, but rather overdosed and injected her new brand of immodesty. Marsha Orgeron opined in “Making It in Hollywood” that:

Female desire is legitimized through Betty Lou’s persona of the unabashed

modern woman. In her behavior, Betty Lou, as a model for the female

spectator, constitutes the triumph of feminine independence over the

constraints of class and culture ... It is far from a documentary reflection of 34

some new American sexual liberation. Rather, the film provided an opportunity

for women to fantasize about engaging in rule-shattering behavior, to identify

with a fantastical sexual identity that was simply impossible for the vast

majority of women. (83)

Betty’s sexual appeal was one step on the road. Gaining the interest of her boss was her perplexity. She had to face her social situation and Waltham’s high standards of the upper class.

One day she managed to dine with Monty, Waltham’s Cyrus friend, at the Ritz where her boss was there. She struggled first to devise the dating dress, and after that to accommodate herself to bourgeoisies protocol in the Hotel. Here, we are shown that the sale’s girl attempts were not gone in vain hope, instead they gained her Mr. Waltham consideration.

Adorno and Horkheimer proclaimed that: “Film and radio no longer need to present themselves as art. The truth that they are nothing but business is used as an ideology to legitimize the trash they intentionally produce” (95). Indeed this idea fits the It movie that strived to legitimize the changing nature of love. Through the movie, Betty is shown using any way to gain her objective, after all the ends justify the means. Far from using her sexual appeal, she took advantage of Monty’s relationship with Mr. Waltham. At first, it was Monty who showed affection to Betty, but instead of giving her affection back to Monty, she has chosen the hard way Mr. Waltham. She made use of Monty to go the Ritz, and to the yacht where Waltham was having a cruise. Second, Mr. Waltham was about to be engaged to Adela

Van Norman, who was everything Betty was not, rich and noble with high social standards.

Despite knowing about that, Betty did her best to not make this happen.

Legitimating uncommon aspects of women’s audaciousness was not sufficient as a new brand. The movie bore the duty of exhibiting the effectiveness of those aspects, through depicting Betty’s achievement of marrying the man she wants (Fig. 9). Thus, fostering a new aspect not socially made, but Hollywood’s made. 35

Fig. 8. Betty Lou cached Mr. Waltham for the first time. And astonishingly fell in love with him, and decided to pursue and get him. Paramount Pictures, It movie 1927.

Fig. 9. After many attempts, Betty Lou wins the love of Mr. Waltham. And ultimately get married to him. Paramount Picture, It movie 1927.

Dr. Marsha Orgeron examined the film significance through stating that “It participated in the construction of a public femininity that depended on women’s active satisfaction of their desires, an ideal that encouraged women to participate in the public sphere as consumers as well as commodities” (“Making It in Hollywood” 88). After the film’s release, Clara Bow received many mails from the young girls claiming that they learned a lot from her character, her style, how to relate to the opposite sex, how to behave on a date … etc. Because of Bow, the “Bob Red Cut” was very popular that every young girl wanted to appropriate it, this is why the henna sales have doubled (Diamond, Lost screen Goddess). Consequently, forging a new industry of hair shops, Michael Warner claimed that “Five years ago, there were 5,000 hairdressing shops in the United States; at the end of 1924 there were 21,000 established shops and several thousand transients” (“The Bob” ).

Having a closer look at the above mentioned views: Addison Heather’s assertion seems to be objective and accurate. When we move from the premise that Hollywood is an art with multi faced genres, just like the novel, we conclude that Hollywood makes and produces culture. Hollywood deals with diversified materials such as the Romantic, Horror, Action,

Drama, Fantasy, Thriller, Animation, and Science Fiction movies. Some of these films are based on a true story like: 127 Hours (2010), A Beautiful Mind (2001), Brave Heart (1995), and others are based on creativity and inventiveness like: Avatar (2009), Final Destination

(2000), Twilight (2008).19 So, it will be a bias to the nature of Hollywood to claim that its scopes are limited to a particular focal points, and if it is so, How could it be that it achieved such a global status as the forefront of entertainment in the world. Yuji Tosaka claimed in

Hollywood Goes To Tokyo that “the Hollywood cinema was perhaps the most visible and influential outpost of American culture in the interwar era, controlling most film markets and enacting the American way of life on the silver screen in crowded movie theaters in almost all corners of the world” (2). So, the subject matter of Hollywood transcends its nature as a production of culture or cultural production, to promote and advocate its triumph that was 37 inaugurated in the Twenties and still functioning in the modern times. Hollywood being it a cultural made or a self made industry, could establish itself as the dominant visual cultural institution that it is beyond assessment and cannot be juxtaposed to any other visual media and literary associations. This extract provides a thorough examination of the matter “… although the printed media, such as books, newspapers and magazines were the first manifestation of the industrialization of cultural production, they had relatively low tradability… Audiovisual media, especially film, in contrast, proved more suitable for engaging and appealing to a broader audience (qtd. in Donders et al. 480).

In the U.S., the status of Hollywood received recurrent recessions many times. But cinema turnouts remained soaring from its initiation during the Jazz Age. People found it thrilling because it was a coming of age phenomenon. Mary Norton in A People & A Nation quantifies the stature of Cinema claiming that “In 1922 movies attracted 40 million viewers weekly; by decade’s end the number neared 100 million—at a time when the nation’s population was 120 million and total weekly church attendance was 60 million” (696). The same position of movies is granted in the modern times: nearly 7.5 billion worldwide people watch movies a year (Roque 6).

The technological developments enabled movie’s fan to watch their movies at any time with a profusion of possibilities like Internet, Smartphone, Tablet, and Online Video. A particular interest in the U.S. cinema reveals a reputable position among other approaches of entertainment. The UNESCO survey examined cinema attendance in the U.S. in comparison to the top countries in 2005-2011, in both cases the population attendance swings between the top first and the second ranks (19). The following table further illustrates the top countries with a remarkable audience frequent presence in cinema:

Table 2: Frequency of attendance per capita (Population aged between 5-79 years) for the top 10 countries for film attendance, 2005-2011:

Source: González, Roque. “Emerging Markets and the Digitalization of Film Industry.” UNESCO: 20. August 2013. PDF file

Conclusion

To conclude with, the Jazz Age is known as the Golden Twenties of American cinema.

This era witnessed stimulating new inventions and trends in all aspects. It was Golden as everyone seemed to have money and determined to enjoy their lives at max. The rise of speakeasies, Talkies, and Jazz Saloons opened further possibilities for entertainment in the

U.S. With the establishment of Hollywood during this age, the new emerging American culture began to swell at both a national and international levels. Therefore, Hollywood granted a reputable international position due to the exportation of its movies. The polemic position of Hollywood towards the issue of culture, and particularly Jazz Age, urges for an in depth consideration of the issue. Accordingly, the next Chapter will deal with the movie of

The Great Gatsby that was released in 2013 and seems to be an accurate example to trace the interdependence of both phenomena. The examination and the analysis of the movie will provide clearer completions. 39

Endnotes

1. There are different numbers provided by different sources, therefore, this information is provided by: Mougel, Nadège. “World War I casualties.” Trans. Julie Gratz. CVCE: N.P,

2010-2011. 5. PDF file.

2. For the discussion of the major costs of World War One and the financial contributions by countries consult: Daggett, Stephen. “Costs of Major U.S. Wars.” June 29, 2010. RS22926.

CRS Report for Congress: 2. PDF file.

3. Normalcy: was the speech delivered by President Warren Harding in the elections of 1920s.

Normalcy’s prime concern was economic: Unemployment, reducing the federal expenditures, tax reforms, abridging regulations in business were the main target of the agenda. Indeed the success of his agenda was manifested through the economic and financial growth. For further details see: Allen, Frederick Lewis. “Harding and the Scandals.” Only Yesterday: An Informal

History of the 1920’s. New York: John Wiley & Sons, 1997. N. pag. PDF file.

4. The Jazz Music: is what characterized the era between 1920 to 1929, evolved from mixed origins of African and European. Generally it uses Saxophone and Trombone instruments. Its importance lies in changing the structure of a hierarchical society: The Afro-American for the first time emerged to contribute to the formation of a culture. Currell, Sue. “Music.” American

Culture in the 1920s. Edinburgh: Edinburgh UP, 2009. 71-78. PDF file

5. There are different numbers provided by different sources, therefore, this number is provided by: Reevs, Thomas C. Twentieth-Century America a Brief History. New York:

Oxford UP, 2000. 85-86. PDF file.

