It has been a decade since the glittering release of Baz Luhrmann’s The Great Gatsby, the latest of several film adaptations of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s book of the same name. Let’s dive into five critical differences between the book and film to definitively answer the question — which is more powerful in delivering the themes and purveying entertainment value?
The Great Gatsby is a novella penned by F. Scott Fitzgerald, which was considered unsuccessful when published in 1925. However after the author’s death, it has over time become regarded as a seminal piece of classical American literature. The 2013 film directed by Baz Luhrmann, has a stellar line-up of stars including Leonardo DiCaprio playing Jay Gatsby, Tobey Maguire as Nick Carraway, Carey Mulligan as Daisy Buchanan and Joel Edgerton as Tom Buchanan.
The 2013 film is a tremendously dazzling visual representation of the written word onto screen. Importantly, what is identical between book and film is the setting. The story is set in the Roaring Twenties, aka the Jazz Age, when World War I had just ended, with a backlash against traditional, conservative values. In America, Prohibition had begun, and with the unenforceability of the ban on alcohol, corruption, racketing and underworld crime became rampant. The location settings of Long Island and New York are carried over with the expository, speedy camera fly-over between the gleaming mansions of East and West Egg, representing the division of Old and New money.
Many thematically critical lines from the book’s narration and the characters’ spoken words are identical. So too are some symbolic elements, such as the giant billboard of Dr T.J. Eckleberg’s eyes — as spelled out in the film, like the uncaring “eyes of God” overlooking the “Valley of Ashes.” This is the industrial wasteland dividing the light, airy world of the indolent rich on Long Island vs. the bustling seat of entrepreneurism of the booming US Stock Market in New York. At 143 minutes, the film captured most salient points of the book in stunning visual splendour, with vigorous action scenes and vibrant period costumes. Every scene is bursting with action that propels the plot forward, from the dizzying parties, hedonistic speakeasy, and intense character interaction plays, to the heady fusion of modern pop and rap to appeal to the modern audience.
I will explore five major deviations that the film took from the novel and assess if these differences are worth it. Did they contribute to the book’s many themes, such as the degradation of the American Dream and the destruction of idealism by materialistic values? Or are these changes just made to superficially appeal to the modern viewer, with the limited time restrictions of film? Agree or debate, the invitation is open…
The five critical differences are:
1. Nick & Gatsby’s first meeting
Nick Carraway in the book is immediately established to be a reliable narrator who “reserves judgment” and thinks of himself as “the most honest person I know.” In the film, the story is also mainly told through his point of view, as acted by Maguire. The difference is that he is a recovering alcoholic in a “sanitarium,” with medical notes that he is prone to depression and bursts of anger. On his doctor’s advice, his writing of Gatsby’s story as catharsis works well to deliver a recount of that time of his life.
In the book, Nick is attending one of Jay Gatsby’s many ostentatious parties in his mansion in “New Money” West Egg for the first time. Realising he is the only person who has been invited (as everyone else just turns up) and that he didn’t know anyone, he becomes embarrassed and decides to get drunk. He bumps into Jordan Baker, whom he had previously met at the Buchanans’ mansion in “Old Money” East Egg. Her conversation adds to the gossip-train of the mystique surrounding Gatsby. It is then later in the party, in a quiet seated scene when an initially un-introduced man asks Nick about his military role in the War. The stranger establishes rapport by stating “that’s why I thought I’ve seen you before.” Nick states that he hasn’t even met his host and there is a pause before the man says ‘I’m Gatsby’ and he quickly tries to quell any awkwardness by using terms of familiarity — “Sorry old sport, but I thought you knew.”
In the film, in bombastic Baz Luhrmann style, Nick is bedazzled by the manic party-goers, wild dancing, frenetic music and various people parroting rumours about Gatsby’s origins (lines taken from the book). He bumps into Jordan Baker, they retreat into the library when the owl-eyed glasses man (also from the book) says profoundly “Gatsby isn’t real.” They are outside when an excited announcement is made about fireworks. Nick is bamboozled by a series of questions about his war-time role by a man with a ring (with the camera strategically not yet catching his face), holding a silver tray as they move quickly up a flight of steps to a viewing point. Nick professes that he hasn’t even met the host and then DiCaprio does a dramatic, full-head turn, declaring that he is Gatsby, raising a glass of champagne with a showman’s smile, just as the fireworks explode behind him.
In the book, the quietness of their first meeting and conversation is not as show-stopping but establishes the seriousness of what is to come. Gatsby is hospitable and generous to Nick, as he is to all his party guests as stepping stones to attaining his illusion of “repeating the past,” that is, to attain a happily ever after with Daisy. By contrast in the film, the occasion is marked as blatantly momentous and though perhaps a little over-the-top, it is true to Luhrmann’s style and meets the cinema audience’s expectation of spectacle.
