Film Analysis Of The Great Gatsby

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The film, which was released in 2013 and directed by Baz Luhrmann was based on the world-famous novel, The Great Gatsby, by F. Scott Fitzgerald. This novel, published in 1925, is regarded as one of America’s most prominent novels. The book focuses on the American Dream, which is the dream of a land in which life should be better, richer and fuller for everyone, with opportunity for each, and according to one’s ability or achievement. The film is based on the narration by Gatsby’s neighbor, Nick Carraway who has just moved to West Egg, from the Midwest, aspiring to be a bond salesman. He meets his cousin Daisy and her husband, Tom Buchanan, whom he knew from college, at their home in the more fashionable, East Egg. In this visit he is introduced…show more content…
This is a film that tramples on Fitzgerald's exquisite prose, turning the oblique into the crude, the suggestively symbolic into the declaratively monumental, the abstract into the flatly real. It's a pared-down novel where the use of "unrestfully" instead of "restlessly" is important, and where Carraway can speak of Jordan "changing the subject with an urban distaste for the concrete".” – (French, Philip. "The Great Gatsby – Review." The Guardian. Guardian News and Media, 18 May 2013.)2 Tobey Maguire’s performance was “child-like” according to the guardian, however rather than it being negative, this reviewer saw it as showcasing Nick’s innocence. The innocence of children is their wisdom, the simplicity of children is their ego-lessness. The freshness of your consciousness, which never becomes old, which always remains young as you are not corrupted by life’s…show more content…
Gatsby is closely related to the American Dream, which is the belief that anyone, regardless of race, class, gender, or nationality, can be successful in America if they just work hard enough. Gatsby comes from a poor background and due to social inequality, he was unable to marry the love of his life, Daisy. This drives Gatsby do anything to move up the social ladder and partake in illegal activities to do so. Although in the end, “The Great Gatsby’s meditation on The American Dream is the idea that people are always reaching towards something greater than themselves that is just out of reach”, regarding Gatsby’s introduction, with him reaching out towards the green light. – (Wulick, 2016)3 In the book, Jay Gatsby, the character, is so unfathomable, so much a conjecture of the novel's narrator, and yet Leonardo DiCaprio makes him understandable and genuine. The actor's choices highlight the idea that Gatsby is playing the man he wishes he were, and that others want him to be. The audience sees the questions and intentions in his mind, but also believes that he could hide them from the other characters or cast members. Leonardo DiCaprio's acting highlights the novel’s depiction of his character’s personality as "an unbroken series of successful gestures". – (Fitzgerald, Pg. 4)4 Baz Luhrmann edits the outcome of the movie to make the
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