6. An experiment noble in purpose: is a famous saying by Herbert Hoover on the 18th

Amendment. However, some sources stated that Hoover denied the saying, claimed that, by noble experiment he meant that Prohibition was a great economic and social experiment with noble motives. Boller, Paul, and John George. They never said it: A book of Fake Quotes,

Misquotes, and Misleading Attributions. Oxford UP: NY, 1989. 47-48. Web. 14 Mar. 2015. 40

7. The Birth of a Nation was a controversial biographical movie of the KKK. It emotionally depicted the southern men as the patriot defendants of their community in the south. After its release the Clan grew in membership particularly in Ohio and Indiana. Monaco, Paul. A

History of American Movies. UK: Scarecrow P, Inc, 2010. 8. PDF file.

8. There further details and explanations about the Wall Street Crash in “The Wall Street

Crash and Depression.” USA 1919 - 1941. BBC GCSE Bitesize, n.d. Web. 22 Feb. 2015.

9. The Golden State: is the Nickname of the State of California. It is called as such because of two reasons: the firstly, in the process of mining miners found gold during the 1800s in the state. And secondly, because of the popularity of the golden poppies (type of flower) in the state. For further reading see: McAuliffe, Emily. California Facts and Symbols. Minnesota:

Capstone P, 1998. 7. Web. 08 Feb. 2015.

10. Hollywood: The Dream Factory is Hortense Powdermaker first distinguished anthropological work that deals with Hollywood and moviemaking. For further readings consult Hortense work and Jill Cherneff article “Dreams are made like this: Hortense

Powdermaker and the Hollywood film Industry.”

11. It is not worthy to say that the founders of these studios are Jews whether immigrants or originally Americans. For more information about the establishment and the development of the major studios you may consult: Encyclopedia of Hollywood second edition. MGM: p 278.

Paramount: p 309. Twentieth Century Fox: p 433. RKO: p 341.Warner Brother: p 447.

12. Oligopoly: “is a market having few firms (but more than one firm) on the supply side and a very large number of buyers on the demand side each of whom make a negligible contribution to the market demand function.” This definition is extracted from: Friedman,

James. Oligopoly Theory. New York: Cambridge U P, 1987. 1. Web. 14 Feb. 2015.

13. The Sherman Anti Trust Act: it is an act passed by the U.S. Congress to prohibit construction trusts (A group of companies that work together illegally to reduce competition, 41 control prices, etc). It was named before its initiator Senator John Sherman. For further readings consult: infoplease.com. Web. 12 Feb. 2015.

14. Lithography: It is process that was pioneered by Alois Senefelder in 1798. Oxford defined the term as such “the process of printing from a smooth surface, for example a metal plate that has been specially prepared so that ink only sticks to the design to be printed.” Hornby, Albert

Sidney. “Lithography.”Oxford Advanced Learner’s Dictionary. Ed. Patrick Phillips, Ben

Francis, Suzanne Webb, and Victoria Bull. 8th ed. 2010. Print.

15. Derrida’s Theory: It is a theory developed by Jacques Derrida that downplays the classical canon of establishing a centralized truth, and proclaiming that the truth is relative. For an In depth reading see Derrida’s influential book, Of Grammatology.

16. This number surpassed any previous demographic developments with a rate of about 17 million increases between 1920 and 1930. This information is provided by The U.S. Census

Bureau. Web 5 Mar. 2015.

17. Talkies: is a name dubbed for the movies that were synchronized with Sound, the feature was developed first by Warner Bros., and later on by Fox Film Corporation. For an analysis see: Monaco, Paul. A History of American Movies. U.S.: Scarecrow P, 2010. 17-18. PDF file.

18. Kol Nidre: is considered as the best known hymn that Jews perform on Yom Kippur (Day of the Atonement), the most sacred day in the Jewish year. Hammer, Reuven. A Complete

Guide to the History, Prayer, and themes. U.S.A.: The Jewish Publication Society, 1998. 107-

119. Google Books. Web. 10 Mar. 2015.

19. The classification of these movies is provided by the famous Internet Movie Database imdb.com. Web. 10 Mar. 2015.

Chapter II

“NICK: Jay ... You can’t repeat the past. GATSBY: Can’t repeat the past? NICK: No. GATSBY: Why of course you can. Of course you can. You’ll see. I am going to Fix things just the way there were before. Everything’s been so ... so confused since then ....” The Great Gatsby 2013

Section one: An Overview of F. Scott Fitzgerald and The Great Gatsby

Introduction

F. Scott Fitzgerald was a notable commentator of the Jazz Age. He wrote many literary works that are regarded as a testimony of their time. Among lots of his novels, The

Great Gatsby is the highly acclaimed novel of the 20th century. In 2015, the novel celebrated its 90th anniversary; despite that it is the much over-studied, scrutinized novel that still intrigues readers. This section deals with Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby and its aftermath.

A. F. Scott Fitzgerald

Francis Scott Key Fitzgerald known among many scholars as “The laureate of the Jazz

Age” is noted for his American works that does not exceed the scopes of the American culture and are regarded with delight to be sensational records of their era (Mizener 66). The good- looking young man with blond hair and blue eyes was born on September 24, 1896 in St.

Paul, Minnesota to catholic parents Edward Fitzgerald and Mary McQuillan Fitzgerald. The controversial character of Fitzgerald appealed to many scholars. Though his start was so humble, he achieved success in the 1920s. Unfortunately, he has gone through a relapse in his last years during the 1930s (Shain F. Scott Fitzgerald).1

It is the fate of every writer to experience recurrent recessions before achieving the destined dream and then over again fall into a deep and long lasting slump. This idea 43 corresponds well with F. Scott Fitzgerald’s mercurial life that engendered an amalgam of obsessions with literature, aspiration, Princeton University, Zelda Fitzgerald, and alcohol. In his review of “F. Scott Fitzgerald and the Art of Social Fiction” George M. Spangler argued that the historical as well as the cultural aspects remarkably: his youth in St. Paul, his catholic religious affiliation, his struggle with middle class and aristocratic values, and the moral vigour of the 1920s are defining elements that shaped the literature of Fitzgerald which was an outlet to escape the burdens of reality (521).

Fitzgerald’s literary apprenticeship began from 1908-1911 when he attended the St.

Paul academy where he published his earliest work The Mystery of the Raymond Mortage to the school newspaper when he was only 13. His career as a writer was anticipated when he entered the Newman School, from 1911-1913, where he produced a couple of works notably three stories and a poem to the school newspaper, and plays for Elizabethan dramatic club in

St. Paul. In his controversial work the Ledger he described the 1913 as the year of work and vivid experience. It was during this year that he attended Princeton University. Despite that,

Fitzgerald did not pertain to the academic profession ship, but Princeton endowed the necessary materials for his writings. Through his extensive readings, he began to shape his literary cognizance, he produced versatile materials from musical lyrics for the triangle club, as well as some works to the Princeton magazine and the Nassan literary magazine (Tate 3-4).

Fitzgerald’s character and social background shaped his stature as a writer. It was during his childhood that he nurtured his “inferiority complex” as he belonged to the middle class with Catholic affiliation: both elements were regarded as offensive during the Jazz Age

(Shain 9-10). Fitzgerald’s consciousness of his condition compelled him to convert his social as well as his religious kinship. By any means, The Roaring Twenties were a time of exaggeration where the poor were alienated in favor of Darwin’s social theory of “Natural

Selection” and the “Survival to fittest”2. The implementation of such theories pushed people 44 to crazily plunge in the lavish lifestyle that was all about buying stocks, having money, purchasing Ford cars, dancing the Charleston, and violating the norms of Prohibition. Arthur

Mizener argued that Fitzgerald was the poorest boy in a rich boy school of Newman, aware of that fact he wrote the Basil Lee stories that recreates “the emotional tensions and social conflicts of middle class childhood and youth” (“Fitzgerald and the American Life” 69).

Catholicism was also a noted social stigma. Though there were about 23 million

Catholics, a notable number that generated nothing, but anti catholic hatred particularly from the nativist the KKK (Greenberg 307). Consequently, as Shain displayed: Fitzgerald abandoned Catholicism earlier when he was a child, he maintained regarding this issue that

“the boys in my street still thought that Catholics drilled in the cellar every night with the idea of making Pius the Ninth autocrat of this republic” this is why when we trace the history of

Scott we find that he was not a devout catholic even in a catholic school. In 1919, he wrote to his friend Edmund Wilson that Catholicism “was scarcely more than a memory” (F. Scott

Fitzgerald 10).

