I can say that the film is typical for its drama genre. I feel that the editing was appropriate and gave reflection of the important moments the way people should see it. The sound use was powerful and effective, which helped to highlight the most important moments in the film. The feelings when I watched the film were pleasure and sadness. The film’s cinematography supported the mood and tone of the movie, by including music in it, they way characters talked and what they did. The social context in which the film was made, was present in the film by showing the all people were connected and knew someone in common. The meaning of the film is about the great love, sacrifice, and decency. The film is also about the love of Gatsby for stupid, and greedy Daisy, tinsel at his parties, his crazy wealth, his crony “old man” – and with all of this, he has deep intelligence, cleaner, brighter and more decent than the real aristocrats have, who eventually destroy this man with their marginal hands.

Considering the personal influences that this film had on me, I can name the money issue and the relationships. This film highlights the idea that people need someone to love, and not all the money in the world to be happy. This film also shows that time passes and sometimes we have to choose relationships or career. The drama shows us how people can be unhappy being rich as the same time and looking for love which they one day left in the past. The film was extremely enjoyable and interesting to watch this reflection on the modern society. I would definitely recommend the movie and I would rate it by giving it 5 stars.

“The Great Gatsby” is a film adaptation of the novel by F. Scott Fitzgerald. It has been filmed in 3D, starring Leonardo DiCaprio, Carey Mulligan and Tobey Maguire. Baz Luhrmann conceived this film during the global financial crisis, while staying in Siberia. In one interview, he said: “If you put people in front of a mirror that tell them – you are drunk on the money – they will not want to look into it. But if you project a reflection on a particular era, such a story would be in a great demand.” One of the most famous writers of the United States of XX century, F. Scott Fitzgerald announced to the world the beginning of the new century – “Jazz Age”, one of the first to speak on behalf of the “lost generation” (Scott, 2013). He wrote of the “American dream”, personifying it, but the reality turned into tragedy, and early death cut short the life minion of fortune. The hero of the novel “The Great Gatsby” made ​​a fortune, has made power, but neither money nor power made ​​him happy.

In the spring of 1922, in the era of decaying morals, the brilliant jazz and the “kings of smuggled alcohol,” Nick Carraway comes from the Midwest to New York. In pursuit of his own American dream, he settles in next door to a mysterious, well – known for its partying millionaire Jay Gatsby, and on the opposite shore of the bay lives his cousin Daisy and her husband, a rake and an aristocrat, Tom Buchanan (Denby, 2013). So Nick is drawn into the exciting world of the rich – their illusions, love and lies. He becomes a witness to what is happening in this world and writes a story of impossible love, eternal dreams and the human tragedy that is a reflection of modern times and mores.

The film is about the great love of a man (Gatsby) to a woman (his beloved Daisy). He dedicated his life to her, she was his dream, his guiding star, the most desirable, unique and unrepeatable. They are from different worlds – she is a spoiled rich girl, but he is the son of poor farmers. He wanted to be rich enough to give the whole world to his Daisy, giving her everything she wants. And for that, he went to war, after that he received the opportunity to study at Harvard, make useful contacts, enter the circle of influential people, and after that he contacted the gangsters involved in clandestine sale of alcohol (it brought a lot of money, because in America at the time was the dry law) … And all this was for the sake of dreams ever marry Daisy, reaching a high position, and having a considerable fortune.

As he says at the end of the film, that all these years without even being married to Daisy, he felt married, and therefore responsible for their future together. That is why he risked so much in his work. He did not need anyone except her. Also, there is a storyline about the community, about the so-called elite of society, riot, rottenness, the hypocrisy of so-called “high society.” Scott Fitzgerald wrote a lot about contemporary American society (this is the beginning of the 20th century), his morals, his true face, and his hypocrisy.

The film “The Great Gatsby” is just perfect. Throughout the excesses of emotion and colors it has its own kind of inexplicable harmony. Even the apparently modern soundtracks so neatly stacked on one long bygone world that seem natural. The film is a wonderful adaptation of the novel by Francis Scott Fitzgerald.

Fitzgerald’s classic novel got into the hands of Baz Luhrmann, the famous magician, entertainer, that is why you see on the screen exactly what you expected – literature is retreating under the pressure of design (“The Great Gatsby” Critic Reviews, 2013). Crystal blinds, champagne is bubbling and expensive cars strive to crash into the viewer. At the same time, the director manages carefully with the original text, sometimes reproducing it verbatim, and the image of Gatsby suits Leonardo DiCaprio.

