Literary influence
As one of the leading authorial voices of the Jazz Age, Fitzgerald's literary style influenced a number of contemporary and future writers.[405] As early as 1922, critic John V. A. Weaver noted that Fitzgerald's literary influence was already "so great that it cannot be estimated."[313]
Similar to Edith Wharton and Henry James, Fitzgerald's style often used a series of disconnected scenes to convey plot developments.[406] His lifelong editor Max Perkins described this particular technique as creating the impression for the reader of a railroad journey in which the vividness of passing scenes blaze with life.[407] In the style of Joseph Conrad, Fitzgerald often employed a narrator's device to unify these passing scenes and imbue them with deeper meaning.[406]
Gatsby remains Fitzgerald's most influential literary work as an author. The publication of The Great Gatsby prompted poet T. S. Eliot to opine that the novel was the most significant evolution in American fiction since the works of Henry James.[327] Charles Jackson, author of The Lost Weekend, wrote that Gatsby was the only flawless novel in the history of American literature.[408] Later authors Budd Schulberg and Edward Newhouse were deeply affected by it, and John O'Hara acknowledged its influence on his work.[409] Richard Yates, a writer often compared to Fitzgerald, hailed The Great Gatsby as showcasing Fitzgerald's miraculous talent and triumphal literary technique.[410] An editorial in The New York Times summarized the considerable influence of Fitzgerald upon contemporary writers and Americans in general during the Jazz Age: "In the literary sense he invented a 'generation' ... He might have interpreted them, and even guided them, as in their middle years they saw a different and nobler freedom threatened with destruction."[411]
Adaptations and portrayals
The 1921 silent film The Off-Shore Pirate was among the first cinematic adaptations of Fitzgerald's works.Fitzgerald's stories and novels have been adapted into a variety of media formats. His earliest short stories were cinematically adapted as flapper comedies such as The Husband Hunter (1920), The Chorus Girl's Romance (1920), and The Off-Shore Pirate (1921).[412] Other Fitzgerald short stories have been adapted into episodes of anthology television series,[413] as well as the 2008 film The Curious Case of Benjamin Button.[414] Nearly every novel by Fitzgerald has been adapted for the screen. His second novel The Beautiful and Damned was filmed in 1922 and 2010.[415] His third novel The Great Gatsby has been adapted numerous times for both film and television, most notably in 1926, 1949, 1958, 1974, 2000, and 2013.[416] His fourth novel Tender Is the Night was made into a 1955 CBS television episode, an eponymous 1962 film, and a BBC television miniseries in 1985.[417] The Last Tycoon has been adapted into a 1976 film,[418] and a 2016 Amazon Prime TV miniseries.[419]
Beyond adaptations of his works, Fitzgerald himself has been portrayed in dozens of books, plays, and films. He inspired Budd Schulberg's novel The Disenchanted (1950),[284] later adapted into a Broadway play starring Jason Robards.[420] Other theatrical productions of Fitzgerald's life include Frank Wildhorn's 2005 musical Waiting for the Moon,[421] and a musical produced by the Japanese Takarazuka Revue.[422] Fitzgerald's relationships with Sheilah Graham and Frances Kroll Ring respectively served as the basis for the films Beloved Infidel (1959) and Last Call (2002).[239][423] Fitzgerald and his wife Zelda have appeared as characters in the films Midnight in Paris (2011) and Genius (2016).[424] Other depictions of Fitzgerald include the TV movies Zelda (1993), F. Scott Fitzgerald in Hollywood (1976), The Last of the Belles (1974), and the TV series Z: The Beginning of Everything (2015).[425]
