Nastia: Maybe you've just finished The Great Gatsby and need some guidance for

unpacking its complex themes and symbols. Or maybe it's been awhile since you
last read this novel, so you need a refresher on its plot and characters. Or maybe
you're in the middle of reading it and want to double check that you're not missing
the important stuff. Whatever you need - we've got you covered with this
comprehensive summary of one of the great American films of all time!
Mira: The Great Gatsby, third novel by F. Scott Fitzgerald, published in 1925 by
Charles Scribner's Sons. The Great Gatsby movie directed by Baz Luhrmann
(2013). This Gatsby has the eye-popping visuals, dancing scenes, high energy and
big production values. Set in Jazz Age New York, the film tells the tragic story of
Jay Gatsby, a self-made millionaire, and his beloved Daisy Buchanan, a wealthy
young woman whom he loved in his youth.
The ausralian director improved the movie with more music, costumes, camera
tricks. Although the dramatic challenges posed by the character of narrator Nick
Carraway remain problematic, the cast is first-rate, the ambiance and story provide
a measure of intoxication and, most importantly, the core thematic concerns
pertaining to the American dream, self-reinvention and love lost, regained and lost
again are tenaciously addressed.
Nastia: Once you get past the movie's opening eruptions of visual excess —
hundreds of party guests boozing and hollering and doing the Charleston; CGI
cityscapes that visualize 1920s New York by way of Warren Beatty's candy-
colored "Dick Tracy"; a long expository talk between Gatsby and Nick in a
careening computer-buffed roadster that moves as believably as the talking cab in
"Who Framed Roger Rabbit" — "The Great Gatsby" settles into a traditional
groove: scene, scene, montage, scene, burst of violence, moment of reflection. The
movie wants to be a "kaleidoscopic carnival," to quote a phrase from the book's
description of a Jay Gatsby party, but Luhrmann's instincts seem more traditional,
even square, and the two impulses cancel each out.
Mira: DiCaprio's Gatsby is the movie's greatest and simplest special effect: an
illusion conjured mainly through body language and voice. DiCaprio makes the
book's character comprehensible and achingly real. Leonardo DiCaprio's acting is
the cherry on top in the film. He did the character absolute justice and delivered a
flawless performance, as expected from such a world-class actor. The actor's
choices drive home the idea that Gatsby is playing the man he wishes he were, and
that others need him to be. We see the calculations behind his eyes, but we also
believe that he could hide them from the other characters — most of them,
anyway.
DiCaprio's acting evokes Nick's description of the human personality as "an
unbroken series of successful gestures." Luhrmann cuts some scenes to make it
seem as if the character really is omniscient — as if he can see and hear for miles
and read people's thoughts and feelings — and DiCaprio plays these moments with
a mix of inscrutability and delight, as if Gatsby knows something we don't, but is
too clever to say precisely what. When Gatsby's deceptions are revealed and his
illusions shattered, DiCaprio becomes at once terrifying and pathetic, a false idol
toppling himself from his pedestal. In his final moment of realization, DiCaprio's
blue eyes match the blue of Gatsby's pool, and his anguished face, framed in tight
close-up, has a ghastly beauty. This is an iconic performance — maybe his career
best.
Nastia: The Great Gatsby is memorable for the rich symbolism that underpins its
story. Throughout the novel, the green light at the end of Daisy’s dock is a
recurrent image that beckons to Gatsby’s sense of ambition.
It is a symbol of “the orgastic future” he believes in so intensely, toward which his
arms are outstretched when Nick first sees him. It is this “extraordinary gift for
hope” that Nick admires so much in Gatsby, his “heightened sensitivity to the
promises of life.”. In essence, the green light is an unattainable promise, one that
Nick understands in universal terms at the end of the novel: a future we never
grasp but for which we are always reaching. Nick compares it to the hope the early
settlers had in the promise of the New World. Gatsby’s dream fails, then, when he
fixates his hope on a real object, Daisy. His once indefinite ambition is thereafter
limited to the real world and becomes prey to all of its corruption.
The valley of ashes serves as a counterpoint to the brilliant future promised by the
green light. As a dumping ground for the refuse of nearby factories, it stands as the
consequence of America’s postwar economic boom, the ugly truth behind the
consumer culture that props up newly rich people like Gatsby. In this valley live
underclasses people that live without hope, all the while bolstering the greed of a
thriving economy. Over the valley of ashes hover the bespectacled eyes of Doctor
T.J. Eckleburg, which appear on the advertising billboard of an oculist. These eyes
almost become a moral conscience in the morally vacuous world of The Great
Gatsby; to George Wilson they are the eyes of God.
Mira: List of the major themes
Money and Materialism—the film is fascinated by how people make their
money, what they can and can't buy with it, and how the pursuit of wealth shapes
the decisions people make and the paths their lives follow.
Society and Class—the novel can also be read as a clash between the old money
set and the nouveau riche strivers and wannabes that are trying to either become
them or replace them. If the novel ends with the strivers and the poor being killed
off and the old money literally getting away with murder, who wins this class
battle?
Love, Desire, and Relationships—most of the major characters are driven by
either love or sexual desire, but none of these connections prove lasting or stable.
Death and Failure—a tone of sadness and elegy (an elegy is a song of sadness for
the dead) suffuses the book, as Nick looks back at a summer that ended with three
violent deaths and the defeat of one man's delusional dream
Morality and Ethics—despite the fact that most of the characters in this novel
cheat on their significant others, one is an accidental killer, one is an actual
criminal, and one a murderer, at the end of the novel no one is punished either by
the law or by public censure.
The American Dream —does the novel endorse or mock the dream of the rags-to-
riches success story, the ideal of the self-made man? Is Gatsby a successful
example of what's possible through hard work and dedication, or a sham whose
crime and death demonstrate that the American Dream is a work of fiction?
Nastia: AMERICAN DREAM
We all have different ideas about the American Dream, or success in general. For
many of us, we picture the white picket fence, two-and-a-half children, a smiling
housewife, and a happy husband dressed in a suit and tie. For others, the American
Dream means coming to America and having a rich, productive life. In F. Scott
Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby, we follow Jay Gatsby as he pursues his version of
the American Dream. His failure to attain happiness leads the reader to believe that
the moral of the story is that the American Dream is ultimately unattainable.
And now Let’s move on to some facts!