“If you measure the personality of its ability to show itself, the Gatsby was something truly magnificent, had some heightened sensitivity to all the promises of life … It was a rare gift of hope, a romantic ardor, which I have never seen in other people.”

The film describes a unique situation where a man not just knows what he wants, but he knows that will make him happy. He showed that this happens – bootlegging not drunk, the goal is visible, jazz sounds. And the man still, just does not think that the business is outside of the law, that his goal is illusory, and jazz it not as stylish as in the twenty-first century. The man knows what it takes to be happy, and it happens so rarely that he is trying so hard. And this divine tragedy by the author explained: “No amount of fire or freshness can challenge what a man will store up in his ghostly heart”.

References

David Denby (2013). “All that Jazz”. The New Yorker. http://www.newyorker.com/arts/critics/cinema/2013/05/13/130513crci_cinema_denby

Scott A. O. (2013). “Shimmying Off the Literary Mantle”. NY Times. http://movies.nytimes.com/2013/05/10/movies/the-great-gatsby-interpreted-by-baz-luhrmann.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0

“The Great Gatsby” Critic Reviews (2013). The Internet Movie Database. http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1343092/criticreviews

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In fact, the film depicts the story of a large corporations and the story line focuses attention of the audience on the behavior, actions and motives of top executives of the company. In this regard, it is worth mentioning the fact that the movie shows top executives, who conduct complex schemes to hide from the public that the company owns toxic assets. This fact is uncovered by a newcomer, who turns out to be an outsider within the company, who is eventually seduced by the prospect of the further promotion, while top executives try to do their best to settle the case.

In this regard, the behavior of top executives can be viewed from different theoretical perspectives. For instance, their behavior may be viewed from the utilitarian perspective since they attempt to focus on the common good of the company and hide the truth from the public because the revelation of the fact that the company owns the toxic assets could affect drastically the marketing position of the company. The publication of such information would provoke the great scandal, which would likely lead to the ruin of the company. Therefore, top executives could justify their behavior by the intention to preserve the company from bankruptcy.

On the other hand, the actions of top executives of the company could be viewed from the social conflict perspective. In such a context, the movie reveals the contradiction between the contemporary consumerist culture and its profit-driven philosophy, on the one hand, and the social justice, on the other. To put it more precisely, the contemporary culture is vulnerable to the impact of consumerism that forces individuals to ignore everything but their profit and well-being. In this regard, top executives act accordingly to such consumerist philosophy. On the other hand, the top executives ignore interests of the society since toxic assets of the company are dangerous for the entire society and the case cannot be settled down for the sake of profit of the rich. However, the film shows that the case has been eventually settled that reveals the fact that the social justice is still unachievable and the rich still maintain the dominant position in the society and can take decisions that determine the life of the entire society.

Thus, the movie “Margin Call” reveals the contemporary consumerist culture and its destructive impact on the life of the society. In fact, the movie uncovers schemes of top executives that are profit-driven and concerned only with their wealth, while social interests are of little, if any, importance.

References:

Chandor, J.C. (2011). Margin Call. Lionsgate Roadside Attractions.

Eagleton, T. (2000). The Idea of Culture.  New York: Willey-Blackwell.

Lusing, N.W. and J. Koester. (2006). Intercultural Competence. New York: Random House.

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The books of Nicholas Sparks are very impressive overall, and the Notebook is one of his greatest creations. Nicholas Sparks himself states he knew that Notebook would be popular even before he wrote the first words of this book. The love story of two old people shown during the whole scope of their life is extremely tender and inspiring, and at the same tragic and intensive, because it raises the questions of old age and the fragility of human life. He was not sure whether this novel would have a commercial success because of the specifics of modern popular art. Many agents declined the novel as they thought it did not match the business specifics of the publishing world (Wasowski 7). However, the audience does value deep and truly emotional creations, and the success of Notebook proved this.

The story called Notebook tells us about the great love of Noah and Allie from their young years through nursing home where Allie is trying to overcome the loss of memory and Alzheimer’s. To remind own identity to her and to support their amazing love, Noah reads the pages from own notebook revealing the events of their life and his love for Allie. Two different life spans are shown in the story, and the power of love crossing separation, illness and the fear of decline in this book and movie is shown both in am amazing way. However, there are major differences between the book and the movie which make the movie more expressive and more dramatic compared to the book (although the book is truly engaging in its own way).

