This blog is written as part of an academic task assigned by Prof. Dr. Dilip Barad Sir, Head of the Department of English, MKBU. It focuses on the screening of The Great Gatsby (2013), directed by Baz Luhrmann, and critically examines the film as an adaptation of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s novel within the framework of Literature on Screen studies. Here is the link to the professor's research article for background reading: Click here
Translating the Jazz Age: Baz Luhrmann’s The Great Gatsby Between Literature and Film
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Introduction :
F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby (1925) is one of the most enduring literary representations of the American Jazz Age. Written during a period of rapid economic growth, cultural transformation, and moral uncertainty, the novel offers a sharp critique of the American Dream and the illusion of social mobility. Narrated by Nick Carraway, a Midwestern bond salesman, the story unfolds through his observations of Jay Gatsby, a self-made millionaire whose life is driven by his obsessive desire to reclaim his past love, Daisy Buchanan. Beneath its surface of wealth, glamour, and lavish parties, the novel exposes the moral emptiness, class divisions, and ethical decay that define American modernity. Fitzgerald’s richly lyrical and symbolic prose transforms the narrative into a “writerly” text, where meaning emerges not only through events but through language, imagery, and tone. Ultimately, The Great Gatsby is a meditation on time, memory, and the tragic impossibility of repeating the past.
In 2013, director Baz Luhrmann adapted The Great Gatsby for a global, contemporary audience, bringing Fitzgerald’s modernist novel into the realm of postmodern cinema. Known for his distinctive “Red Curtain” style, Luhrmann rejects restrained realism in favor of excess, spectacle, and heightened emotional intensity. Released in the aftermath of the 2008 global financial crisis, the film reflects renewed anxieties surrounding wealth, consumerism, and moral irresponsibility. By combining the 1920s setting with contemporary hip-hop music, rapid editing, and digitally enhanced visuals, Luhrmann seeks to recreate the cultural shock that jazz music once produced in Fitzgerald’s era. Rather than aiming for strict textual fidelity, the film functions as an act of intersemiotic translation, attempting to convey the emotional energy and ideological tensions of the novel through cinematic language. This adaptation therefore invites critical examination of how literature is transformed when translated from page to screen, and whether cinematic spectacle can remain faithful to the novel’s underlying social critique.
Part I: Frame Narrative and the “Writerly” Text
1. The Sanitarium Device: Externalization or Pathologization of the Narrator
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Luhrmann, however, frames Nick as a patient in a sanitarium, diagnosed with “morbid alcoholism” and encouraged by a doctor to write as a form of therapy. This device serves a clear cinematic function: it externalizes Nick’s internal monologue, providing a visible motivation for voiceover and written narration. By showing Nick physically typing the story, the film transforms the novel from a finished literary artifact into an unfolding act of remembrance, creating a clear cause-and-effect relationship between trauma, memory, and storytelling.
Yet, this structural choice also pathologizes Nick’s perspective. In the novel, Nick’s disillusionment is philosophical and social; in the film, it becomes psychological and clinical. His moral critique of the Buchanans risks being interpreted as a symptom of emotional breakdown rather than ethical judgment. Consequently, the film subtly shifts Nick toward the role of an unreliable narrator, where Gatsby appears less as a social construct shaped by American capitalism and more as a personal obsession reconstructed through trauma. While the sanitarium device strengthens cinematic coherence, it simultaneously weakens the novel’s broader moral authority.
2. Floating Text and the “Cinematic Poem”
To preserve the “writerly” quality of Fitzgerald’s prose, Luhrmann employs a distinctive visual strategy: key lines from the novel appear as floating text on the screen, most notably during the depiction of the Valley of Ashes. Luhrmann refers to this technique as “poetic glue,” attempting to merge literary language with cinematic imagery.
This approach acknowledges that Fitzgerald’s novel derives much of its power from language itself. By allowing words to hover over images, the film treats prose as a visual texture, reinforcing the symbolic weight of Fitzgerald’s descriptions and maintaining a strong intertextual connection to the source text.
However, this technique also risks creating what critics describe as “noble literalism.” Instead of allowing cinematic elements mise-en-scène, performance, and sound to reinterpret meaning, the floating text sometimes dictates interpretation too explicitly. The audience is encouraged to read the film rather than experience it emotionally. As a result, the strategy both bridges and constrains the adaptation: it preserves literary reverence while limiting cinematic ambiguity. The film becomes self-conscious of its status as an adaptation, occasionally resembling a visual exhibition of the novel rather than an autonomous cinematic work.
Part II: Adaptation Theory and the Question of Fidelity
1. Hutcheon’s “Knowing” vs. “Unknowing” Audience
Linda Hutcheon defines adaptation as “repetition without replication,” emphasizing that an adaptation must resonate with two distinct audiences: the knowing audience (familiar with the novel) and the unknowing audience (first-time viewers). Baz Luhrmann’s The Great Gatsby (2013) negotiates this duality carefully, though not without compromise.