I would assess that both the book and film have delivered in equal measure, though in different styles, the importance of Nick’s first meeting with Gatsby.
2. Gatsby & Daisy’s reunion
What is identical in book and film is that the day started with heavy rain, symbolising a breaking of tension, the infusion of life and instigation of growth. This is significant for the secretive set-up for Gatsby and Daisy, two former lovers who have not seen each other in five years, in Nick’s humble rental cottage.
Where it diverges is that in the book, Gatsby talks of getting Nick’s lawn mowed and asks him to get cakes and flowers. Nick does this at the local village and the reader would have reasonably inferred that he purchased a modest amount of these. In the film, not only does Gatsby arrange for the grass to be mowed, he has a mini-army of servants carry in a ludicrous amount of flowers and afternoon tea treats, so that Nick’s cottage looks like it has been converted into an opulent botanical conservatory and cafe. The beautiful profusion of blossoms and delicate tiers of cakes covering the entire modest house is extravagantly stunning. The film does not take any half measures!
The setting and the use of space between the characters bring their conversations from the book to life. There are limitations to what a book can describe, whereas a film can instantly convey with space and body language the depth of emotion and connection. Gatsby and Daisy’s initial words when standing between the doors display the distance between them, when they are firstly awkward and embarrassed. Daisy’s face is shocked, Gatsby’s is filled with nervous energy. Then they are formally arranged a little bit closer, Daisy on a couch and Gatsby standing over a mantelpiece, clumsily knocking over a clock. As in the book, Nick leaves them alone together.
When he returns, he sees the space between the lovers has closed, where Gatsby and Daisy are seated very closely together on the couch. The book describes Gatsby as being very happy and that Daisy is crying. In the film, Daisy is not crying but she is looking intensely at Gatsby and blissfully engaged in conversation with him. At one point, she moves her hand to lightly touch his, which gives her agency in this reunion, that after the initial shock, she wants this too.
Although the book sets the scene and describes the character interactions, there are some spaces left for interpretation. In the film, these spaces are intuitively filled in by the strong and convincing interplay between DiCaprio and Mulligan, which more effectively conveys a sense of intimacy and desire, delivering the thrill of a sneak peek into their illicit affair.
3. Confrontation scene
In the book as in the film, this scene is set in the hottest day that summer, when tensions have reached boiling point and a crucial decision needs to be made. Leading up to this point, Daisy had started an affair with Gatsby, by discreetly visiting his mansion on some afternoons. In the film only, she murmurs words like “Lets run away together,” and “I don’t want to go home.” This builds up Gatsby’s feverish fantasy of changing the past, by getting Daisy to leave Tom to be with him.
At the beginning of the scene in the Buchanan’s mansion, in the book, Nick observes Daisy openly telling Gatsby “You know I love you,” and then she kisses him on the mouth – very scandalous! The film does not show this. Instead, while Daisy is trembling with a cigarette lighter that Gatsby holds out for her, she professes twice that Gatsby looks “so cool”. Nick’s narrator voice-over states that “she had said she loved Gatsby and now Tom could see” the affair evidently before his eyes.
The narrator’s voice doesn’t detail when Daisy said this and it is not acted out. I believe this omission loses the impact that could have been delivered if she had made that open display of love in front of the witnesses of Jordan and Nick, and of course, the film audience.
Gatsby, in his delusion to possess Daisy to recover what he had lost from those simple days of first love, is forcing her to say she never loved her husband. He sees this as wiping the slate clean and they can then start again. He keeps steadfastly holding onto the simplicity of this belief that he can change the past.
Tom is described in the book and consistently acted by Edgerton in the film as someone who is physically intimidating. He controls others in a way that “bordered on violence” when he steers Nick to visit his mistress Myrtle Wilson, and when he casually breaks Myrtle’s nose during a quarrel. His power and arrogance are derived from his Old money. By his spoken words and actions, he is unfaithful, chauvinistic, racist and contemptuous of the nouveau riche. Not being able to stand losing Daisy to a “nobody,” he went on at length to grill Gatsby about his criminal links and activities. In the book, during this heated scene, Nick observes the change in Gatsby’s expression “as if he had killed a man.” There is no physical contact between Gatsby and Tom.
In the film by stark contrast, as Tom’s voice becomes increasingly goading with revelations of Gatsby’s underworld activities, Gatsby is driven to a mini tussle with Tom. Gatsby shouts sharply “Shut up!” as he grabs Tom’s shirt, raises his fist and his face is contorted into a fierce rictus of madness, in Nick’s words — “looking like he had killed a man.” The build-up of constant heat over these scenes needs an explosive, climactic action and this definitely delivers it.
The film has an advantage because the insertion of the tussle adds that level of potent physicality to Gatsby, that he’d almost lose control over his fixation with Daisy, and to show that such grand passion can verge on insanity.