There are many critics who culminated that Fitzgerald personal life does overlap with his literary works. Charles Shain argued that “[Fitzgerald] used himself so mercilessly in his fiction, there is often such a complete fusion between his life and his stories … ” (6). This is why we find that his central interest in his works is “The Rich”, since he was a middle class creation he wanted so eagerly to echo the visions of The Jazz Age that was all about the upper class. For example Fitzgerald wrote in one of his short stories The Rich Boy:

Let me tell you about the very rich. They are different from you and me. They

possess and enjoy early, and it does something to them, makes them soft where

we are hard, and cynical where we are trustful, in a way that, unless you were

born rich, it is very difficult to understand. They think, deep in their hearts, that

they are better than we are because we had to discover the compensations and 45

refuges of life for ourselves. Even when they enter deep into our world or sink

below us, they still think that they are better than we are. (3)

The book F. Scott Fitzgerald provided a clear and sharp view of Fitzgerald and his relation to his environment maintaining that Fitzgerald was the victim of the 1920s. Both the newly born material culture and the formal establishment of what “Celebrity” meant affected his personal as well as his literary life. He wanted so bitterly to have money, this zealous feeling was aggravated when Zelda refused his proposal because he did not have enough money. In 1920, he published This Side of Paradise, the novel was a renowned success that granted him the luxurious life he aspired to and Zelda. After its publication “… the

Fitzgeralds courted public attention, and in that quest, the press was a strong ally in creating their public personas” (Prigozy 1).

Kirk Curnutt evinced that the nation views of the couple Scott and Zelda as

“cosmopolitan carousers” is linked directly to their ill-considered public demeanor. They engaged in adventurous bold attitudes “They rode down Fifth Avenue on the tops of taxis because it was hot or dove into the fountain at Union Square or tried to undress at the

[Broadway play] Scandals, or, in sheer delight at the splendor of New York, jumped dead sober, into the Pulitzer fountain in front of the Plaza.” These equivocal inclinations were by no means at odds to what Fitzgerald presumed as a commentator of the age through his works

(Introduction to F. Scott 19).

Despite the discrepancy between his mind and his life attitudes, the theme of bestowing the complexities of life and the collision of the binary Poor/Rich was the major theme in all his noteworthy novels. Jackson Bryer argued that Fitzgerald’s works engrossed and swallowed his interest to the material world. His semi-fictional works were the steed to freeing the poles of his genuine “Idealism” and “Reality”. His works mainly the “successful but somewhat sophomoric” This Side of Paradise (1920), “the strangely prophetically titled” 46

The Beautiful and the Damned (1922), “The perfect” The Great Gatsby (1925), Tender is the

Night (1934), and “the unfinished symphony” of The last Tycoon, were nothing but a pure manifestation of the disparity between morality and materiality (New Perspectives 4).

It is generally accepted among scholars that Fitzgerald’s manuscripts demonstrate his genuine craftsmanship. Among the techniques Fitzgerald used was to experiment with new subjects, themes, and techniques through writing stories to be later on refined and appropriated to the novels. The novels through the literary lens are not produced as “unified jumps” – except the perfect The Great Gatsby- i.e. Fitzgerald was not interested in the organization of the paragraphs or in the structure, it is the style that engrossed his pursuit to produce eloquent works. Thematically speaking, Fitzgerald’s literary works switch from the impact of class and money on morality, self determination, failure and success, desire and disappointment, dissolution and temptation, and over all the values of the 1920s (Curnutt 53).

B. The Great Gatsby

The Novel of The Great Gatsby is rated among scholars as the “Great American

Novel” that exhibits a fair merger between money, Love, and aspiration. It is a biographical criticism of the American life of the Twenties.

Charles Samuels argued that The Great Gatsby is a prodigious novel. The dimensions of its success are explained through “the power of its art” i.e. the splendorous language. The most notorious achievement of Fitzgerald in the novel is creating “Nick” the conscious voice to purvey a balance between the disputable convictions. The tone of the novel is manifested through Nick the narrator of the novel, it bears an amalgam of “moral censure”, “self protectiveness”, and sympathy (“The Greatness of Gatsby” 784-785).

The Great Gatsby tells the story through Nick’s memoire of some former events. In

June 1922 Nick Carraway visited his second cousin Daisy Buchanan and her husband Tom, 47 from there he heard some gossip about a mysterious gentleman Jay Gatsby. The novel was centered on Jay’s prime quest to renovate his love with Daisy, a love that he lost five years earlier. Attentive to Daisy’s affection to money, Gatsby pursued whatever means to secure a reputable position among the upper class to impress her. Gatsby though originally does not belong to the upper class, through illegal means he plunged in the mood of the 1920s, believing in a new start that would confer him his dream. Joyce Rowe argued in Equivocal

Endings in Classic American Novels that “Fitzgerald’s novel might be conceived as a latter- day meditation on that persistent American faith in the power of the individual to transcend his history, to create himself anew … ” (100). That new start he gasped for led him to expect a romantic wander and a social stature he constructed in his mind. But in reality, what he was, transcends Daisy’s affection to him. Tom called Gatsby “Mr. Nobody from Nowhere”3 generally the rich people are known among the mass population, but it was not the case for

Gatsby. This is why even when he dies, his death was a disgraceful one, since nobody knew him, none attended his funeral.

In the “Greatness of Gatsby” Samuel denoted that Jay Gatsby despite his attempts to accomplish the supposed “American Dream”, it was Daisy and Tom who adjudicated the matter. Jay and Myrtle-Tom’s lover- were both victimized by the selfish attitudes of Tom and

Daisy. It was Daisy who drove Gatsby’s car and killed Myrtle, but she denied that, and it was

Gatsby who paid off Daisy’s selfishness, and was killed by the end (787). Edwin Fussell provided an insightful analysis of the character of Jay Gatsby demonstrating that:

Gatsby, in other words, is more than pathetic, a sad figure preyed upon by the

American leisure class. The unreal values of the world of Tom and Daisy

Buchanan are his values too, they are inherent in his dream. Gatsby had always

lived in an imaginary world, where “a universe of ineffable gaudiness spun

itself out in his brain”; negatively, this quality manifests itself in a dangerous 48

tendency toward sentimental idealization …. (“Fitzgerald’s Brave New World”

297)

What Fitzgerald intended to do in his novel was to put into question the effectiveness of “The American Dream” and the “Pursuit of Happiness”. The novel starts by showing the corruption and the fade of the American Dream in modern America that was more inclined to the new notion of “the ends justify the means.”And it ends by releasing that “the dream is universally seductive and perpetually unreal” (Fussell 291).

The most notable comments on the novel appeared in the same year when it was published in 1925. Social critic H. L. Menken, and the famous poet T. S. Eliot were famous critics of the book. Menken stated in his review of the novel that The Great Gatsby is “a glorified anecdote” that is set on a Long Island that is characterized by its architectural grandeur and their orgiastic parties. When talking about the story he opined, we find that it is inconsequential, and that its stature is positioned only in Fitzgerald’s canon. However, not to down play Fitzgerald’s fiction, the novel asserts some archetypal artistic demonstrations:

What gives the story distinction is something quite different from the

management of the action or the handling of the characters; it is the charm and

beauty of the writing … The story, for all its basic triviality, has a fine texture,

a careful and brilliant finish. The obvious phrase is simply not in it. The

sentences roll along smoothly, sparklingly, variously. There is evidence in

every line of hard and intelligent effort. (par. 1.3.4)

T. S. Eliot comment on the novel is another momentous approval of Fitzgerald’s third novel. Caroline Lazo in F. Scott Fitzgerald: Voice of the Jazz Age propounded that there is a delightful amicable relationship between Eliot and Fitzgerald. Scott proclaimed Eliot as “the 49 greatest living poet”, and Eliot adored The Great Gatsby (96). In a letter to Fitzgerald, Eliot expressed his affection of the recently published novel stating that:

am not in the least influenced by your remark about myself when I say that it

has interested and excited me more than any new novel I have seen, either

English or American, for a number of years. When I have time I should like to

write to you more fully and tell you exactly why it seems to me such a

remarkable book. In fact it seems to me to be the first step that American

fiction has taken since Henry James …. (par.1)

Other critics have scrutinized Fitzgerald’s novel with praise and compliment. Charles

Thomas has argued that The Great Gatsby “is one of the few novels written in our language.

