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The Great Gatsby Baz Luhrmann Essay

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Before the invention of film and television, authors expressed their ideas through language and literature. Just like many others, F. Scott Fitzgerald uses his thoughts and writing skills to portray his opinions and ideas. His novel, The Great Gatsby, is about the morality and choices of the people in the 1920s. Fitzgerald uses color and imagery to evoke feeling in his work, which on the other hand is difficult to accomplish in a movie. Baz Luhrmann, the director of the more recent version of The Great Gatsby, managed to do just that. He directs scenes in artistic ways so the audience sees and understands things we may have not in the book. Luhrmann interprets the characters and the way they act differently as well. When we compare the two …show more content…

Luhrmann does an excellent job of matching Fitzgerald’s methods. Fitzgerald uses color as symbolism. When Nick goes to the Buchanans for dinner, he walks into a parlor and all the windows are open. There are white curtains ruffling in the breeze and it is bright. It looks almost heavenly. Then when we see Daisy and Jordan they are both wearing white was well, seeming to say they are pure, almost like angels. Using color Luhrmann is able to make us think things about Daisy, and get a impression of her. He then has Tom come in and shut all the windows, it suddenly becomes humid and dark, which shows that Luhrmann wants Tom to be seen in a negative light. Tom just ruined the light and heavenly air about the scene and made it dark and gloomy. This creates a bad impression of Tom for us. Luhrmann did a excellent job of matching and interpreting Fitzgerald's imagery and it added a lot to the film. When comparing the the film and book of The Great Gatsby there are many things that are similar and different. When Fitzgerald uses imagery in his piece it adds emotion and symbolism to his piece. When Luhrmann matches his imagery in the film, it makes the film almost artistic. Luhrmann interprets the characters differently as well. He doesn't make Nick as questionable, and Daisy as flamboyant. There are many good changes in the movie that added another layer than the

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