The Great Gatsby

As we watched the film version of The Great Gatsby in class, I was surprised to see how similar the movie was to the book. I thought Baz Luhrmann did a great job of adapting a beautifully written book into an intensely visual and emotional movie. The most important moments in the book were kept in the film, and I found that the changes Luhrmann made for the most part did not detract from the story.

I loved the fact that Luhrmann decided to put actual quotes from the book into the movie. This seems to be a common stylistic choice of his (see Romeo and Juliet.) The novel is filled with beautiful lines, so it was nice to see the movie give a nod to Fitzgerald's writing. I thought the quotes were embedded very well, and they all made sense in the context of what was happening.

One change that I noticed right away was Jordan's character. Jordan appears far more in the book than in the movie-- she even has a relationship with Nick throughout the duration of the novel. This was probably taken out for the sake of time, which I do not entirely mind, but I liked their relationship in the book. Or rather, I liked the fact that they had a relationship. I felt that their relationship gave Nick a little more characterization in the book and made him seem like less of a background character. I still thought that the movie was successful without this relationship, though, because Nick was involved with so many other characters.

Another change that I thought was interesting was that, in the movie, Nick became an alcoholic after the events of his summer in New York. This really showed the impact that his summer and Gatsby's death had on his mental state, which I found brought a new light to his character. The only thing that didn't make sense about this, though, was that the movie kept the line where Nick says, "I've only been drunk twice in my life." I'm not sure if this is an error or just suggesting that Nick is not telling the truth, but it's not really a big issue.

Maps Activity

http://www.davidrumsey.com/luna/servlet/detail/RUMSEY~8~1~200289~3000175:The-Cottage-Ornament-?sort=Pub_Date%2CPub_List_No_InitialSort

• Details all around the border of the map
• Pictures of people of different nationalities
• Portraits of European leaders
• Presidents
• Solar system
• Time differences between countries
• World map and map of America

This map stood out to me because of the amount of detail in the border. The actual map of the United States may not even be the main focus, because there is so much going on in this map. The parts that contribute most to the story being told of America are the two sections that show pictures of people from different nations around the world. These are interesting because they seem to be more “caricatures” of these nationalities, rather than accurate depictions. This would then lead to misconstrued views about different races among Americans. Another example was given of this in the text, when Babb writes, “Bradford’s early perceptions of Native Americans, which evolved into popular racial representations, are an illustration.” (p. 60) The American citizens’ views would be based on these drawings, whether they are accurate or not.