In concentration of meaning, nuance, and effect, there are few books in any language with which to compare it … The Great Gatsby is a novel for which a writer might give his life”

(784). Joyce Rowe has also eulogized the novel and he maintained that The Great Gatsby is not a story about a dramatic repulsion between social decency of how to succeed through the

American Dream, nor it is about a sensational record of the fallen world, it is a historical self conscious novel par excellence (Equivocal Endings 100).

Robert Luscher in his review argued that the novel is a “Photographic” representation of the mosaic Jazz Age. The Great Gatsby marketed “the cultural milieu of early modernism” that was all about a craze with fashion and appearance where the person’s identity is a

“marketplace place commodity”. It also bore the responsibility of representing the fluctuating

“cultural codes” that led ultimately to a shift between the past/ present, traditional/ modern

(“Gatsby and the Modern Times” 650). Indeed, this view appears to be plausible, critic

Maggie Combs throughout her analysis of the novel in How to Analyze the Works of F. Scott

Fitzgerald indicated that the novel is a prototype illustration of the ideals of the Jazz Age. 50

Customs of love and loose characters, the extensive consumption of alcohol, leisure and exuberant parties were common practices in the Roaring Twenties and in the novel (48).

Undeniably, Nick in The Great Gatsby was the observer of the events, He did not intended from the begging to delve in a mess that was erupted by his cousin and her husband

Tom. Like any American, Nick came to West Egg, New York to pursue his dreams, however, disappointed by the changing moral, social standards of the era, he returned his home. He argued that during that time costly parties are beyond conception, “In [Gatsby’s] blue gardens men and girls came and went like moths …” frequent parties lasted “between nine in the morning and long past midnight” gastronomy was of new interest the buffet tables were ornamented with liquor and cordials, salads of hors d’oeuvre, harlequin, and greasy food like pastry pgs. In the bar, the Jazz music was played so often, women whirled and danced with their short dresses and bobbed hair in an unfamiliar vogue … (Fitzgerald 26-27).

Despite the fact that many critics gave prominence to the novel when it was published, public reception of the novel marked a commercial failure. Professor Matthew Bruccoli argued that the sales of the novel were unsatisfactory, there were two printings: the first one with 20,870 and a second one on August with 3000 copies. In 1925, Fitzgerald captured only

$2,000, the same number he received for a short story he published in the Saturday Evening

Post. Both printings ironically earned Fitzgerald less than seven thousand dollars, thanks to the movie adaptation which earned him $16, 6664 (“The Craft of Fiction” xx).

Fitzgerald explicated the commercial failure and concluded that it was due to two main reasons. The first is that the title is “only fair”, and that the novel had no significant women character. He wrote to his friend Edmund Wilson that the upmost problem of the novel is that “I gave no account (and had no feeling about or knowledge of) the emotional relations between Gatsby and daisy from the time of their reunion to the catastrophe” (qtd. in

Bruccoli xxi). So, the general conception of the novel was not satisfactory and it was apparent 51 for Fitzgerald that his novel is dismissed from the popular interest. Budd Schulberg argues in

F. Scott Fitzgerald: New Perspectives that he met and worked with Mr. Fitzgerald on a movie script. He narrated that he told Scott how much he liked his novel Tender is the Night and The

Great Gatsby “He said I did not think anybody your age read any of those books. You know they are practically out of print … he kept saying I am surprised that anybody your age reads me anymore” (5-6). However, this undistinguished stature has changed by the time Fitzgerald passed away. Chain argued in F. Scott Fitzgerald that:

The general acceptance of Scott Fitzgerald into the ranks of serious and

ambitious American novelists had to wait until his death in 1940 … Before he

died he was dead as a writer. No one was buying his books though seven were

still in print. What has become clearer since his death in 1940 is a final irony,

at the expense not of Fitzgerald but of American literary culture: the neglect he

suffered during the 1930 was hugely undeserved. (5-6)

Despite his death some of Fitzgerald’s works are still a subject of speculation. The

American poet and scholar John Berryman opined that with the death of Scott it would be proper to leave him and his works adhering to their aura, The Jazz Age. Be that as it may “We have serious business with one or two of his books” his novel The Great Gatsby still allures readers simply because it satisfies them. The later acclaimed “Classic” costed Fitzgerald two serious issues: the first is the criticism which ironically rescued his reputation. The second issue is “his sense of reality” i.e. he could no more write verisimilitude literature (103, 111).

The Great Gatsby is regarded as a prominent Classic in the literary as well as the historical spheres of the U.S. Bannister and Wells in Teaching American History Through the

Novel argued that classical novels “are those that are judged by later generations to be masterpieces or worthy of generation”. Generally, these works comprise common writing standards that effectively illuminate the path of other writers or create new relied techniques 52 and methods therefore, these novels “are considered literary products of the first rank or definitive in the field” (7). The French philosopher Michel Foucault addressed this issue also, stating that what is distinctive about classical novels’ writers, or as he called them “initiator of discursive practices” is that they don’t solely produce their work, but also bring to light new norms of establishing and generating other texts. Therefore, the style and the methods of these writers, in this case Fitzgerald, are universally acclaimed and praised and above all adopted in the construction of other texts (qtd. in Giddings and Sheen 6).

It is not easily tractable to claim when The Great Gatsby was identified as a classic. In an article published in the New York Times, Arthur Mizener surmised that in the spring of

1960, the novel finished its 35 years old “It is probably safe now to say that it is a classic of twentieth-century American fiction” (“Gatsby, 35 years later” N. page). In the same sense,

Kenneth Eble argued that the literary position of The Great Gatsby in the American academic arena like schools, colleges, and universities is inescapable. Even if a student misses it, though it is rare that literature classes do not include it, they may encounter it later on in their public or academic lives (“The Great Gatsby” 34).

Picking up with that theme, Deirdre Donahue provided noteworthy factors that led to the general acceptance of Fitzgerald’s third novel as a legendary American novel. In his article “Five reasons ‘Gatsby’ is the great American novel” he believed that the first reason is that it embodies American essence, it carries “the national DNA” of the American culture.

More, it cannot be neglected that it addressed the nature of romance of the Twenties and the crazy love that was delivered and expressed in an eloquent graceful style. Despite that, it is true that the above mentioned factors are crucial to the codification of any beyond compare novel. However, the ability of the literary work to transcend its aura i.e. time and space is what render its enduring vigour, therefore, The Great Gatsby “never seems to lose its modernity”, this is why it is universal Classic (par. 6, 12, 15). 53

As much as this dissertation is concerned, the rise of mass media at an international level opened new potentials to the diffusion of some notable literary works. For instance, it is well known that Grimm’s fairy tales like “Cinderella”, “Snow white” … etc were brought to international view thanks to Walt Disney’s adaptations. The same thing for The Great Gatsby which was adapted into five main movies, not to mention theatrical plays adaptations and opera treatment of the novel.

The first adaptation of the novel was generated by Famous Players Lasky in 1926. A silent Noir et Blanc film starring Warner Baxter (Gatsby), and Lois Wilson (Daisy), generally admired by critics due to its strong script (Hischak 86). The movie was a success unlike the novel’s sale, it granted Fitzgerald considerable cash as well as a successful run in New York.

Unfortunately, what remains from the movie was its trailer (Mizener par. 15). The next motion picture was distributed by Paramount Pictures and released in 1949. The movie was the first “Talkie” adaptation of the novel starring Alan Ladd (Gatsby). It was averaged by critics due to its awkward script and long flashbacks, though it was a verisimilitude of the

Prohibition epoch but “it failed to develop its central characters, especially Gatsby” (Tredell

100). The sophisticated version of The Great Gatsby was dispensed by Paramount Pictures in

1974, a respectable expenditure movie starring Robert Redford (Gatsby) and Mia Farrow as

(Daisy). The script was factual and accurate, however, the performance was disappointing

(Hischak 86). Vincent Canby reviewed the movie one day after its release in the New York

Times stating that:

The newest, biggest, most expensive and longest screen version of “The Great

Gatsby,” which had its premiere here last night … The language is right, even

the chunks of exposition that have sometimes been turned into dialogue. The

sets and costumes and most of the performances are exceptionally good, but 54

the movie itself is as lifeless as a body that’s been too long at the bottom of a

swimming pool. (par. 1-2)

The famous Film Critic Roger Ebert had another claim. He opined that the version of

1974 is a faithful one as it is tightly familiar to the novel, however, the absence of the spirit of

Fitzgerald’s work is a serious blemish. He further downplayed the movie when he stated that how comes that a faithful movie that “plundered” Fitzgerald’s quotations and dialogue ends with such “Rinky-Dink version of Ain’t We Got Fun instead of the most famous last sentence of any novel of the last century?” Probably the movie producer did not grasp the rightful intentions of the novel (“Gatsby” par. 1-2, 11).

