The Great Gatsby: Movie Analysis

Some people, films, books, and art are considered to be timeless and whatever allows someone or something to achieve this reputation is the value it has and the lessons and sentiments that it provokes. The book The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald is considered to be timeless and the original movie’s reputation is not viewed as being any lesser. In fact, in recent years the movie was even remade into a more technologically advanced film. Even though both of the movies are based on the same book, they are extremely different from one another when it comes to accuracy and the message of the book seems to become lost in the newer version of the film. To begin with, the classic first movie is very close to the book to the extent that some scenes are even word for word with the writing. Even when the script is not repeating the words of Fitzgerald, the dialect and the acting make the viewer feel like they are being thrown into …show more content…
In the old movie the green light is showed multiple times pulsing over the water and casting shadows over the docks of Long Island Sound. At night Gatsby would spend hours gazing at the light. The green light is a symbolic of the distant future that Gatsby longs to have with Daisy. Since green also means go, this can also represents Gatsby’s driving force to be with Daisy. The green light is a very important motif because it is shown as brightening and fading, kind of like Gatsby’s relationship with Daisy. This motif also helps the theme because the central them of the book and the movie is using the relationship of Gatsby and Daisy to symbolize the downfall of the time era and how all good things must come to an end. Leaving out this detail causes the theme of the movie to lose its symbolic meaning and really does make the viewer think that they are watching only a movie and not a story of great social and literal