comparing the great gatsby book and movie essay

The Great Gatsby Movie and Book Comparison

This essay aims to compare and contrast F. Scott Fitzgerald’s novel “The Great Gatsby” with its various film adaptations. The focus will be on how different directors have interpreted the novel’s themes, characters, and settings, and how these interpretations align or diverge from the original text. Key aspects like the portrayal of the Roaring Twenties, the representation of the American Dream, and the character development of Jay Gatsby and Daisy Buchanan will be critically examined. The overview will also discuss the effectiveness of each medium in conveying the novel’s underlying messages and the impact of visual and narrative styles on the story’s reception. At PapersOwl too, you can discover numerous free essay illustrations related to The Great Gatsby.

How it works

1 The Death Scene: A Diverging Interpretation
2 A Comparison of Gatsby’s Funeral in Book and Film
3.1 Works Cited

The Death Scene: A Diverging Interpretation

At the end of the book, as Gatsby is on the float in his pool waiting for Daisy’s call and the phone rings immediately, Gatsby thinks that it could be Daisy. The moment happens in the blink of an eye when Mr. Wilson shoots Gatsby, and his blood becomes part of the color of the pool. Fast Forward to Gatsby’s funeral, we know that Daisy did not attend it, and readers can ask why she loved him so much, but that is not the point.

The only ones who attended were Nick and Gatsby’s father. Now if we compare the movie, we know that a major difference is the scene of Gatsby’s murder. In the movie, he is coming out of the pool on his way to answer the phone when Wilson shoots him from behind. Also, we can see how only Nick and a few reporters attend his funeral.

A Comparison of Gatsby’s Funeral in Book and Film

Based on this, I can compare the difference in both versions. First, the author of the book most probably added Gatsby’s father at the funeral to show how he was always there for him. The father quickly attended the funeral when he found out that his son was murdered by the newspaper in Chicago. Then in the movie, the director of the movie did not add him to show that Gatsby really had no one, not even his own family nor the people who said they loved him. And that all his fortune for more expensive than they were, they were significant in the end.

Daisy’s Consistent Absence: A Commentary on Her Character

Another similarity between both the book and the two adaptations of the novel is that Daisy does not attend Gatsby’s funeral. Daisy knew she was Gatsby’s biggest love and that he would have done anything for her, yet she did not show up. I can see why the director wanted to keep it this way. It was to have a clear example of Daisy’s ignorance, how she was no different from when she was young and had first fallen in love with Gatsby. All Daisy looked into in a man was money. As she saw that Gatsby now had more fortune than she could have believed, she planned on staying with him. Now Gatsby was dead, and there was nothing she could have kept.

To conclude, although there were many differences in both adaptations of the novel, the movies were more effective and interesting. This is most likely because both movies helped the reader better picture Fitzgerald’s envisionment. For this reason, we all preferred the movie adaptations over the novel itself.

Works Cited

Fitzgerald, F. S. (1925). “The Great Gatsby”. Charles Scribner’s Sons.
Luhrmann, B. (Director). (2013). “The Great Gatsby” [Film]. Warner Bros. Pictures.
Tredell, N. (2007). “F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby: A Literary Reference”. Carroll & Graf Publishers.
Gillespie, M. A. (2006). “Critical Companion to F. Scott Fitzgerald: A Literary Reference to His Life And Work”. Facts on File.

Cite this page

The Great Gatsby Movie and Book Comparison. (2023, Jun 15). Retrieved from https://papersowl.com/examples/the-great-gatsby-movie-and-book-comparison/

"The Great Gatsby Movie and Book Comparison." PapersOwl.com , 15 Jun 2023, https://papersowl.com/examples/the-great-gatsby-movie-and-book-comparison/

PapersOwl.com. (2023). The Great Gatsby Movie and Book Comparison . [Online]. Available at: https://papersowl.com/examples/the-great-gatsby-movie-and-book-comparison/ [Accessed: 16 May. 2024]

"The Great Gatsby Movie and Book Comparison." PapersOwl.com, Jun 15, 2023. Accessed May 16, 2024. https://papersowl.com/examples/the-great-gatsby-movie-and-book-comparison/

"The Great Gatsby Movie and Book Comparison," PapersOwl.com , 15-Jun-2023. [Online]. Available: https://papersowl.com/examples/the-great-gatsby-movie-and-book-comparison/. [Accessed: 16-May-2024]

PapersOwl.com. (2023). The Great Gatsby Movie and Book Comparison . [Online]. Available at: https://papersowl.com/examples/the-great-gatsby-movie-and-book-comparison/ [Accessed: 16-May-2024]

Don't let plagiarism ruin your grade

Hire a writer to get a unique paper crafted to your needs.

Our writers will help you fix any mistakes and get an A+!

Please check your inbox.

You can order an original essay written according to your instructions.