The next notable adaptation was issued by the cooperation between America TV

Network and BBC in England in 2000. When it was released, many critics observed that it was the best adaptation since the publication of the novel. Movie stars, the British actor

Tobey Stephens (Gatsby), Mira Sorvino (Daisy), and Paul Rudd (Nick) were very accomplished. They really embodied the mood of the Twenties, the script and flashbacks were very efficient and systematic (Hischak 86). Astonishingly, through watching the movie, we don’t feel that it really embodied the extravagant Jazz Age in comparison, for instance to the version of 1974 that expended about $6 500 000 on the movie.5 After all, the age was about that extremely luxurious, lavish lifestyle that was exhibited through expensive costumes, orgiastic parties, and even the furniture. The performance of the characters was properly good, but the parsimonious attitude of the directors and producers is a drastic defect of the movie (Ibid).

Conclusion

To conclude with, the novel of The Great Gatsby is among the highly acclaimed novels in the, not only to mention the literary sphere, American culture. It is ingrained in the culture 55 because it is a testimony of the Jazz Age. It depicted clearly what the Age was about. These are the major Great Gatsby’s adaptations with their pros and cons. The stature of the novel was further consolidated when it was portrayed on the big screen. One of the upmost goals of

Fitzgerald was to join Hollywood though he made many attempts, they went in vain hope. moving from this premise I doubt that he will disapprove the adaptation of his novel. Though

90 years have passed since its publication, the novel still magnetizes movie producers, the newly Baz Luhrmann’s Great Gatsby that was released in 2013 will be approached in the next section. 56

Section Two: Adaptation Theory and The Great Gatsby 2013 Analysis

Introduction

This section sets itself the task of cross-examining the conjunction of novels and movies through the theory of Adaptation. Demonstrating the different dimensions of movie adaptation whether it is a fidelity to the novel, or it is a betrayal to the thematic, style, spirit, preoccupations of the novel is also of major concern. In the Course of establishing the interrelatedness of novel/film, it will be necessary, as it is the main task of this dissertation to project The Great Gatsby 2013 to a macro-analytical method to examine its success/failure in the portrayal of the Jazz Age.

A. Adaptation Theory and The Great Gatsby 2013

The Theory of Adaptation is among the notable theories that tackled the subject of novel into film issue. Linda Hutcheon argued in her influential book A Theory of Adaptation that the interrelatedness between novel/film is not an up-to-date practice. Adaptation is omnipresent since Shakespeare’s transposition of his famous works onto stage. The same was with Aeschylus, Racine, Goethe, and de la Ponte who correspondingly altered their stories in new fashions. In our present-day however, adaptation ubiquity transcended all the barriers: it occurs in movies, Television series, Internet, dramatic stage, theme parks … etc (2).

Thomas Leitch in his book Film Adaptation and Its Discontents defined adaptation theory as “the systematic study of films based on literary sources, is one of the oldest areas in film studies” (1). Erica Sheen observed adaptation theory as “The transfer of an original

(literary) text from one context of production to an (audio-visual) other” (Pages to Screen 2).

The history of the emergence of this theory cannot be tractable; however, George Bluestone’s book Novels into Film is regarded as one of the oldest founding texts of the theory.6 57

The process of adaptation appealed to the academic arena as a new field of study.

However, many scholars find it arduous to definitively claim the formal relationship between literature and film and the status of adaptation as a bond between two modes of narration.

Thomas Leitch opined in Film Adaptation & its Discontents that:

… adaptation studies have had little influence on either film studies generally,

a discipline to which they have always been ancillary, or discussions of

contemporary film adaptations by literary scholars, largely because of a rupture

between the theory and the practice of adaptation studies. This rupture appears

in ritual response to each new film adaptation of a canonical novel. (1)

The ambiguity of adaptation between lit-to-film had serious examination among critics of film adaptations. For instance, Malgorzata Marciniak argued in “The appeal of Literature to

Film Adaptations” that there are explicit problems between the original and the adapted works. First, Adaptations are seen as subordinate pieces of art to the novel as they deviate from the emblematic scopes of the novel like “the symbolic richness of the book and its spirit”. Second, screening literary works circumscribes the possibility of “open-ended characters, objects or landscapes, created by the book and reconstructed in the reader’s imagination to concrete and definite images” Third, tackling the issue of interpretation, who can decide that the reading of the novel, in this case the script or screenplay, is better than other interpretations? More, what measures must be considered to determine the elements that formed the “spirit” of the book (59-60). Obviously, adaptation downplays the aim of the book of engaging the reader in a fictional world, and to subjugate the work to the reader’s interpretations (Reader Response Criticism) this is from one side. From another side, adaptation is associated with interpretation, the latter may provoke the problem of which parts are the most important this is surely not a subject of denial, after all the book is praised according to all the elements combined that it encompasses. 58

Dissimilarly, film screenwriter DeWitt Bodeen contended that film adaptation cannot be inferior to novels because it is in itself a discipline based on inventiveness. He clarified that “Adapting literary works to film is, without a doubt, a creative undertaking, but the task requires a kind of selective interpretation, along with the ability to recreate and sustain an established mood. That is, the adaptor should see himself as owing allegiance to the source work” (qtd. in McFarlane 7). By the same token, Hutcheon stipulated that, like the novel, a movie adaptation transcends the book’s capacity in the way it conveys its storytelling mode.

For example, The eminent English writer Virginia Woolf claimed that “cinema has within its grasp innumerable symbols for emotions that have so far failed to find expression in words” more, film semiotican Christian Metz opined that film “tells us continuous stories; it says things that could be conveyed also in the language of words; yet it says them differently.

There is a reason for the possibility as well as for the necessity of adaptations” (qtd. in

Hutcheon 3-4). this is why she further advocated that we find, according to 1992 statistics that

85% of all Oscar-winning Best Pictures are adaptations, 95% of all miniseries are adaptations, and 70% of TV-movies of the week that win Emmy Awards are adaptations (Ibid). One might question why movie-adaptations percentages are soaring? The answer is provided by the

German international film historian Thomas Elsaesser and Dr. Warren Buckland who scrutinized the efficiency of movies on other narrative forms claiming that: “Nothing else seems to give such intense feelings; nothing involves people so directly and tangibly in the world 'out there' and in the lives of others. The combination of image, movement, and sound is obviously something quite mysterious in its effects on human beings … ” (1).

Interestingly, the reasons behind adaptations as Brian McFarlane suggests lie in two factors. First, the thrive to a respectable revenue gross at the Box Office, movie producers will for sure benefit from “pre-sold-tile’s” popularity. Second, there is no doubt that some works 59 are ingrained in the cultural DNA of a specific country. Thus, the “high-minded respect for literary works” constitutes another worth mentioning factor (Novel to Film 7).

Film studies’ Professor Thomas Leitch prescribed notable questions that must be undertaken whenever approaching lit-to-film adaptation (65-68):

1) When examining the movie does it deceive the original text?

2) Does the adaptation take a form of interpretation or transcription?

3) If the movie deviates from its original text, is it for better or worse?

4) Does the movie allude to the cultural and historical context of the novel?

5) Does the adapted movie bring something new to adaptation studies?

6) What can the adapted movie add to the Novel?

As much as this dissertation is concerned, since the adaptation of The Great Gatsby

2013 is the target as a case study, contemplating the status of Movie Adaptation in contemporary times merits reference. In 2013, there were many notable adaptations (Table 3,

Films highlighted with Grey are adaptations) which scored the highest national-in the U.S- grosses surpassing the other genres. It is noteworthy to argue that adaptation does not necessarily build upon novels, it can be done on the basis of comic books or even adapting particular characters and events and assimilate them in the course of producing particular movies.