Mira: 1. Baz Luhrmann first decided to adapt The Great Gatsby in 2004 Luhrmann
first decided to adapt Fitzgerald's novel after listening to an audiobook version
during an extended train trip in 2004. After negotiating with the producers at Sony
who owned the rights to the novel, he approached Leonardo DiCaprio, whom he'd
last worked with in 1996's Romeo + Juliet. DiCaprio was the only actor Luhrmann
ever approached for the role of Jay Gatsby.

Nastia: 2. Carey Mulligan wasn't originally considered to play Daisy Buchanan.

In 2010, Luhrmann did a workshop of his Gatsby screenplay in which Rebecca
Hall read for the part of Daisy opposite DiCaprio. But according to Deadline,
Luhrmann quickly decided to cast a wider net for the role of Daisy. The early list
of favorites for the role was a who's-who of Hollywood's hottest young actresses,
including Natalie Portman, Keira Knightley, Michelle Williams, Scarlett
Johansson but not Carey Mulligan. Luhrmann has finally called her to tell that she
had won the role only after a few weeks of the audition.
Mira: 3. Leonardo DiCaprio wanted to play Gatsby because he liked "the idea of a
man who was absolutely nothing and created himself out of his own imagination."
“Gatsby is one of the iconic characters because he can be interpreted in many
ways: a hopeless romantic, a possessed madman, or a dangerous gangster clinging
to wealth,” says DiCaprio.

Nastia: 4. The soundtrack is designed to evoke the spirit of the jazz era. The
offbeat selections serve a thematic purpose, explains Luhrmann at Rolling Stone:
"The question for me in approaching Gatsby was how to make our audience to be
on the same level of excitement and pop cultural immediacy toward the world that
Fitzgerald did for his audience? And in our age, the energy of jazz is caught in the
energy of hip-hop."

Mira: Overall, "The Great Gatsby" is a fantastically entertaining and enthralling

film. It is horribly underrated as it is filled with awards worthy visuals, sets,
costumes, direction, and performances. This film has a great history, this film is
legendary!