Trusted by over 1 million students worldwide

1. Tell Us Your Requirements

2. Pick your perfect writer

3. Get Your Paper and Pay

Hi! I'm Amy, your personal assistant!

Don't know where to start? Give me your paper requirements and I connect you to an academic expert.

short deadlines

100% Plagiarism-Free

Certified writers

The Great Gatsby: 9 Big Differences Between The Book And Movie

Here's a rundown of the changes.

Putting together a film based on a highly acclaimed literary work full of phrasings and lines of dialogue that have forever been burned into readers' minds is largely a thankless task. Creating a film that maintains the heart and soul of such a literary work and even many of its most graceful lines is nearly impossible to accomplish, and in that aspect, director Baz Luhrmann has plenty of troubles with The Great Gatsby . F. Scott Fitzgerald's descriptive sentences are almost as important as his dialogue and tossing some of the finest lines from the book into ashy script on the screen isn't the best way to make the most of those moments. Nor is taking creative license in certain big moments in order to speed up the storytelling process.

In other ways, Luhrmann owns his portrayal of The Great Gatsby , keeping the energy and the often frenetic pace of the twenties by speeding forward into nights of partying and langouring through days of idle play. Like the director's other works---especially Moulin Rouge -- The Great Gatsby is noticeably, unmistakably Luhrmann's and whether or not you believe in his vision is largely dependent on your tolerance of the man's idea of spectacle. It would be nearly impossible to outdo Mr. Fitzgerald, and so Luhrmann tries to visually gives us as different a world as possible while still maintaining the quality of the venerable writer's pages. It's not the movie Fitzgerald would have written, but he was never all that good at creating screenplays, anyway.

Following are the nine biggest changes I noticed in my screening of The Great Gatsby . Feel free to remark on any changes you feel may have been more noticeable. There are many spoilers in The Great Gatsby book to movie comparison. Do not delve in if you want the film to be a surprise .

To give a frame to Nick Carraway's narration, Luhrmann introduces us to a broken Nick, who is working with a doctor to recover his health after troubles with alcohol. This seems a little distasteful, since Carraway comes across as a mostly careful and considerate individual. Asking us to see him out of sorts after Gatsby's death is more than a bit of a stretch, especially as Luhrmann also tasks the character with writing The Great Gatsby .

elizabeth debicki jordan baker the great gatsby

We learn Jordan Baker is an athlete nearly immediately. Though this in itself doesn't mean much, her entire storyline is sped up and her unlikely romance with Nick is cut out for the sake of time. In the book, the two only ever seem to have a casual affection for each another, especially as Jordan is shown to be dishonest, but in the film, she's a blank canvass we never get to know all that much about. This actually makes her character quite a bit more mysterious and likable, though.

Not only is Jordan a tepid version of her novel character, Daisy also lacks a certain spark and an underlying pettiness that propels her character forward in the book. Instead of offering a voice ringing like money, she offers a weak will and a damsel-in-distress persona that doesn't suit the character, or actress Carey Mulligan , either. In the book, she's careless. Here, she's more often thoughtless.

We get an early hint that Gatsby is wistful and waiting for someone before Carraway even goes to New York and gets roaring drunk. He sees his neighbor out on the dock late in the evening, staring across the harbor. It's easy for audience members who have read the book to decipher what he is thinking, but the small moment certainly gives fans an extra foreshadowing of the big reveal in the book.

CINEMABLEND NEWSLETTER

Your Daily Blend of Entertainment News

While Fitzgerald's book always feels very much a product of a particular period in time, Luhrmann's work always seems like one grand costume party, irrevocably modern and full of rap music. He pairs this with quiet moments between our main characters that give us a breather and result in a stylistic film that manages to feel like Fitzgerald's book and nothing like it at all.

When Nick luncheons with Gatsby and Mr. Wolfsheim, Luhrmann takes us through a secret door in a barbershop and into a speakeasy full of dancing women and at least slightly corrupt men. To prove a point about corruption, Luhrmann even places the police commissioner on the premise. It's a little heavy-handed, but who doesn't want to see a speakeasy in a movie set during prohibition?

When Gatsby is verbally attacked by Tom in New York, much of the dialogue is the same. However, when Gatsby begins to lose control, begins to realize that Daisy is present in the room but may be out of his grasp, his "face that could kill a man" morphs into a childish freak out where Gatsby even screams, "Shut up." The childish antic is a nice callback to the time Carraway chides him for behaving childishly before he meets Daisy for tea.

jason clarke wilson and joel edgerton tom the great gatsby

Tom Buchanan becomes a super villain by the end of the film, painting a murderous image into Wilson's head and convincing him to do the bad deed. Making Tom into an overt bad guy is convenient to the plot, but changing Tom from an unlikable guy into a ruthless villain seems lazy and too cheap of a behavior for the character.

leonardo dicaprio gatsby the great gatsby

In the end, when Gatsby goes swimming, waiting for Daisy to call, he is shot and taken away from his dream---of success, of getting the girl---while the phone rings in the background. Though we later perceive it is Carraway, for a moment, we get to see Gatsby's great hope swell once more, even as his life dims, and we get to wonder whether or not Daisy is on the line, and what she would say if she was.