The following table carries a table that tackles the top 20 Films released in

2013 shedding the light on adapted Movies:

Table 3: Top 20 popular Feature Films released in 2013:

Film Producer(s) Genre Budget U.S-Gross The Hunger Color Force, Lionsga Sci-fi/ adventure $130 000 000 $424,668,047 Games: te (Adaptation of Suzanne Catching Collins’ Novel) Fire Iron Man 3 Marvel Action/ Adventure/sci-fi $200 000 000 $409,013,994 Studios, Paramount (Adaptation of Marvel Pictures, DMG Comics’ comic Book) Entertainment Frozen Walt Disney Animation/fantasy $150 000 000 $400,738,009 Animation (Adaptation of Hans Studios, Walt Disney Christian Pictures Andersen's fairy tale The Snow Queen) 3D Despicable Universal Pictures Animation/comedy $76 000 000 $368,061,265 Me 2 Man of Warner Bros., Action/ Adventure/ $225 000 000 $291,045,518 Steel Legendary Pictures Fantasy (Adaptation of the DC Comics’ Book Superman) Gravity Warner Bros., Sci-Fi/ Thriller $100 000 000 $274,092,705 Esperanto Filmoj Monsters Walt Disney Animation Adventure $200 000 000 $268,492,764 University Pictures, Pixar Comedy. 3D Animation Studios The Hobbit: Metro-Goldwyn- Adventure/ Fantasy $295,000,000 $258,366,855 The Mayer (MGM), New (Adaptation of J. R. R. Desolation Line Cinema Tolkien Novel) of Smaug Fast & Universal Pictures, Action/ Crime / Thriller. $160 000 000 $238,679,850 Furious 6 Relativity Media, Original Film Oz The Walt Disney Animation, Adventure, $215 000 000 $234,911,825 Great and Pictures, Roth Films Fantasy (Adaptation of Powerful L. Frank Baum's Oz Novel) 3D Star Trek Paramount Pict., Action, Adventure, Sci- $190 000 000 $228,778,661 Into Skydance fi (Adaptation of Gene Darkness Productions, Bad Roddenberry Novel) Robot Thor: The Marvel Studios Action, Adventure, $170 000 000 $206,362,140 Dark World Fantasy World War Paramount Pict., Action, Adventure, $190 000 000 $202,359,711 Z Skydance Horror (Adaptation of Productions, Hemisp Max Brooks Novel) here Media Capital 61

The Croods DreamWorks Animation, Adventure, $135 000 000 $187,168,425 Animation Comedy 3D The Heat Twentieth Century Action, Comedy, Crime $43 000 000 $159,582,188 Fox Film Corp.

We’re the New Line Cinema, Comedy $37 000 000 $150,394,119 Millers Newman/Tooley Films, Slap Happy Productions (II)

American Columbia Pict., Crime, Drama (inspired $40 000 000 $150,117,807 Hustle Annapurna Pict., by the FBI ABSCAM Atlas Entertainment operation of the late 1970s)

The Great Warner Bros., Drama, Romance $105 000 000 $144,840,419 Gatsby Village Roadshow (Adaptation of (2013) Pictures, A&E TV Fitzgerald’s Novel) 3D Networks

The New Line Cinema, Horror $20 000 000 $137,400,141 Conjuring Safran Company, The, Evergreen Media Group

Identity Aggregate Films Comedy, Crime $35 000 000 $134,506,920 Thief

Source: The information are retrieved from IMDb. Web. April 16. 2015.

Looking over the table, we find that there are about 7 novels into film adaptations, not to mention other adaptations that were based on comic books like Iron Man 3 and Man of

Steel, and real life events like American Hustle. According to this list novel/film adaptations constitute 35%, other adaptations 15%, the remaining movies recorded 50%. Adaptations are the highest in Box Office revenues: The Hunger Games Catching Fire and Frozen scored

$294 and $250 ore profits respectively, thus, securing the first and third ranks according to their profits. The Great Gatsby 2013 is the only romance/ drama movie, the other movies swing between Animation (Comedy), Action (Crime, Thriller), and Fantasy (Sci-Fi). 62

The Great Gatsby movie of 2013 was produced by Warner Bros., directed by Baz

Luhrmann, and written (the script) by Baz Luhrmann and Craig Pearce-based on Fitzgerald’s novel-starring Leonardo DiCaprio (Jay Gatsby), Carey Mulligan (Daisy), Joel Edgerton (Tom

Buchanan), and Tobey Maguire (Nick Carraway). The movie was first premiered in New

York City on May 1st, 2013, and released nationwide on May 10th, 2013 displayed in 3D.7 The movie screened the story of Jay Gatsby’s endeavors to the spiritual and emotional convalesces through exerting himself to repossess Daisy’s love, a love that he lost five years ago. The story is narrated by Nick Carraway while in a therapy session in the Perkins Sanitarium.

Christopher Green of the famous U.S. channel AMTV forecasted -impulsively- the blockbusting of The Great Gatsby 2013 prior to its release. Actually, what was stimulating about his review was rendering a political vision to the movie. He contended in his review of the movie that movie-reviewing is beyond the scopes of his interest, but the new version of the movie is a momentous release worth arguing. He announced that The Great Gatsby 2013 will be another Titanic for Leonardo … “that will blow the roof of Hollywood” it encompasses a grand cast with a director known for “his showmanship, the ability to create a very vibrant and big film” (“The Great Gatsby Review”). Obviously, fidelity was a major concern of the movie: the social dimensions in the movie are apparent to the naked eye, shots of drug, bootlegging, liquor consumption, betrayal, murder, flappers, and above all “The Dark

Side of Humanity” were customary scenes in the movie. With a political orientation,

Christopher indicated that Leonardo (Gatsby) is a microcosm of the U.S. today as it elaborates the complex side of success and remaining on the top. Like Gatsby, the U.S. took a turn for the better from a financial crash of 2008 packed with millions of dollar … “No Fun !”

America is the biggest Flapper on the show-screen nowadays: “easy money, ship credit, Zero

Interest Rate, chaos, war and destruction …” formulate the anticipated path for annihilation 63

(Ibid). Christopher’s prophecy about the approbation of the movie was a fallacy, critics of the movie after its release afforded grim disapprovals.

The movie received mixed reviews from journalists and critics. Film critic Peter

Bradshaw presumed in “Baz Luhrmann delivers an energetic, glittering adaptation of the classic Fitzgerald novel, but sacrifices all of the original’s subtlety in the process” that the movie is as “pedantic” as it is “unreflective” one. Ironically, this allude us to think that the screenplay written by Luhrmann and Pearce sustained not from Fitzgerald’s salient work, but from some peripheral synopsis disposed by a “corporate assistant”. More, it is true that we may come across some quotations deprived directly from the novel, it is because they knew how important they are in the legacy of the novel. But we have some crucial omission like

Gatsby’s father attendance to his funeral. Despite that, the material spirit of the 1920s is there and was perfectly manifested through impressive logistic parties that exalted singing, dancing, and drinking liquor. Bradshaw further proclaimed that “This is a movie whose adjective is unearned. It’s a flashy Gatsby, a sighing Gatsby, an angry Gatsby, a celeb Gatsby. But not a great oneˮ (par. 3, 5-7).

The famous U.K. daily newspaper The Telegraph further undervalued the movie.

Biographer Charles Moore wrote in “Baz Luhrmann’s The Great Gatsby: a faithful film – and a terribly, terribly bad one” that the original text is always eternally handled with reverence because it is a sacred one. On the contrary, adaptation with all its mischief is a sacrilegious one. Undeniably, the film uses many of Fitzgerald’s dialogue and quotation (fidelity to the novel). It describes events as presented in the novel like portraying Dr. T.J. Eckleburg’s eyes on billboard and screening Tom’s lover house alongside “valley of ashes”… etc. But still, despite faithfulness “it is a terrible movie.” Generally, the actor’s cast is fine: Tom (Joel

Edgerton) depicted well the mood of material prestige and richness. Daisy (Carey Mulligan) 64 was overwhelmingly gorgeous as it was described in the novel. And Gatsby (Leonardo

DiCaprio) could so perfectly dangle over eagerness, aspiration and suspense traits that were developed by Nick. The social diagnosis of the 20s epoch was not clearly defined, this issue is

“the oddest thing about the film … it makes so little of the other subject of the book –

America itself. It aspires to make a great American film of a great American novel, but does not locate itself observantly in the culture that fascinated and appalled Fitzgerald,” In general the movie lacks primarily Fitzgerald’s “satirical and … tragic sense” factors upon which

Fitzgerald conceived his works (par. 1-2, 8-10).

The next part is dedicated to analyze the movie through a micro-analytical method, and put into question the prime question of the dissertation which is did the movies of The

Great Gatsby 2013 portrayed the mood and temper of the Jazz Age or not. Since the academic writings about the movie are rare, shots from the movie as well as information from The

Internet Movie Database are used to bring about any opinion and view.