4. Nick & Jordan’s relationship
In the book, Nick and Jordan are courting, which is not evident in the film. The book contrasts the romantic relationships of Nick and Jordan vs. Gatsby and Daisy. Nick views Gatsby’s recounting of his past meeting with Daisy — how with a kiss, she blossomed for him and on a still October day, he took her — as “appalling sentimentality.”
Gatsby’s towering passion verges on delusional as he vehemently opined to Nick — “Change the past? Of course you can!” Whilst Nick is more practical, less swayed by emotion — his first feeling for Jordan is that he is driven by “tender curiosity” and later “thought I loved her.” It is not an all-consuming desire in the same way Gatsby’s feeling is for Daisy.
Then there is the acute contrast play between the women — Jordan vs Daisy. Jordan is a professional golfer of well-to-do means whilst Daisy is a wealthy, married woman with no other apparent interest or calling. Jordan is pragmatic like Nick, but unlike him, has been rumoured with being dishonest in her sportsmanship. Nick’s parochial opinion of this is “You can’t blame dishonesty in a woman.”
He crucially distinguishes Jordan’s outlook from Daisy, in that she doesn’t desperately cling on to what might have been, and when he looks at Jordan’s “wan, scornful mouth,” he leans in to kiss her. It is the opposite of Gatsby, who is all in for a woman who loves his attention, because she also wants to relive their care-free, passionate past and feels abandoned by her faithless husband. But when confronted with his criminal connections and threat of falling out of respectability, she chooses Old money and stability, over the love of a man who has risked his everything for her.
Daisy is the physical representation of Gatsby’s flawed dream, which would inevitably end in tragedy. Ongoing descriptions of her are that she had an “absurd, charming laugh,” that “her murmur was to make people lean towards her,” and that “her voice was full of money.” These affected gestures and artificial responses, demonstrate that she, like others of her class, are a vacuum of honesty and genuine feeling.
Finally, there a contrast between all of the characters’ break-ups. Jordan and Nick break up over two conversations that only involve themselves. This is unlike the confrontation scene with an aborted break-up, which Gatsby tries to get Daisy to perform in front of witnesses. Nick and Jordan’s relationship delivers all of the above messages in the book. Yes, the film was already 143 mins and adding this in would have blown out the time even more. However, I still think these are sorely lacking in the film.
5. Gatsby’s death
Gatsby is murdered while swimming in his pool by a distraught George Wilson, Myrtle’s husband. Myrtle was run over by Gatsby’s car, which was driven by Daisy. Tom leads George to believe that Gatsby is responsible for Myrtle’s death and George distressfully rests his suspicions that she was having an affair with Gatsby. This plays on several ironies — that it was actually Tom who had the affair with Myrtle and that Daisy unknowingly killed her husband’s mistress.
In the film, as Gatsby is shot, he hears the phone ring and this ties in with his character’s capacity for un-ending hope — in Nick’s words — he was the most hopeful person he’d ever met. But this is a play on reality, as it isn’t a call from Daisy but from Nick. Gatsby dies with his hope fulfilled whilst in the book, there is no such hopeful ending. Gatsby dies while still waiting with the uncertainty of whether Daisy would leave Tom. Is this the right call to change for the film? Should Gatsby have died with the false confirmation that his dream is realised? Or should he have died with his hope forever tantalising him, never to be attained?
In both book and film, the impactful line is still delivered by Nick that “They were careless people, Tom and Daisy – they smashed up things and creatures and then retreated back to their money or their vast carelessness or whatever that kept them together and let other people clean up the mess they had made.” This resoundingly demonstrates that the American Dream — a dream of an ideal world where all humankind have equal rights to pursue happiness and freedom – is actually unachievable. There is an erosion of spiritualism and depth. The system will always be dominated by the vacuous and amoral rich. Aspirations by anyone not of that class to strive for that Dream will be self-destructive.
Despite this, the idealism in me wishes Gatsby the very best. His final happiness is important to me, even in the delivery of this tragic theme. Even if it is a false confirmation that on his dying breath, he believes he’s got his girl, I think that is the best ending for him.
I equally see the value of the message that on his dying breath, he is still wishing and is never sure whether Daisy chooses him, sealing his fate in this doomed affair with a flawed dream-girl and his defeat by an uncaring system.
If you go into the film expecting Baz Luhrmann’s over-the-top flamboyant signature, then it is definitely satisfactory in this regard. In many ways, it is faithful to the book and even with the critical deviations from the source material, it produces a memorable and spectacular experience that is also very entertaining. The film accurately reflects the grandiose title, which is the aggrandisement of the pseudonym of a man’s façade, his towering love tragedy and the illusory vision of the American Dream — of the “Great” in “Gatsby”.
