At the Cinema: The Great Gatsby

This week in class, since it was a short week, we started to watch the movie to the novel, The Great Gatsby.  I knew that the movie had gotten amazing reviews before we has started watching the movie, but I was curious as to how well the movie actually followed the book.  Now that we are almost done with the movie, I can say that it closely mimicked the events that occurred during the book.  I thought it was interesting how differently the movie portrayed different scenes than I had imagined in my head.  The biggest and most relevant example of this was the character Nick Carraway.  When we were reading the book, as mentioned in an earlier blog, I liked his character, but I enjoyed his character even more in the movie.  While reading, I saw Nick as a shy and an easy 'push-over' person, but in the film, he is more of a wing man or a loyal friend rather than a nobody.  He also played a bigger part in the film.  My favorite moment shown of Nick was when Gatsby asked him to ask his cousin, Daisy, over for tea.  I really liked the actual scene where they are preparing the house and Daisy walks in and Gatsby doesn't know what to do or how to act.  I thought it properly showed the real kind of person Nick is during this scene.  I especially liked how he just went outside and stood by the tree.  However, when I read this part during the book, it didn't quiet play out this way.  I portrayed it as Gatsby telling Nick what to do and how to act, not the other way around.  I also liked how the movie showed Gatsby and how he acted when he was around Daisy.  When I was reading the novel, I thought that Gatsby wanted Daisy because he wanted it to achieve his dream, but in the movie, it showed Gatsby as being truly happy.  Throughout the progression of the movie, Gatsby is shown as a very mellow guy, and even when he is throwing an enormous party at his even more enormous house, he still has very dull expressions.  But, when he is with Daisy, he is usually smiling and he looks genuinely happy.  This gave me a different impression of Gatsby than what I had read in the book.    I cant wait to finish the movie and see how the producers see the ending scenes.