Fig. 10. The Official 2013 Great Gatsby’s poster. Source: IMDb. Web 16 Apr. 2015.

B. The Great Gatsby (2013) and the Jazz Age

The Great Gatsby’s Director Baz Luhrmann articulated to Bonnie Laufer in an interview to Tribute Entertainment Media Group that the Roaring Twenties were the beginning “of what we are today” once I listened to the audio book [of The Great Gatsby] I said “Wow, that’s us, that’s who we are, this is this time, How could I maybe reveal that in a way which it felt like you are reading the book in 1925” (“Baz Gatsby Interview”). Hollywood Megastar

Leonardo DiCaprio has expressed to Bonnie his reverence to the role of Jay Gatsby. He said that “The role was a pressure, because we are talking about the most celebrated novel in the world, The great American novel of the last century, it elaborates what America is, all the ideals and dreams are becoming a great American” (“Leonardo Gatsby Interview”). Both of

Baz and Leonardo had this homage to the novel, watching the movie recreates some aspects about the Jazz Age that were addressed earlier with personal subtractions.

To analyze the movie the dissertation opted for a Micro-Analytical method8 i.e. tackling the specific stylistic devices, shots, composition if the movie, characters, time, place, and actions to explore the congenial aspects between the movie and the Jazz Agee. The opening scene of the movie is prepossessing, the Noir et Blanc feature, the Jazz music, and writing on the screen were a good start to make the audience travel through time to that epoch. The movies dealt with before in the first chapter It and Jazz Singer had the same opening (Fig. 11-

12). These customary elements were accompanied with Baz Luhrmann inclusion of 3D. He commented on 3D saying that “3D would be a dramatic medium” (Krebs), to have an in depth engagement of the audience into a more vivid experience. Christies Company had another say, in a conducted research, the company maintained that 3D take rates declined from 73% in

2008 to a sharp decline 42% in 2013 and 39% in 2014 (1). Stuart Heritage in The Guardian had the same view, he claimed that “Gatsby has never exactly screamed 3D. The book is almost entirely defined by its lack of scenes worthy of stereoscopic treatment” (par. 2). 67

Fig.11 . The opening of the Great Gatsby with Noir et Blanc screen. Warner Bros. Picture The Great Gatsby 2013.

Fig. 12. The opening of the Jazz Singer. Warner Bros. Picture The Jazz Singer 1927 .

Nick Carraway was the first to appear on screen in the Perkins Sanitarium for a therapy secession talking about what happened in the summer of 1922. Like the novel the film was based on flashbacks, it took Fitzgeralds work as an inspiration to the movie. Nick is a

Midwestern man who came to New York to fulfill his dreams. He rent a house in Long Island and lived in West Egg. Once in the city, He conveyed a pivotal description of that time:

Back then all of us drank too much. The more in tune with the times we were,

the more we drank. And none of us contributed anything new. In the summer 68

of 1922, the temper of the city approached hysteria, A fever pitch of buying

and selling ... stocks reached record peaks and Wall Street boomed in a steady

golden roar ... The parties were bigger; the shows were broader; the buildings

were higher; the morals were looser; and the ban on alcohol had backfired ...

making the liquor cheaper. (Luhrmann, Gatsby)

Nick portrayed a kind of naïve Midwesterner steeped in traditions and social values.

He was the observer, he does in a way convict people for the decadent new life style. In the therapy session, he denounced to his Doctor that “When I came back from New York I was disgusted. Disgusted ... with everyone, and everything ... Only one man was exempt from my disgust. Gatsby ... He was ... the single most hopeful person I have ever met ... And am ever likely to meet again” (Gatsby Transcript 2). He had that kind of a clear substantial bias.

Anyhow, the sequence of actions superseded the novel’s systematic events: Nick meats

Gatsby at one of his parties, Nick arranges a date between Gatsby and Daisy, Gatsby and

Daisy confront Tom Buchanan to pronounce their love, Daisy drove the car along Gatsby and killed Myrtle (Tom’s lover), Gatsby is blamed for the accident and ultimately killed by

Myrtle’s husband.

Nick is invited to Daisy his second cousin’s house. This is all where the story began, there he heard rumors about Gatsby. The film introduced many Jazz Age’s identical ingredients in the house like: Flapper’s smoking with their bobbed-hair, the Town Tattle magazine9 (Fig. 13, 14, 15). Nick’s second important event comes when he received an invitation from Jay Gatsby at one of his sparkling vibrant parties. Leonardo explicated that

“The decadence and the wealth that existed during that time period was just enormous … You want to be back to that period, but you cannot and his parties do not exist [now]” (“Leonardo

Gatsby Interview”). The film’s management of parties was quite luxurious and extravagant appealing to the social mood of indecency and craziness (Fig. 16). 69

Fig.13. Jordon Baker holds the Town Tattle Magazine a gossip rag of the Twenties.

Warner Bros. Picture, The Great Gatsby 2013.

Fig.14,15 . Daisy and Jordon bobbed haired duplicating the Flapper fashion of the Twenties. Warner Bros. Picture, The Great Gatsby 2013.

Fig. 16. One of Jay Gatsby’s exquisite Orgiastic parties. Warner Bros. Picture, The Great Gatsby 2013. 70

The movie worked also to display the nature of entertainment that swung between Jazz music using saxophone, bars and excessive liquor consumption, gambling and bootlegging

(Fig. 17, 18, 19). All together created an image of morbid deterioration, the aim was the real exploitation of a luxurious parties prepared by a gentleman who they hardly new. Nick was amazed knowing that he was the only person to be hosted by Gatsby. This appears to be a customary practice to receive an invitation for a party, but this had no sense against that extravagant temptations.

In Gatsby’s mind, his objective was not merely conceiving those large parties to show off as a rich man. They were dedicated for Daisy to attract her attention to his upper class position that he achieved through bootlegging. Nick was the intermediary between Gatsby and Daisy, after a period of unification between them, Daisy’s crime of killing Myrtle in a car accident was attributed to Gatsby. Jay though being rich, he remained in Tom’s words “Mr.

Nobody from Nowhere” not only for the Buchanan’s but the whole society. To avenge his wife’s death, Myrtle’s husband was persuaded that Gatsby did it, though Daisy rushed with the car along Gatsby, and did the accident, accepted to condemn him to save her life. Gatsby is dead by the end (Fig. 17). The man whose mansion was a sight of enjoying life’s splendor, had no one except Nick to attend his funeral. Nick maintained that “They were careless people, Tom and Daisy. They smashed up things and people and then retreated back into their money and their vast carelessness ...” (Luhrmann, Gatsby). Astonishingly, this is what the

Jazz Age rested upon, the ends justify the means. Nick, culturally shocked by the low moral attitudes and selfishness entered a psychiatry working to finish typing the social drama The

Great Gatsby.

Fig. 17. Walter Chaise losing money at a gambling table, usual practices of Jazz Age. Warner Bros. Picture, The Great Gatsby 2013.

Fig. 18, 19. Using Saxophone as a new instrument in the Bars accompanied with large quantities of Liquor. Warner Bros. Picture, The Great Gatsby 2013.

Fig. 20. Jay Gatsby’s death at the end of the movie. Warner Bros. Picture, The Great Gatsby 2013.

Baz Luhrmann made many changes into the movie form and content. First, it is true that he included Jazz Music like Irving Aaronson “Let’s Misbehave” 1928, W.C. Handy “St.

Louis Blues” 1914, and Louis Armstrong “Ain’t Misbehaving” 1929. But he included also

Beethoven music and modern music like Jay-Z hip-hop song “No church in the wild” 2011,

Beyoncé “Back to Black” 2013, The XX “Together” 2013.10 Baz played also with the content:

First, despite the fact he included the first and last sentences of the novel, in fact he cannot ignore them as they are famous, he cared not to display anti-Semitism: Meyer Wolfsheim, a bootlegger and friend of Gatsby, in the novel he was depicted as a Jew not an Indian! Second, the funeral is the most important event that revealed the discarded ignorant people of that epoch, in the novel it was only Nick, and his father, whom he had been ashamed of, who attended the funeral, but that was not apparent in the film.

Generally speaking, the Internet Movie Database users11 provided different rates of the movie (Table 4), about 89.44% between 6 and 10 rates favored the movie, and about 10.56% provided below averaged rates:

Table 4: Appreciation of The Great Gatsby 2013 by IMDb Users:

Votes Percentage Rating

41251 13,14% 10 42167 13,70% 9 78828 25,70% 8 75480 24,60% 7 37727 12,30% 6 15894 5,20% 5 6783 2,20% 4 3480 1,10% 3 2068 0,70% 2 3569 1,20% 1 27 0,16% Other

307274 100,00% Source: The information are retrieved from IMDb. Web 16 Apr. 2015.

