Films with a beautiful, literate script

[Desolation]

Who cares about the author's intentions? Fitzgerald's dead, but The Great Gatsby is still here. And it's still here because it's the kind of great novel that can be read in a variety of ways. Great writers don't bog down their work with their intentions, they leave breathing room for the audience to take it as they will.

Also, I think that people take common-speech hyperbole too literally at times. When someone says "The elevator scene in Gatsby had homosexual undertones," I find it unlikely that they meant "Fitzgerald objectively and factually wrote that scene as an endorsement of homosexuality." Rather, it means, "To me, this scene brought to mind homosexuality." Homosexuality is a big issue today, why not read it into books written before it was such an issue? Books become irrelevant if they are forever nailed only to their historical context.

[kelby_lake]

Who cares about the author's intentions? Fitzgerald's dead, but The Great Gatsby is still here.

Also, how can we definitively say that Fitzgerald intended one interpretation? Writers are never 100% in control of what they're writing- there's always the subconscious.

[JuniperWoolf]

It is clear to me that the bast script ever written is that for the film Donnie Darko.

True true, Donnie's rant about The Smurfs just killed me. "Sh*t Donnie, why you gotta get all smart on us?"

I also have to mention the film Brick, written and directed by Rian Johnson.

Also one of my absolute favorites.

If anyone wants to promote homosexuality, I wish they wouldn't sully great writing in the attempt.

'Promote'? 'Sully'?

I've nothing to add.

Alrighty, a simple question then: how is interpreting a character as possibly gay "promoting" homosexuality, and how does the suggestion "sully" the work? It sounds like someone's entire point may arise from his position as a grouchy old homophobe, in which case, why should anyone take it seriously?

[Emil Miller]

Who cares about the author's intentions? Fitzgerald's dead, but The Great Gatsby is still here. And it's still here because it's the kind of great novel that can be read in a variety of ways. Great writers don't bog down their work with their intentions, they leave breathing room for the audience to take it as they will.

Also, I think that people take common-speech hyperbole too literally at times. When someone says "The elevator scene in Gatsby had homosexual undertones," I find it unlikely that they meant "Fitzgerald objectively and factually wrote that scene as an endorsement of homosexuality." Rather, it means, "To me, this scene brought to mind homosexuality." Homosexuality is a big issue today, why not read it into books written before it was such an issue? Books become irrelevant if they are forever nailed only to their historical context.

You are completely missing the point. If a writer describes someone as having dark hair and clean shaven, you may wish to imagine the character as having fair hair and a beard but if you subsequently go around saying that the writer really meant to write your version, rather than what is in the book, then you are not only being presumptuous, but also patently wrong.
Now it just so happens that I have published a novel in which one of the characters is homosexual. You may care to think of him as being heterosexual but if you come to me and tell me that is what he is, I will tell you to go and re-read the novel because you obviously haven't understood what was written. A misinterpretation remains a misinterpretation.

[JuniperWoolf]

Sexual preference isn't the same thing as hair color. Besides, in a book if either hair color or sexual preference isn't openly stated you can only guess (and it wasn't openly stated in The Great Gatsby). You can only interpret a character's inclination through subtle hints, which are especially subtle if the work in question is from a time when such thing weren't openly discussed.

[Mutatis-Mutandis]

You didn't answer Juniper's question, which I was also going to ask, Emil. Even if these interpretations hold water (I'm not at all convinced that they do), how is that "promoting" homosexuality?

[Emil Miller]

Writers are never 100% in control of what they're writing- there's always the subconscious.

Really? I have written three novels and was always in control of what I was writing. To presume something, isn't the same as telling the truth. My dictionary gives 'presume' as 'to venture on without leave'; another definition is 'to form over-confident or arrogant opinions'. I am not saying that the second definition is the case with yourself but there is very obviously one individual on LitNet to whom it does apply.
If somebody wants to fantasize over someone else's work, they can go right ahead but they shouldn't expect others to acknowledge what they say as being anything other than just that.

[Desolation]

Also, how can we definitively say that Fitzgerald intended one interpretation? Writers are never 100% in control of what they're writing- there's always the subconscious.

I didn't mean to imply that at all. I was trying to say that Fitzgerald was a great writer, and Gatsby is a great book, exactly because it's open for multiple interpretations.

