The
Great Gatsby, the movie and the reading, matched up in a lot of ways. Whenever we first read this book, we observe
that Nick Carraway is a person who seems to be much more passive and goes with
the flow. He tags along with Gatsby, and
he works almost as a middle man between Gatsby and Daisy. In any book with a storyline, you imagine the
characters in your mind with their own features and own personality
traits. I imagined Nick in the book
almost exactly like Nick in the movie.
As I imagined Nick as some nerdy looking guy who seems to be a smart and
middle class man, I imagined Daisy as a big fluke. Daisy is very flirty, and
loves her possessions. As we know, Daisy
seems to be wishy washy in the focus of the story between her love for Tom and
Gatsby, the movie shows Daisy spot on as a character. The way the book explains Daisy, a wealthy
wife of Tom Buchanan who only goes for money, seems to show that she really does love Gatsby in the movie. And her husband, Tom, is known as a very
aggressive man who has a mistress, Myrtle Wilson, and is a great match as well
to his character in both the movie and the book. He has a defined face, never smiling, with a
little tilt in his head downward, with his eyes looking at you as if being
accused of something all the time. As we
read about a senile man in the story, we also see the same man in the movie.
Now, the man with the story named after him,
Jay Gatsby. Gatsby is unique as we
know. When I read the book, I imagined a
man with a comb over, overly confident in himself, loving for Daisy, rich, and
secretive. This is depicted very well in
the movie. The actor, Leo, was a great
fit for Gatsby, even with his relatable mannerisms to the book. He uses the term “Old Sport,” he is very
mysterious, even spying on Nick in his little house just below his mansion in West
Egg, and he even has that non-forgetful personality to him.
The
tone from the movie is very different than what I would have thought as it
would have been in the book itself—but it still was a great tone in its unique
way. The movie played music that was
from our modern era, but they made it fit into the story well. The tone of the parties though? That was very
well presented. They made Gatsby’s
parties very real and massive, just as imagined. Also, the actors and actresses had very well
haircuts—at least for that time.
The
plot of the story was almost spot-on to that of the books. With quotations from the story being used frequently
throughout the movie, it added the real factor to the movie. Everything that happened
in the movie, I thought in my mind, “I remember that part in the book!” The film showed Gatsby’s love for Daisy, and
Daisy being a huge stroke of luck, and Jordan Baker, Myrtle Wilson, and other
characters were all doing the same role in the book at the same time they were
in the story. The chapters seemed to go
in order the same way for the story and the
movie. It also showed the green light,
valley of ashes, money, Gatsby’s mansion, even Daisy’s $350,000 pearl necklace that
Tom bought her.
