I just watched another excellent Steve Shives review video, this time discussing the various film adaptations of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby. To be honest I was slightly surprised to see a piece like this coming from Shives: I had thought of him as more of a popular culture, science fiction kind of guy, so to see him delve into literature like this was kind of refreshing. Yet it must be said that, as with his other work, what Shives does here is pretty phenomenal, essentially delivering a thorough, informative essay exploring one of the great pieces of American literature and it’s subsequent adaptations into film, in the form of a Youtube video. It is certainly well worth a watch, especially if you’re interested in the relationship between literature and film.

Yet things like this often make me reflect on my own work too. I was talking about this a few days ago with John: My Master’s thesis looks into the relationship between cinephilia, with it’s written explorations of film, and fandom, which explores film more physically and creatively. Since finishing my MA ten years ago though, that relationship seems to have moved on phenomenally, and a whole new literature seems to be appearing. Fans on Youtube like Steve Shives are now reacting to film just as articulately and inquisitively as the cinephiliac magazine writers before them, yet retain the sense of fun and play found in fan output. The dynamic between the two seems to have changed fundamentally, and I can’t help wondering whether my thesis is now kind of redundant. The narrowing of the relationship between the two manifestations of filmic love may well explain why my thesis has been referenced by other people, as interest in the idea increases. Might it now be worth going back to my thesis, revising it to incorporate the new types of filmic love and fascination we are now increasingly seeing online? That is what John put to me a few days ago, and the proposition is finding it’s lure the more things like this on Youtube I come across.