You are completely missing the point. If a writer describes someone as having dark hair and clean shaven, you may wish to imagine the character as having fair hair and a beard but if you subsequently go around saying that the writer really meant to write your version, rather than what is in the book, then you are not only being presumptuous, but also patently wrong.
Now it just so happens that I have published a novel in which one of the characters is homosexual. You may care to think of him as being heterosexual but if you come to me and tell me that is what he is, I will tell you to go and re-read the novel because you obviously haven't understood what was written. A misinterpretation remains a misinterpretation.

There's always a line. If I were to say, for instance, that Ayn Rand's novels were written as satires of capitalism instead of advocating for capitalism, I would be pretty squarely wrong. But literary analysis loses all of its fun and wonder if we only looked at books from the perspective of exactly what the author intended. In some cases, I'd even say that the author's intentions can be disregarded. Should we throw away the anti-censorship interpretation of Fahrenheit 451 just because Ray Bradbury said that he didn't mean to write it as an anti-censorship novel? It does no harm to Fahrenheit 451 when people read it as being against censorship...But it does harm the novel when the writer steps in and says that everyone else is wrong. While I agree that there's a point when interpretations are very explicitly wrong, there's also a point when putting too much weight in exactly what the writer intended is equally ridiculous.

Literature isn't dogma. As a writer yourself, wouldn't it make you happy to hear that someone took something that they find valuable from your work, even if you didn't necessarily intend it to be taken that way?

(For the record...I also didn't really see any homoerotic undertones in Gatsby. But I don't see the point in castigating anyone who did come to that conclusion.)

[Emil Miller]

[QUOTE=Desolation;1111699]ILiterature isn't dogma. As a writer yourself, wouldn't it make you happy to hear that someone took something that they find valuable from your work, even if you didn't necessarily intend it to be taken that way? [QUOTE]

Well, as a writer, I would rather be read than misread.

[KCurtis]

Geesh!! I came back to this thread after a couple of days and people are still arguing about a scene in my favorite book! The elevator scene, with Nick helping the drunk guy, shows that Nick can be caring and goodhearted. It just gives another hint of Nick's character. I suppose one could see homosexuality in every piece of literature, but some people want to see if every where. I wonder why this is.

[Alexander III]

[QUOTE=Emil Miller;1111753][QUOTE=Desolation;1111699]ILiterature isn't dogma. As a writer yourself, wouldn't it make you happy to hear that someone took something that they find valuable from your work, even if you didn't necessarily intend it to be taken that way?

Well, as a writer, I would rather be read than misread.

Well as a writer you are no Fitzgerald. So I am unsure as to your previous statements credibility.

[Emil Miller]

[QUOTE=Alexander III;1111974][QUOTE=Emil Miller;1111753]

ILiterature isn't dogma. As a writer yourself, wouldn't it make you happy to hear that someone took something that they find valuable from your work, even if you didn't necessarily intend it to be taken that way?

Well as a writer you are no Fitzgerald. So I am unsure as to your previous statements credibility.

I'm sorry but I thought I was replying to a question by Desolation.

[kelby_lake]

Geesh!! I came back to this thread after a couple of days and people are still arguing about a scene in my favorite book! The elevator scene, with Nick helping the drunk guy, shows that Nick can be caring and goodhearted.

I don't think it shows that. It's more to establish the hedonistic party, and Nick being a bit drunk and having a crazy old time that he can't remember much of (hence the ellipses).

[Emil Miller]

I don't think it shows that. It's more to establish the hedonistic party, and Nick being a bit drunk and having a crazy old time that he can't remember much of (hence the ellipses).

People don't seem to read very well. The McKee's lived in the flat below and the party was likely to break up after Tom Buchanan's physical assault of Myrtle Wilson. Now is it likely that Nick Carraway would indulge in homosexuality with a comparative stranger when the man's wife was likely to come down at any moment?

[KCurtis]

I don't think it shows that. It's more to establish the hedonistic party, and Nick being a bit drunk and having a crazy old time that he can't remember much of (hence the ellipses).

It shows that too!! Fitzgerald shows more than one facet of Nick in this book, that is why Nick is the protagonist, and why the book is so interesting and is being argued about and discussed!!