“The Great Gatsby” by F. Scott Fitzgerald is a wonderfully written book, and like most good books, there were movies to follow. The 1974 movie starring Robert Redford as Gatsby and the 2013 movie starring Leonardo DiCaprio both stayed pretty true to the book. One noticeable difference, however, is in the newer version of the movie; Nick Carraway is a patient at a mental institute, telling the story of Gatsby to a doctor. The newer movie also attempts to liven up the storyline a bit, but stays true to the plot while doing so. The older version starts off slow, and continues to have a slow, dull tone to the story. Both movies did a good job portraying the novel, but the 2013 version added a little modern day spice. Baz Luhrmann, the director of the 2013 Great Gatsby movie, boldly decided to modernize the story of Gatsby when producing his movie. Kay Shackleton, a film critic, discusses this perfectly in her critique of the film, “Baz Luhrmann creates a stylistic modern version of the classic novel. The 3-D imagery and mix of old music with newer music, including rap fit well in this alternative universe that is of the twenty-first century Gatsby. The newer music serves as a whisper to the future and works well with the commentary on social culture that is uttered by the brutish Tom Buchanan.” (Shackleton). It is an interesting way to portray Gatsby’s story, and Luhrmann certainly took a gamble when deciding to do so. In the end, it seems to work out pretty well for him, even though many viewers disagreed with the modern take of it. He still stays true to the story line aside from the reason for Nick’s narrating. Staying true to the storyline, however, isn’t always the most important thing when recreating a novel into a movie as one can see with the 1974 version. Although the 1974 movie stays true to the story line of the novel, the director, Jack Clayton, spent too much time on the scenery and picture of the movie and in doing so, didn’t fully capture the emotion and personalities of the characters. Film critic Roger Ebert had this to say about the issue, “I wonder what Fitzgerald, whose prose was so graceful, so elegantly controlled, would have made of it: of the willingness to spend so much time and energy on exterior effect while never penetrating to the souls of the characters.” (Ebert). Ebert questions Clayton’s style and wonders if Fitzgerald would be upset at the lack of time spent on the characters. When reading the novel, one can feel the emotio