Studying literary and cinematic texts together reveals how medium shapes the presentation of shared themes such as the American Dream, ambition and disillusionment. This essay examines F. Scott Fitzgerald’s novel The Great Gatsby (1925) alongside Damien Chazelle’s musical film La La Land (2016) to illustrate how contrasting forms deepen understanding of these ideas.
The American Dream and Its Disillusionment
Both works explore the pursuit of an idealised future that ultimately proves unattainable. In The Great Gatsby, Jay Gatsby’s accumulation of wealth symbolises the belief that social mobility can secure personal happiness. Fitzgerald presents this aspiration through Nick Carraway’s reflective narration, which underscores the gap between appearance and reality. La La Land reworks the same motif in a contemporary setting: Mia and Sebastian’s artistic ambitions mirror Gatsby’s drive yet are framed within Los Angeles rather than New York. The film’s vibrant musical sequences initially celebrate their optimism, but its conclusion, like the novel’s, emphasises compromise and loss. Comparing the two texts therefore shows that disillusionment is not merely a narrative outcome but a structural feature expressed differently according to form.
Form, Emotion and Narrative Perspective
The novel relies on first-person narration and temporal distance to convey nostalgia and regret. This technique invites readers to evaluate Gatsby’s story through Nick’s moral lens, encouraging measured scepticism towards romantic excess. In contrast, La La Land employs song, dance and saturated colour to externalise emotion immediately. The famous planetarium sequence, for instance, uses choreography to convey intimacy that the novel achieves through dialogue and description. Experiencing both media highlights how the immediacy of performance can intensify audience identification while the novel’s restraint fosters critical distance. Such differences demonstrate that ideas about love and aspiration are not fixed; they shift according to whether they are mediated through words or spectacle.
Implications for Thematic Insight
Placing the texts side by side reveals that the American Dream retains cultural resonance across nearly a century yet is continually reinterpreted. The novel supplies historical specificity about 1920s excess, whereas the film updates class and gender dynamics for a modern audience. This intertextual approach therefore encourages awareness that significant ideas evolve while core tensions—between illusion and reality, ambition and belonging—persist.
In conclusion, analysing The Great Gatsby and La La Land together illustrates how different artistic forms illuminate the limitations and enduring appeal of the American Dream. The comparison fosters a more nuanced appreciation of how medium influences both the expression and reception of thematic concerns.
References
- Fitzgerald, F.S. (1925) The Great Gatsby. New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons.
- Chazelle, D. (director) (2016) La La Land [Film]. Los Angeles: Summit Entertainment.
