5 Things That Too Many People Are Getting Wrong About The Great Gatsby

Ok, maybe. I’ve long made the case that movies and TV shows that make their intentions and messages obvious aren’t necessarily lacking in subtlety in other areas, nor are those that seem obscure inherently superior in terms of thematic or textual richness. Layers of meaning can exist just as easily in boisterous movies like The Great Gatsby just as easily as they can in more subdued movies like Amour. Whether obvious or subtle, if there’s only one idea to derive from a piece of work, I find it the same either way.

I say this because often there’s a lot to a blockbuster movie that gets obstructed in people’s minds by stuff at the forefront that acts as a sort of diversion from subtler things going on at the same time. I found this to be the case with Gatsby. Yes, just like in the book, there are a lot of themes that are made abundantly clear by one of the characters, or by the Nick Carraway narration. You can’t relive the past, stupid. Class is a bitch. The American Dream is an unsatisfiable illusion. The movie is aware of how obvious this stuff is, I think. It pokes fun at it a little bit. Every now and then you’ll hear a character spell out something we already know in what seems to be a clearly satirical way, even little mundane details spoken in dialogue that sounds like “Have you met my cousin? This is my cousin, Nick. He’s my cousin.” So there are these big subjects the movie addresses, but it handles them in a fairly specific way. Some beats that stand out are the way Gatsby continues to look longingly at the green light even when Daisy is in his arms; the fact that Gatsby is far more concerned for Myrtle than Daisy is; his adoption of the term “old sport” as a way of addressing everyone around him, and all that is supposed to signify to his addressees. Just to name a few. There’s lots more that I’m sure I’ll remember when I watch it again.

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