Similarities Between Midnight In Paris And The Great Gatsby

Both sets of characters from the two films, Baz Luhrmann’s The Great Gatsby and Woody Allen’s Midnight in Paris, constitute the characters of Fitzgerald’s novel, The Great Gatsby, in their own ways. Luhrmann’s film, The Great Gatsby brings the characters to life using both the real names and similar attitudes as in the book, whereas Allen’s Midnight in Paris uses completely different characters to enliven the novel.
To portray the characters’ state of mind as well as their attitude in general, Luhrmann adapts Fitzgerald’s novel into a film. The movie portrays the main characters of the book well. In the novel, Fitzgerald describes Tom as burling. Tom from the movie shares this trait with his novel counterpart. In addition, people portrayed

Gatsby as mysterious and unknown, yet also generous and in love with Daisy. The actor of Gatsby, Leonardo DiCaprio, acts out the mysterious and unknown aura surrounding Gatsby. Furthermore, in the novel, Daisy’s attributes contain beauty and charm. When Luhrmann introduces Daisy, he creates this heavenly and innocent scene for her. However, some claim that the added scenes and modern music in the movie weakened the representation of the book. Rather than taking away from the representation, it adds to the story and helps extract the emotion from the scenes. The added scenes also help elaborate on scenes that the audience struggles to comprehend. Likewise, the modern music adds a unique characteristic of the movie, which in fact takes place in the 1920s. Moreover, the modern music helps to not only explain a scene, but additionally helps the modern age feel more involved with the movie.
Midnight in Paris, Woody Allen’s homage of The Great Gatsby, contained similar characters and themes as the book.

Dreaming of the past, Gil from Midnight in Paris, and Gatsby from The Great Gatsby, share a similar theme with each other. In the Great Gatsby, Gatsby wishes to go back to five years ago, when he and Daisy first met. In comparison, Gil, from Midnight in Paris, wishes to go back to 1920s Paris. Both characters are constantly talking about how they want to go back to their desired time. In addition, Gil contains the character traits of both Nick and Gatsby from the book. His similarity to Nick comes from watching everything in front of him unfold. Additionally, Gil stumbles along to all these parties just as Nick. However, he shares similarities with Gatsby, like when he discovers all the poets and authors, everyone doubts that they knew him. In The Great Gatsby, the world thinks of Gatsby as a mysterious figure. Furthermore, Gatsby and Gil are the two characters who fantasize of the past and dream of life with the “golden girl. Adrianna represented the golden girl for Gil and Daisy for Gatsby. Some argue that Midnight in Paris was not a homage to The Great Gatsby and that the characters from the film do not represent characters from the novel. However, it clearly pays homage because the character similarities are too accurate to each other. For example, everyone wants Daisy, and Daisy loves Gatsby, yet Daisy’s marriage with Tom distances her from Gatsby. This story matches the story in Midnight in Paris. In the film, Adrianna represents the golden girl. Both Adrianna and Gil are attracted to each other. Even so, Gil and Inez’s engagement creates distance between

them.
The adaptation by Baz Luhrmann, The Great Gatsby, and the homage by Woody Allen, Midnight in Paris, reflect the characters from Fitzgerald’s novel, The Great Gatsby. Both movies show remarkable similarities between the characters of the book. The acting of the characters in Luhrmann’s film show and accurate representation of the book. The character traits of the characters in Allen’s film correlate directly with those of the characters in The Great Gatsby. Each movie strengthened the similarities: Luhrmann’s adaptation increased understanding of the characters interaction, and Allen’s homage strengthened the understanding of each characters’ traits. In the end, both films’ characters superbly depict the characters of Francis Scott Key Fitzgerald’s novel, The Great Gatsby.