Jessica Rawden is Managing Editor at CinemaBlend. She’s been kicking out news stories since 2007 and joined the full-time staff in 2014. She oversees news content, hiring and training for the site, and her areas of expertise include theme parks, rom-coms, Hallmark (particularly Christmas movie season), reality TV, celebrity interviews and primetime. She loves a good animated movie. Jessica has a Masters in Library Science degree from Indiana University, and used to be found behind a reference desk most definitely not shushing people. She now uses those skills in researching and tracking down information in very different ways.

Is The Idea Of You About Harry Styles? The Story Behind The Popular Comparison

10 Billie Eilish Red Carpet Looks That Challenged Norms For Women’s Fashion

Doctor Who’s Ncuti Gatwa And Millie Gibson Told Me The Wild And Heartfelt Story Behind The Scene Where The Doctor Gives Ruby The Key To The TARDIS

How Faithful Is The Great Gatsby ?

Ever since Baz Luhrmann announced that he was adapting F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby —and especially after he revealed that he’d be doing it in 3-D—much digital ink has been spilled about the hideous sacrilege that was sure to follow. Nevermind that Luhrmann’s previous adaptation, William Shakespeare’s Romeo + Juliet , was quite true to both the language and the spirit of that legendary play; Gatsby , as David Denby puts it in The New Yorker this week, is “ too intricate, too subtle, too tender for the movies ,” and especially for such an unsubtle filmmaker as Luhrmann.

So the argument goes, anyway. In fact, Fitzgerald’s novel, while great, is not, for the most part, terribly subtle. And though it has moments of real tenderness, it also has melodrama, murder, adultery, and, of course, wild parties. In any case, we can put aside, for the moment, the larger question of whether Luhrmann captured the spirit of Gatsby , which is very much open for debate . There’s a simpler question to address first: How faithful was the filmmaker to the letter of Fitzgerald’s book?

Below is a breakdown of the ways in which the new film departs from the classic novel.

The Frame Story Luhrmann’s chief departure from the novel arrives right at the beginning, with a frame story in which the narrator Nick Carraway (Tobey Maguire), some time after that summer spent with Gatsby & co., has checked into a sanitarium, diagnosed by a doctor of some sort as “morbidly alcoholic.” Fitzgerald’s Nick does refer to Gatsby as “the man who gives his name to this book ” (emphasis mine), so the idea that The Great Gatsby is a text written by Nick is not entirely original with Luhrmann—though the filmmaker takes this much further than Fitzgerald, showing Nick writing by hand, then typing, and finally compiling his finished manuscript. He even titles it, first just Gatsby , then adding, by hand, “The Great,” in a concluding flourish. ( Fitzgerald himself went through many more potential titles .) As for that morbid alcoholism, Nick claims in the novel that he’s “been drunk just twice in my life,” but the movie slyly implies that he’s in denial, by showing him cross out “once” for “twice,” and then, in the frame story, suggesting that it was far more than that, really.

Jordan and Nick The plot of the film is pretty much entirely faithful to the novel, but Luhrmann and his co-screenwriter Craig Pearce do cut out one of the side stories: the affair between Nick and Jordan Baker, the friend of Daisy’s from Louisville who is a well-known golfer. Daisy promises to set them up, to push them “accidentally in linen closets and … out to sea in a boat,” a line the screenplay keeps—but then, in the film, the matter is dropped. Luhrmann’s Nick says he found Jordan “frightening” at first, a word Carraway doesn’t apply to her in the novel—and later at Gatsby’s we see Jordan whisked away from Nick by a male companion, which doesn’t happen in the book. In the novel, they become a couple and break up near the end of the summer.

The Apartment Party The film, like the novel, is a series of set pieces, including an impromptu party that Tom throws in a Manhattan apartment he keeps for his mistress, Myrtle Wilson, wife of a Queens mechanic. Nick accompanies them, and the film shows Nick sitting quietly in the apartment’s living room while the adulterous couple have loud sex in the bedroom. Fitzgerald doesn’t spell out anything so explicit—but something like that is implied: Tom and Myrtle disappear and reappear before the other guests arrive; Nick reads a book and waits. Luhrmann also shows Myrtle’s sister Catherine giving Nick a pill that she says she got from a doctor in Queens; that’s not in the novel at all. Luhrmann’s Nick wakes up at home, half-dressed, unsure how he got there, while Fitzgerald’s narrator comes to in an apartment downstairs from Tom and Myrtle’s place, owned by one of their friends (and party-guests); he then goes to Penn Station to take the 4 o’clock train home.

