Compare And Contrast The Great Gatsby

The book The Great Gatsby, was first made into a movie in 1974 and then remade in 2013. The movies overall are very similar, but a huge difference can be found in the musical scores of the movies. The modern version’s music has more bass and contains songs that are popular in the twenty-first century, while the older version’s score is truer to the actual time of the story. The songs in each movies’ scene of Gatsby’s murder is opposite in almost every way, but surprisingly both succeed in building suspenseful feelings that resonate with the viewer. Musically scoring the death scene can be compared to scoring a scene in a horror movie. It is crucial to have the right music in order to invoke the desired reaction from the viewer, in this case that reaction is to build suspense and turn it into shock. Horror movies embrace music with abrupt changes in pitch (Derbyshire). The modern version of Gatsby took this approach …show more content…
In horror movies silence is used to intensify the situation. This silence is achieved through small breaks in the music. In the first version the record playing on the porch skips and then stops playing (Clayton). The cheerful classical song was ended and left alone with no one to restart it. This symbolized Gatsby’s death because even with all his hope and cheerfulness he was alone in the end. In the newer movie, the music does quite the opposite. After the quick recess between the melody, in which Gatsby was shot, the music does not tapper off, but instead grows stronger and louder. In this version the music symbolizes his love for Daisy, and the passion behind words that remain inside of him that can not be shared with her due to the wound in his chest (Luhrmann). This famous quote “‘One of the hardest things in life is having words in your heart that you can’t utter’” (Jones). In both movies a statement is made by Gatsby, which is portrayed to the audience through