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Essay about Great Gatsby Film Analysis

Decent Essays

Rachel Hobson
HON English 3
September 11, 2011

Critical Analysis: The Great Gatsby Film
The classic American novel, The Great Gatsby, presents a major theme of passing time. Losing Daisy meant losing Gatsby’s entire world, which he only kept alive through his hope of repeating the past. Daisy is a symbol of everything he values and therefore became the entity of his dream: his dream of spending the rest of his life with Daisy, the woman he loves undeniably. But Gatsby doesn’t realize his dream is unattainable because unfortunately, he cannot go back in time or recreate the past. Gatsby is stuck in the past, longing for the relationship between him and Daisy, and can’t accept the future, resulting in his own death. This is depicted in …show more content…

Their hands are so close, but never actually touch or come intact with each other because the two are metaphorically so far away from each other in that their relationship only exists in the past, and not in the future. A few scenes later, Gatsby and Daisy are shown kissing through a pond with an unstable reflection. The water is agitated and quivering endlessly as opposed to still and calm. The murky and unsteady water depicts a sense of “oldness” in Daisy and Gatsby’s relationship. Because the shot is a reflection, it’s as if the moment is false or an imitation, as if they are “reflecting” on a memory in the past. The framing of these scenes denote Gatsby’s stark refusal to accept what he cannot control: the passage of time.
A prominent color in the movie and novel of The Great Gatsby is green. It is the color that represents Gatsby’s hope. For example, the green light across the bay that Gatsby associates Daisy’s house with is a symbol of his destiny with her. Also, Gatsby gives Daisy a ring with a green jewel but because he is her past and she is married now, she tells Gatsby to keep it. As the movie progresses and Daisy and Gatsby spend more and more time together, green became more and more visible. The most prominent scenes of green were a series of cuts. Daisy and Gatsby sitting between multiple trees cuts to a bird’s eye view of the pair running through a forest, which then cuts

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