Analysis Of Baz Luhrmann's Adaptation Of The Great Gatsby

The green light scene in the Baz Luhrmann 's adaptation of The Great Gatsby

Baz Luhrmann is well known for his dazzling sense of style, and his work is easily recognizable by it’s unique atmosphere. The greatest examples of his movies are Moulin Rouge (2001), Strictly Ballroom (1992), Romeo + Juliet (1996). All these movies fall under particular style of filmmaking, and no surprise, Luhrmann’s adaptation of The Great Gatsby also falls under that category.
Luhrmann’s style can be described as provocative, bright, bold, risky, chaotic and unique. Maybe the picture he shows is not necessarily historically correct or realistic, but combinations of light, color and movement helps to create the imagery which is bizarrely dramatic, but still well perceptible. The Great Gatsby seems like the visual follow of Moulin Rouge, and it contains lots of key elements of Luhrmann’s visual style. His style is well suited for the movie, and especially for the movie’s first part In which most of the bright and positive parts of the story are

The movie is created as a memory of Nick Carraway, so some scenes are quite realistic, and some are dramatized by and imaginative. Remembering Luhrmann’s quote about the Red Curtain Cinema, and him portraying emotions in theatric world, abstract scenes such as green light are quite acceptable and does not look over the top or too abstract. This scene goes well with the story and the overall mood of the film. Both at the intro and outro versions of the scene (which are, mostly, the same except for Nick’s narration on the background) are quite abstract, and even when we see character movements, it’s artificially slowed down to increase the dreamy atmosphere of the picture. In the ending version we also see actual words of the book appearing on the smoke and narrated by Nick on the background. This confirms the theory about the narrative function of the