Nicholas Sparks states in an interview that he was not sure whether he’d succeed in pulling off the necessary words in the paper, because although he had the story in his mind, choosing the proper words and expressing the emotional intensity was quite a challenging task. Also, Nicholas Sparks notes that he wrote this novel from the last third (Wasowski 8), and that he was tending to decide first of all what would be the ending of the novel. He was actually doubting that he would have the ability to write the last part of the novel in a proper manner, and passed on to writing the beginning already after the final was finished. The last thing he wrote for Notebook was prologue (Wasowski 8).

Nicholas Sparks states that he is writing in a style common to Greek tragedies (Wasowski 9), where love and drama were intertwined. He claims he is using similar means of expression: the stories should touch the whole range of human emotions, but not manipulate them, characters should be original and interesting, and the story should not turn into melodramatic one, and stay being true to life. However, it seems that the producers of the movie Notebook have succeeded in following these principles even better than the author himself did. Many reviews state that the movie is more dynamic than the book (Ebert 507), characters there are more vivid and the final is more aligned with the whole concept of the story than the final in the book.

The major differences between the book and the movie are the following. The movie uniquely alternates between the memories of Noah and Allie, showing different life events of these characters in the teenage period, in the more adult years, and up to their elderly ages. Although both life spans can also be traced in the book, the movie focuses more on the young years of Noah and Allie, and manages to show the characters in more in-depth an original manner compared to the book. This effect is partly reached because the story of Notebook is a perfect match for screening (Another Tear-Jerker from Nicholas Sparks), and there are plenty of moments which can be depicted in a most impressive way using the methods of screening rather than book description. However, there are particularly important changes in the movie which helped to create a more dramatic effect on the audience. The notebook in the movie belongs to Allie, and the old character, “Duke”, reads the notes and rediscovers Allie to himself as well as to herself (Another Tear-Jerker from Nicholas Sparks). This is a great idea to make the notebook belong to Allie because she might recognize herself and her feelings in these records more naturally, and another important effect of this decision is that Noah experiences their love story once again and rediscovers Allie’s feelings for him reading these notes.

The script of Notebook movie also strongly differs from the book because of the ending. In both versions the old lady believes that Allie chose Noah, and recognizes their love in the story. They have a dinner, hug each other, talk and share their love, but in about 4 hours Allie forgets Noah again, starts hallucinating and panicking. In the book, Noah sneaks into Allie’s room in the nursing home on their anniversary and hopes that she would remember him and realize that they were the real characters in this story. She recognizes him finally in the book and in the movie, but in the movie, they lay together, fall asleep in each other’s arms, and pass away peacefully in their sleep with the feeling of care and tenderness and expression of love on their faces (Ebert 511). In my opinion, the final of the movie is more dramatic and more matches the spirit of the story than the more “ordinary” final of the book. Some of the teenagers have also expressed such an opinion, according to the surveys of students (Burnett 373).

The sequence of writing had a strong impact on the choice of means of expression in both finals. As Nicholas Sparks fist wrote the final of the story, the focus of the book is more on the old years of the characters, while in the movie the focus is made on the younger years. Furthermore, the unfolding of the story in the book was written to fit the final, and there is some feeling of inconsistency between the mood of the first two parts of the book and the final. As the script was created in a different manner, it uses two life spans and does not reveal the identity of main characters but lets the audience to reconstruct this identity on their own (Another Tear-Jerker from Nicholas Sparks). Furthermore, the authors of the script chose not to over-concentrate on the old age period of the characters (Ebert 512) and managed to show more impressively the love story of the characters in their young age and in their adult period, their struggle with the limitations of the social groups and their courage to stay with each other despite many obstacles. These characters do deserve the movie final where they pass away peacefully together, full of returned love and happiness.

Works Cited

Another Tear-Jerker from Nicholas Sparks. The Gympie Times [Gympie], April 16, 2010.
Burnett, Josephine. Elementary preservice teachers’ constructions of themselves as students and as teachers: A collaborative narrative autobiographical approach. ProQuest, 2007.
Ebert, Roger. Roger Ebert’s Movie Yearbook 2007. Andrews McMeel Publishing, 2006.
Wasowski, Richard P. CliffsNotes The Notebook Teacher’s Guide. John Wiley and Sons, 2009.

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