Baz Luhrmann, director and producer of The Great Gatsby movie, does an excellent job in replicating the 1920’s in The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald. He selected exemplary characters, and they each represent the characters’ roles perfectly. Leonardo DiCaprio fits like a puzzle piece as Gatsby--both are wealthy and high class. Tobey Maguire is cat’s yarn as Nick Carraway--they’re both heroes and protagonists, as in the 2002 version of Spiderman. The female cast is inexplicably beautiful and well-chosen. Carey Mulligan stars as Daisy Fay and Elizabeth Debicki stars as Jordan Baker, both without a doubt, beautiful and highly talented.
The movie, however, lacks a few elements, and includes scenes that weren’t in the novel. For instance, in the novel, Myrtle Wilson purchases a dog, supposedly an Airedale. This specific scene is missing in the movie. This scene is important because it shows that women in the 1920s didn’t have a good chance in social mobility. Also, when Myrtle mentions Daisy, Tom breaks her nose. In the novel, however, there are “bloody towels upon the bathroom floor.” But in the movie, they don’t exaggerate as much. This is also important because it is showing (in the movie) that men aren’t as abusive in reality, when many men are actually very abusive. Lastly, also in the novel, George Wilson performs an extensive search for the person who killed his wife. In the movie, there is no such search. In the novel, Tom does not directly tell Mr. Wilson of the murder, however, in the movie, Tom tells Mr. Wilson that it was Gatsby’s car that killed his wife. In the movie, Luhrmann makes it seem like a mystery that was solved too quick. The movie also lacked suspense that was present in the novel.
Music is a major element throughout the movie. The movie also included hip-hop music by Jay-Z and an African American women dancing inappropriately in a car.This shows that the movie is more racist than the book because they decide to include African Americans and portray them negatively. The addition of the music was the only positive element because it reflects the Harlem Renaissance of the 1920s. In the novel, African Americans are not included at all, which was a good thing because it shows the author wisely decided not to ignorantly include a race.
The movie mirrors the “American Dream” that ties to the novel. For instance, Gatsby’s American Dream is to have a magnificent house, cars, wealth and a beautiful woman. His idea of the American Dream is very materialistic. His past is with Daisy, his present is trying to get back with Daisy and his future is loving Daisy again. Furthermore, the movie’s color symbolism is great because all the colors are vivid and all represent the materialistic world.
In the movie, we cannot see Nick’s side of the American dream because of the transition of the beat-down, valley of ashes from the West Egg to the prosperous, city-like East Egg. The only similarity is that in both depictions, the East Egg remains the city whereas the West Egg should be the agricultural side. Nick’s idea of the American Dream is thoroughly expressed in the novel because his idea is to live in the West, where “Tom and Gatsby, Daisy and Jordan and I, were all Westerners.” When he refers to the West Egg, he means the agricultural side of America and he says that they were “subtly unadaptable to Eastern life” (or the city). Nick believes that it is impossible to achieve the American Dream because it is lost in the past.
The American Dream is portrayed in the movie by the famous line, “Can’t repeat the past? Why of course you can!” by Gatsby. This means that the American Dream, no matter how difficult it is to achieve it in the past, can be achieved again in the future. However, Nick disagrees with that because he feels that the American Dream can no longer be achieved.
The Great Gatsby can be examined through historical criticism, which is when you analyze the background of the author and how it relates to a work of literature. F. Scott Fitzgerald has a great history and his life has greatly contributed to the development of the plot. “As a youth Fitzgerald revealed a flair for dramatics, first in Saint Paul where he wrote original plays for amateur production,” according to Andrea Teuber of Brandeis University. This relates to the movie because Gatsby’s house is just like a theatre and theatres are the center of play production. In the movie, Owl Eyes was insisting that Gatsby’s house and library was entirely real, and the movie does a good job in imitating the scene from the novel.
Overall, the movie focuses whether some can achieve the American dream by going back into the past. Certain themes that are discussed in the movie are love, money, marital-issues, and the American dream. Others include violence and alienation, decadence and decay, loss and despair and many more. Even though, the movie begins on a dull note it builds to a suspenseful crescendo.