POP UP CINEMA BRIGHTON

THE GREAT GATSBY(1974)

DIRECTOR: Jack Clayton​

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STARRING: Robert Redford, Mia Farrow, Sam Waterson, Bruce Dern, & Karen Black.

White Wall Cinema returns for the first event of it's new season (and our 10th year) with a screening marking 100 years of F. Scott Fitzgerald's much celebrated iconic novel The Great Gatsby. We will also be throwing a small garden party before with a free glass of fizz (because what would Gatsby's 100th birthday be without it?)

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Infamously tricky to bring to the screen, the 1974 adaptation is perhaps the most faithful to Fitzgerald’s novel, while wisely becoming its own distinct cinematic vision. Scripted by Francis Ford Coppola (of The Godfather, Apocalypse Now, and more), reworking an earlier draft by Truman Capote, and directed by Jack Clayton (Room at the Top, The Innocents), this version plays Gatsby as a kind of ghost story.

A world away from Baz Luhrmann’s brash and violently lurid 2013 take, this 1974 film is all billowing curtains, haunted silences, and humid, regret-laden tension, draped in authentically lavish sets, rich period detail, and gorgeous opulent  Oscar winning costumes — with a dazzling cast to match.​

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When Midwesterner Nick Carraway (Sam Waterston — The Killing Fields, Law & Order, Grace and Frankie) moves to Long Island, he reconnects with his wealthy cousin Daisy (a brittle, capricious Mia Farrow — Rosemary’s Baby, Hannah and Her Sisters, The Watcher) and her domineering husband Tom (Bruce Dern — Coming Home, Silent Running, Nebraska, Once Upon a Time in Hollywood). Settling in across the bay in ‘West Egg’, Nick finds himself drawn to the lavish parties, and altogether mysterious world of his enigmatic neighbour, Jay Gatsby (an elusive Robert Redford - Butch Cassidy & The Sundance Kid, The Way We Were, All The President's Men). As he’s drawn further into Gatsby’s orbit, it becomes clear that behind the glamour lies a story of obsession, longing, and tragedy.

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With a fantastic wider supporting cast including 70s screen icon Karen Black (Five Easy Pieces, Nashville), Scott Wilson (In  Cold Blood, The Walking Dead), Lois Chiles (Moonraker. Broadcast News) Edward Herrmann (Lost Boys, Gilmore Girls), Roberts Blossom (Close Encounters, Home Alone) it even boasts a young Patsy Kensit! This understatedly ominous and subtly haunting version of Gatsby is much more in keeping with the aims of the novel and is in sync with the great flowering of American cinema in the 70s.

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Still a byword for the glittering allure of the Jazz Age, a century after its publication, this version of The Great Gatsby properly explores the dark compulsive contradictions of American wealth, fantasy, and delusion. So join us — for a glass of fizz and a hauntingly beautiful film — to mark 100 years of Fitzgerald’s enduring masterpiece. After all, no one throws a party like Gatsby... do they, old sport?