These statistics are contradictory with the movie grosses in the U.S.: the movie’s budget was exorbitant estimated by $105, but commercially it was a failure. It grossed $144, and that makes $39 ore profits. Ironically, this number is not comparable, not to mention, The

Hunger Games Catching fire, to the animated movie Despicable Me whose budget was only

$76, but grossed about $368 making about $292 ore profit (mentioned in Table 3). The total users who gave rates are 307 875, users aged between 18 to 29 contributed about 60% of the rates the smallest percentage was provided by users aged 45+ :

13,90% 4,60% Under 18 18 to 29 30 to 44 19,30% 45+ 60,20% Others

Fig. 21. IMDb Users’ Votes by Age (Male/Female). IMDb. Web 16 Apr. 2015.

So, Fidelity to the novel was a major concern of the movie. Isla Fisher (Myrtle) maintained that by sticking to the original work we wanted “To Honor and Respect

Fitzgerald” (Krebs, “Fisher Gatsby Interview”). Toby (Nick) and Mulligan (Daisy) pronounced that to do the film, they had to read about Fitzgerald’s life: his other works, letters he wrote and received from Geneva King and Zelda Fitzgerald to create that accurate and almost real atmosphere to the audience (Krebs, Tobey, “Mulligan Interview”). Baz

Luhrmann’s adaption is an interpretation of novel, he did not intend to transcribe as he added and omitted some events according to what he believes is the most important in the novel. His 74 work strived to project the social atmosphere of the 1920s. After all he spent $105 on the film only to display that bounteous life style. I think the movie adds a lot to the stature of the novel, it strengthened its deep roots that are grounded in the American Culture, and it addresses the dream of Fitzgerald’s attempts to join the Hollywood Community in the

Twenties.

Conclusion

To conclude with, Baz Luhrmann movie of The Great Gatsby had that faithfulness of the original novel. Though it was expected to be a bombastic Jazz Age spectacle, it did not have a good run at the box office. The commercial failure of the Great Gatsby of 2013 still lacks elucidation, though it did not evoke an old fashioned theme that is not compatible with the contemporary period, after all, the novel of The Great Gatsby is applauded due to its ability to transcend any aura i.e. time and place, it therefore, never loses it modernity. The success is always relative, but Baz Luhrmann succeeded at least to visualize what that era was about.

Endnotes

1. For extensive readings see Shain, Charles E. F. Scott Fitzgerald. St. Paul: U of Minnesota,

1961. PDF file.

2. Natural Selection: is a theory developed by the famous English Naturalist Charles Robert

Darwin, it entails that fewer people on earth are destined to achieve success because of

their genetic traits and charisma, this success is achieved through whatever means it is built

upon the principle of the ends justifies the means. Consult Darwin’s influential book:

Darwin, Charles Robert. The Origin of Species. London: John Murray Albemarle Street,

1859. PDF file.

3. Mr. nobody from nowhere: is a famous quote and saying of Tom addressing the social as

well as historical context of Fitzgerald. The saying has in in-depth meaning to bear. In the

1920s the rich people’s history and background were plain and known among the masses,

but it was not the case of Jay Gatsby. Fitzgerald, F. Scott. The Great Gatsby. London:

Wordsworth Editions Limited, 1993. 83. PDF file.

4. There are different numbers provided by different sources, therefore this estimation is

provided by: Reach ,Kirsten . “Ten Nights On Long Island: The Great Gatsby’s early

reviews.” Melville House. Melville House, May 9, 2013. Web. 16 Apr. 2015.

5. This number is provided by the Internet Movie Database: imdb.com. Web. 25 Apr. 2015.

6. The book is considered as a pioneer in film studies first published in 1957, it tackled the

process by which a novel is transferred into a film, a process George Bluestone dubbed the

“mysterious alchemy.” Bluestone, George. Novels into Film. Maryland: Johns Hopkins,

1966. Google Books. Google Books. Web. 14 Apr. 2015.

7. The information are retrieved from the Internet Movie Database. See imdb.com for further

exploration of the movie. 76

8. Micro-Analytical: One of the famous “types of narrative analysis that have dominated

academic film studies known as the Aristotelian, poetological one of the well-made

(screen) play method analysis” for further readings see: Elsaesser, Thomas, and Warren

Buckland. “Film Theory, Methods, Analysis.” Studying Contemporary American Film: A

Guide to Movie Analysis. By Thomas Elsaesser. London: Arnold, 2002. 1. PDF file.

9. Town Tattle magazine: was a 1920s gossip rag, similar to National Enquirer or Heat

magazine today. This information was captured in bookdrum.com. Web. 25 Apr. 2015.

10. The song’s Tracks played in the movie are taken from the Film end Credit font: The

Great Gatsby. Dir. Baz Luhrmann. Perf. Leonardo DiCaprio, Tobey Maguire, and Carey

Mulligan. Warner Bros., 2013. DVD.

11. Why the IMDb? Because it is the only website who provided nearly 307 875 rates. For

Extra information consult IMDb.com.Web. 25 Apr. 2015.

General Conclusion

The question of examining the ability of films to present some historical facts about history is a worth studied field in the academic arena. The film has the ability not only to tell but to exhibite and frame a particular aura for the spectators. Moving from the premise that like the book, the film is a method of narration: both of them resort to techniques of transposition, omitting, editing … etc. What changes here is actually the medium, the way we present the historical facts and events.

Based on that, as I hypothesized in the introduction, that the role of Cinema, to be clearer, Hollywood, from one side was crucial in demonstrating the cultural transition of the

1920s. And from the other side, Films have an impact on its audience, this was addressed through examining the It and Jazz Singer movies. As I indicated in the second section chapter one, since the inauguration of cinema to the public view officially in the 1920s audience showed favored propensities towards the new emerging industry. The stance of Walter

Benjamin’s opinion that Hollywood is a mechanism of reproducing culture i.e. the piece of art, in this regard, films, are a cultural or historical commodity. That sounds true, for instance, the anatomy of films The Jazz Singer of 1927 and The Great Gatsby 2013 alludes to contemplate that the primary source of their material was their cultural or historical context to which they belong. On the Other side, Theodor and Adorno’s view that Hollywood produces culture was more Anti-capitalist as it is Marxist. For them, first, American cinema is an

INDUSTRY like other industries which sought dominance at the economic and financial scale. Second, Hollywood’s sole concern is a psychological impact i.e. to inject an ideology, opinion, dogma … since the eye discerns adequately more than the other senses, it is used as an intermediate between the sender and the receiver. Not to be biased, both views complement each other, because it is a matter of the genre of film whether it is based on genuine creativity or based on a true story. 78

Undeniably, the film or any storytelling medium does not mirror objectively particular events. However, it bears a judgment be it explicit or implicit, therefore 100% objectivity is beyond the reach even for professionals and scholars. So, movies do not work only to mirror a particular historical, cultural or whatsoever context, but they demonstrate a particular vision and opinion. As it was indicated in Chapter II Section two, that in The Great Gatsby movie of

2013, though the director Baz Luhrmann intended to portray The Roaring Twenties’ extravagant temper was biased and aware not to allude anti-Semitism through the character of

Wolfsheim originally a Jew, but in the movie he was depicted as an Indian. More, including music that does not belong to its aura like Hip-Hop and classical music-Beethoven- were also a personal taste. The 2013 newly representation of the decadence of the 20s was as much expensive as it was a commercial failure at the national scale and therefore its perception was not highly celebrated. Computations have shown that movie budget is estimated by $105 million, the national grosses did not exceed $144 million achieving only an ore profit of about

$39 million.

As much as I read about the twenties, I couldn’t elaborate that materiality in my mind, because it is not about a psychological, abstract description, it is about something material and concrete. The importance of perception cannot be negligible, as it helps to identify a shared vision, a common recognition of the different physical demonstrations. It is true that the movie was a failure at the financial scale, but it succeeded, especially for those who are delving in learning about history, at least to reveal what the books could not or cannot display.

After investigation, my research concluded that films are trust worthy sources for learning about history. They provide a sphere where the spectators can enjoy a closest idea about particular events. Their impact may surpass the book’s influence especially in a time when the book sales are astonishingly dropping out.

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Appendix B

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