Themes
The Last Tycoon's protagonist, Monroe Stahr, is a character full of associations to Irving Thalberg, the production chief at M-G-M in the period between the late 20's and 30's. The background is Hollywood in the Golden Thirties, when studios made 30 to 40 productions a year and every backlot could simultaneously contain pictures set in places such as New York, Africa, the South Pole and Montmartre. The background of the film has a close bond to stories of Hollywood at that time, as well as to Fitzgerald's own life and career. Thalberg, a "boy genius" until his death at the age of 37 in 1936, was held in high regard inside and outside Hollywood, as he appeared to be able to divine successful films continuously; knowing in his head how much a certain kind of picture would gross, which, in turn, told him how much could be profitably to spent on its production. Monroe Stahr, who is played with reticent passion by Robert De Niro (whose lean, dark good looks seem an idealization of Thalberg's), has the same uncanny ability, but eventually becomes a casualty of the "new" Hollywood of Wall Street investors, bankers and union organizers that Fitzgerald could see in the future. Thalberg died before being overtaken by defeat, while in the film, Stahr does not.
The theme of unfinished ambitions and the unattained love of the young and beautiful in Hollywood, embodied by the beach house, have great significance for both the Novelist and Director at the end of their luminary careers.
| “ | None of the changes that Mr. Pinter has made in the novel seem to me to damage the style or mood of the book. More than any other screen adaptation of a Fitzgerald work—with the exception of Joan Micklin Silver's fine adaptation of the short story Bernice Bobs Her Hair—The Last Tycoon preserves original feeling and intelligence. The movie is full of echoes. We watch it as if at a far remove from what's happening, but that too is appropriate: Fitzgerald was writing history as it happened. | ” |
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