Harmony Gibson
My initial inclination to the question is of course not. If you're depicting a literary work into film, it would be foolish not to expect a comparison of the two, and even more foolish to deviate from the source material in any way. However, once I thought further, I came to the conclusion that there are a few ways to take a material and craft it into something that need not be compared, if one were to do it correctly. A huge way this is possible is through style. If the style or tone of an adaptation is vastly different, or if the details surrounding the main plot points are taken with liberty, then I do believe it is possible to create an adaptation that holds its own, while adding to the story itself and becoming its own original take on the point of the story. For example, let's look at The Great Gatsby. A renowned novel by F. Scott Fitzgerald set during the jazz age, the story follows the wealthy Jay Gatsby and his pursuit of his love, Daisy Buchannan while simultaneously providing social commentary on class and the unattainability of the American dream.
F Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby is a poetic, gradual progression of the story, with lots of lush description and symbolism. It's very much a product of the times, and the reflective tone of the prose of the novel, coupled with the decadent depiction of the settings and goings on of the novel helps the reader feel immersed in the time period in which it is set, and grasp the inner turmoil that Gatsby feels despite the facade he puts on, and the parties he throws and his frivolity is a metaphor for this.
Baz Luhrmann is known for his almost chaotic, flashy, and visually bold film style, taking period stories and combining them with colorful visuals and melding it with a more modern feel. He does just this with his version of The Great Gatsby, and while it's obvious that the setting and story are the same, the signature style he adds almost turns it into a work of its own. The anachronistic way he portrays the story refreshes it and makes it accessible to a whole new audience and generation. Luhrmann almost reverses the genre of the story, taking an introspective work of literary realism and turning it into a bizarre work of surrealism. In doing so, he creates his own narrative, and uses the chaotic world he's created to socially comment further on the never-ending pursuit of the American dream and allows the audience to see the theme reflected in a setting more akin to modern times, with flashy distractions and technology and adverts distracting us from our purpose in life. Fitzgerald does the same, but directs it towards the audience of his time, using the flapper and golden age era as the same metaphor.
In bringing his own originality and creativity to the screen, Luhrmann effectively makes it incredibly difficult to even compare his work to the classic work of historical fiction. Luhrmann does this again in his adaptation of Romeo and Juliet, where he tells the classic tale in a contemporary setting of a late-nineties beachy city, portraying the Montagues and Capulets as rival gangs wearing Hawaiian shirts and dingy tank tops, but all the while having all dialogue spoken in the exact same old English that Shakespeare originally wrote the tragedy in. The result is a bizarre, striking contrast to the renaissance era romance, and due to this it also becomes its own work, almost entirely incomparable to the original once more.
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