Lunch With Wolfsheim In the book, Gatsby takes Nick to lunch at a “well-fanned 42 nd Street cellar,” where he introduces his new friend to Meyer Wolfsheim, a Jewish gangster. In the movie, Gatsby and Nick go to a barber shop with a hidden entrance to a speakeasy, and once inside they see not only Wolfsheim but also the police commissioner—who, in the book as in the film, Gatsby was “able to do … a favor once.” They also see there (if I understood things correctly) Nick’s boss, whom I believe Luhrmann has turned into Tom’s friend Walter Chase. (In the novel, those are two different people, neither of whom we ever actually meet.) The speakeasy features entertainment from a bevy of Josephine Baker-like dancers, who are not mentioned in the book.

Race At least one reviewer—David Denby again—has protested Luhmann’s decision to cast an Indian actor, Amitabh Bachchan, as Wolfsheim, a character based on notorious Jewish gangster Arnold Rothstein. But faithfulness in this case probably would have meant anti-Semitism, since it is very hard to defend Fitzgerald’s characterization of the “small, flat-nosed Jew” with a “large head” and “two fine growths of hair which luxuriated in either nostril.” Casting Bachchan preserves the character’s otherness while complicating the rather gruesome stereotype Fitzgerald employed. Luhrmann appears to have given some thought to this, given that he faithfully keeps key passages from the novel about race: Tom’s trumpeting of a racist book called Rise of the Colored Empires (which had a real-world inspiration ), Nick’s glimpse of apparently wealthy black men and women being driven into Manhattan by a white chauffeur, and Tom’s later diatribe about “intermarriage between black and white.”

The Finnish Woman and Ella Kaye Did you know that Nick Carraway had a maid? This is easy to forget, since Nick seems generally financially a bit strapped, certainly in comparison to his rich neighbors. But in the novel he employs “a Finnish woman who made my bed and cooked breakfast and muttered Finnish wisdom to herself over the electric stove.” She makes a few appearances in the book but is understandably cut from the movie. So is Ella Kaye, the seemingly conniving woman who manages to snag the inheritance of Dan Cody, the rich, drunken yachtsman who first prompts Gatsby on his road to wealth and artifice. In the movie, Cody’s wealth goes to his family.

Gatsby’s Death and Funeral Near the end of the book, Gatsby is murdered by George Wilson, the mechanic husband of Tom’s mistress, who has gotten it into his head that Gatsby killed her—and that, what’s more, he might have been the one she was sleeping with on the side. Fitzgerald doesn’t depict the murder: The book says that Gatsby grabbed a “pneumatic mattress” (i.e., a floater ) and headed to his pool, then Gatsby’s chauffeur hears gun shots. Luhrmann ditches the pneumatic mattress and adds his own dramatic flourish. In both book and movie, Gatsby is waiting for a phone call from Daisy, but in the film, Nick calls, and Gatsby gets out of the pool when he hears the phone ring. He’s then shot, and he dies believing that Daisy was going to ditch Tom and go way with him. None of that happens in the book.

Gatsby is, in both versions, lonely in death, but the film is even crueler to him in this regard, dropping the last-minute appearance of his father and the unexpected arrival at the funeral of a man who Nick previously met in Gatsby’s study. This is the same man who famously points out that Gatsby has real books, but hasn’t cut the pages. We meet him in the movie in that study, but he makes no mention of the books, and his subsequent appearance is dropped entirely.

Read more in Slate about The Great Gatsby .

Previously How True Is Pain & Gain ? How Accurate Is Lincoln ? How Accurate Is Argo ? Who Are the People in Zero Dark Thirty ? How Much Scientology Made It into The Master ?

Home / Essay Samples / Literature / The Great Gatsby / A Comparative Analysis of “The Great Gatsby”: Book vs. Movie

A Comparative Analysis of "The Great Gatsby": Book vs. Movie

Category: Entertainment , Literature
Topic: The Great Gatsby

Pages: 1 (450 words)

Downloads: -->

Introduction

Differences in storytelling.

--> ⚠️ Remember: This essay was written and uploaded by an--> click here.

Found a great essay sample but want a unique one?

are ready to help you with your essay

You won’t be charged yet!

Game of Thrones Essays

Miss Representation Essays

Call of The Wild Essays

Minecraft Essays

Acting Essays

Related Essays

We are glad that you like it, but you cannot copy from our website. Just insert your email and this sample will be sent to you.

By clicking “Send”, you agree to our Terms of service and Privacy statement . We will occasionally send you account related emails.

Your essay sample has been sent.

In fact, there is a way to get an original essay! Turn to our writers and order a plagiarism-free paper.

samplius.com uses cookies to offer you the best service possible.By continuing we’ll assume you board with our cookie policy .--> -->