A major example is the omission of Henry Gatz, Gatsby’s father, and the sparsely attended funeral. In Fitzgerald’s novel, this scene is pivotal: Henry Gatz grounds the myth of Jay Gatsby in the humble reality of James Gatz and highlights the ultimate tragedy of isolation the cruel truth that Gatsby’s elaborate parties did not translate into genuine human connection.
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For the knowing audience, the omission softens the novel’s social critique. Without Henry Gatz, Gatsby becomes a spectral figure, disconnected from his working-class origins, and the critique of the American class system is diminished.
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For the unknowing audience, the narrative focuses entirely on Gatsby and Nick’s emotional bond and Daisy’s betrayal, transforming the story into a romantic tragedy rather than a layered social commentary. This prioritizes emotional engagement over historical and sociological depth, making the adaptation more accessible to modern viewers.
2. Alain Badiou’s “Truth Event” and the Hip-Hop Soundtrack
Philosopher Alain Badiou introduces the idea of a “Truth Event” a radical rupture that reveals the work’s transformative energy rather than its literal details. Luhrmann’s controversial hip-hop soundtrack exemplifies this concept.
In 1925, jazz was subversive, shocking, and rebellious, a sonic revolution that signaled cultural rupture. Translating this to 2013, Luhrmann uses Jay-Z, Kanye West, and Beyoncé to evoke the same emotional shock for contemporary audiences. The anachronistic mix of Jazz Age visuals with hip-hop audio is an act of intersemiotic translation: it preserves the novel’s energetic and moral tension while making it visceral and immediate for modern viewers.
Part III: Characterization and Performance
5. Jay Gatsby: Romantic Hero or Corrupted Dreamer?
In F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby (1925), Jay Gatsby is deliberately constructed as a morally ambiguous figure. His idealism and “romantic readiness” coexist with criminality, revealed gradually through rumors, coded phone calls, and his association with Meyer Wolfsheim. This slow disclosure emphasizes that Gatsby’s dream is corrupted from within; his pursuit of Daisy is inseparable from bootlegging and financial fraud. Fitzgerald thus presents Gatsby not merely as a tragic lover, but as a cautionary figure whose faith in the American Dream is undermined by the immoral means used to achieve it.
Baz Luhrmann’s 2013 adaptation softens this corruption to position Gatsby more firmly as a romantic hero. The film minimizes explicit references to his criminal operations and instead foregrounds Leonardo DiCaprio’s emotional vulnerability and longing. Luhrmann’s “Red Curtain” style marked by grand visuals, dramatic music, and heroic framing encourages audience sympathy and transforms Gatsby into a victim of circumstance rather than an architect of his own illusion. As a result, the critique of the corrupted American Dream is overshadowed by romantic tragedy, privileging emotional identification over moral interrogation.
6. Daisy Buchanan: Reconstruction and the Loss of Moral Agency
In the novel, Daisy Buchanan functions as a symbol of privilege and carelessness. Fitzgerald portrays her as charming yet evasive, capable of insight but unwilling to accept responsibility. Her decision to remain with Tom Buchanan reflects a conscious choice of class security over emotional risk. Scenes involving her daughter further expose Daisy’s emotional detachment and reinforce the impossibility of Gatsby’s dream. Daisy’s agency is central to Fitzgerald’s critique of wealth and moral irresponsibility.
Luhrmann’s film reconstructs Daisy to make Gatsby’s obsession emotionally plausible for a contemporary audience. The adaptation removes or minimizes scenes that reveal her detachment, particularly her role as a mother, while amplifying Tom’s violence to frame Daisy as fearful and trapped. Although this revision increases audience sympathy, it reduces Daisy’s moral accountability. She becomes a passive object of desire rather than an active chooser, reinforcing a male-centered romantic narrative and weakening the novel’s critique of gender, class, and privilege.
Part IV: Visual Style and Socio-Political Context
7. The “Red Curtain” Style, 3D, and the Spectacle of Wealth
Baz Luhrmann’s party scenes are the clearest expression of his “Red Curtain” aesthetic, marked by vortex camera movements, rapid montage editing, exaggerated mise-en-scène, and immersive 3D spectacle. These techniques deliberately overwhelm the viewer, mirroring the sensory overload of Gatsby’s parties and the excess of the Jazz Age. In theory, this hyper-artifice functions as a critique: the orgiastic wealth appears chaotic, dehumanizing, and almost grotesque, reflecting Fitzgerald’s portrayal of a society intoxicated by money and consumption.
