The next scene where Nick meets Tom is on their planned lunch at the Yale Club. This turns into something entirely different, when Tom decided to introduce Nick to his mistress. Both film adaptations present these scenes in a similar manner. However, they focus on two very different aspects of the scene, when the company reaches Tom and Myrtle’s apartment in New York. In the novel, Myrtle comes as a shallow person, concerned with gossip and shopping. Tom is overbearing to Myrtle as he is to Daisy. (36) In Clayton and Coppola’s film Myrtle comes off as less vulgar, even with her ostentatious dress. The scene deals with Myrtle telling the story of how she and Tom met. Tom does not show any tendencies towards being a bully until the end when he is enraged by …show more content…
This scene in the 2013 version can be summed up with the line “I have been drunk twice in my life, and the second time was that afternoon…” When Nick is given an alleged nerve pull by Myrtle’s sister the whole scene turns into an alcohol fueled blur. All of the excess in this scene is a caricature of the failure of the Prohibition. Nick’s first visit to one of Gatsby’s parties is one of the most important scenes in the novel. It gives the reader the first insight into Gatsby’s world. This scene has the potential to be the most visually striking in both movies. However, they vastly differ from each other and deviate in some degrees from the original text. After hearing Gatsby’s name time and time again, and watching his parties from his own porch, Nick is one day greeted by a driver, carrying an invitation. Fitzgerald stresses the exclusivity of this invitation by Nick’s comment that “people were not invited – they went there” (43). This is omitted by Clayton and Coppola, while Luhrmann and Pearce take it another step further and have Nick claim that he was the only guest ever to be