However, the spectacle also produces a contradiction. The immersive power of 3D and the seductive beauty of the visuals risk transforming critique into celebration. Rather than distancing the audience from excess, the film invites participation in it. Viewers experience the pleasure of the party much as Gatsby’s guests do without consequence. As a result, the film becomes entangled in the very consumer culture it seeks to expose. The Red Curtain style thus operates ambivalently: it both exposes the emptiness of wealth and reproduces its allure, blurring the line between satire and spectacle.
8. The American Dream: 1925 Idealism vs. Post-2008 Disillusionment
Released in the aftermath of the 2008 global financial crisis, Luhrmann’s The Great Gatsby reframes Fitzgerald’s American Dream through a lens of economic disillusionment. Luhrmann himself links the story to the “moral rubberiness” of Wall Street, suggesting that the unchecked capitalism of the 1920s finds a direct parallel in the financial excesses that led to the modern crisis. In this context, the Valley of Ashes becomes a powerful visual metaphor for economic abandonment representing those discarded by speculative wealth, corporate greed, and systemic inequality.
The Green Light, meanwhile, is reimagined less as a symbol of attainable hope and more as a permanently receding illusion. While Fitzgerald’s novel balances longing with critique, the film emphasizes distance and deferral. The dream is glamorous but structurally unreachable. The contrast between the golden glow of Gatsby’s mansion and the grey desolation of the Ashes visually encodes a post-2008 understanding of capitalism: wealth accumulates upward, while loss and ruin remain invisible. The film ultimately suggests that the American Dream is not merely corrupted, but fundamentally unattainable its pursuit endlessly aestheticized, even as its fulfillment remains impossible.
Part V: Creative Response – The Plaza Hotel Confrontation
Scriptwriter’s Decision:
As the scriptwriter, I would keep the film’s addition of Gatsby losing his temper and almost hitting Tom, because it works better for cinema, even though it changes Gatsby’s character from the novel.
Justification:
In The Great Gatsby (1925), the Plaza Hotel scene is mainly about words, class, and truth. Gatsby does not become violent. Instead, Tom destroys him by revealing his criminal background, and Daisy slowly pulls away. Gatsby’s defeat is emotional and psychological. Fitzgerald keeps this moment quiet and controlled to show that Gatsby loses because his dream is false, not because he is weak or aggressive.
In the 2013 film, Baz Luhrmann turns this inner collapse into a physical moment. Gatsby shouting and almost striking Tom shows the breaking of his dream in a visible way. Film audiences need to see emotional change, not just hear it. This moment clearly shows when Gatsby loses control, when Daisy becomes afraid, and when the fantasy finally ends. Even though this change reduces Gatsby’s calm dignity from the novel, it creates strong dramatic tension and helps modern viewers understand the collapse of the American Dream instantly. Therefore, this choice is faithful to the medium of film, even if it is not completely faithful to the book.
Conclusion :
Baz Luhrmann’s The Great Gatsby (2013) demonstrates both the possibilities and the limitations of adapting a modernist literary classic into contemporary cinema. Rather than offering a faithful reproduction of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s 1925 novel, the film operates as an act of translation transforming Fitzgerald’s “writerly” prose, symbolic ambiguity, and social critique into a visually excessive, emotionally heightened cinematic language. Through devices such as the sanitarium frame narrative, floating textual imagery, and the Red Curtain aesthetic, Luhrmann externalizes what is internal in the novel, making memory, desire, and collapse visible for a visual medium. In doing so, the film succeeds in engaging a modern, global audience, particularly those unfamiliar with the source text.
However, this translation comes at a cost. The film frequently replaces moral ambiguity with emotional clarity, softening Gatsby’s corruption, reducing Daisy’s agency, and reframing Nick’s ethical reflection as psychological trauma. While these choices strengthen dramatic tension and cinematic accessibility, they also dilute Fitzgerald’s critique of class privilege, carelessness, and the structural failure of the American Dream. The spectacle of wealth enhanced through 3D technology and rapid montage oscillates between satire and celebration, mirroring the contradictions of contemporary consumer culture rather than clearly condemning it.
Ultimately, Luhrmann’s The Great Gatsby reveals that adaptation is not a question of fidelity versus infidelity, but of negotiation between mediums, audiences, and historical moments. By translating the Jazz Age through post-2008 disillusionment, hip-hop soundscapes, and visual excess, the film remains faithful to the spirit of Fitzgerald’s critique even as it departs from its form. The adaptation thus stands as a compelling case study within Literature on Screen studies one that underscores how cinematic spectacle can both illuminate and obscure literary meaning, leaving the American Dream as elusive on screen as it is on the page.
References :
Barad, Dilip. (2026). Worksheet: Critical Analysis of Baz Luhrmann's The Great Gatsby (2013). 10.13140/RG.2.2.10969.38244.
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