Ambivalence of the perception of the color palette in F. S. Fitzgerald’s novel “The Great Gatsby” and its coloristic realization in the film adaptations

Bykova Natalia Ivanovna PhD in Pedagogy Associate professor, Department of Directing and Choreography, F. M. Dostoevskiy Omsk State University 644116, Russia, Omsk, Krasny Put str., 36, office 313 bukovani@mail.ru Other publications by this author

Introduction

The relevance of studying the research topic is determined by a fairly significant set of factors. Firstly, color as the most important semantic concept in works of art is a serious topic for analysis, since the various components of the color solution represent the most important integral part of the realization of the idea. Secondly, it is this novel by F. S. Fitzgerald that allows us to rethink many aspects of American reality at the beginning of the 20th century. Catchy beauty and bombast are combined with lack of spirituality and coldness, beauty and wealth with dust, dirt and immorality.

The purpose of this article is to study the color palette in F. S. Fitzgerald's novel "The Great Gatsby" and the eponymous screen interpretations of the novel, in particular the inconsistency, ambivalence of perception of individual color accents.

The research methodology is based on a comparative historical approach to understanding the symbolism of certain colors and a conceptual analysis of the director's interpretation of the images of the main characters and the main idea of the work in film adaptations of different years.

In scientific articles by researchers who raise issues of understanding the work of F. S. Fitzgerald, the important symbolic role of the color palette used by the writer in his works is noted, however, the problem of ambivalence of color perception in comparison with film adaptations of the novel from different years has not been studied in detail by scientists. 

The work of F. S. Fitzgerald, the novel "The Great Gatsby" and its film adaptations

The famous American writer F. S. Fitzgerald is of interest to the Russian reader, first of all, as the author of works about America of the "jazz era". The beginning of the 20th century is a difficult and ambiguous time in many countries of the world, and America is no exception. The writer is one of the first to try to rethink the basic concepts of this period in the history and culture of the United States. Many authors note in his work the ability to presciently identify the contradictions of this period. "Later came the time of disappointment, which came after the World War, the time of the collapse of many hopes and the "lost generation", which became the theme of novels by many writers. Fitzgerald was unusually sensitive to the initial, still weakest tremors of this, threatening to turn into a devastating political earthquake. He was the first in the literature of the USA to feel and embody in a work of fiction the tragic contradictions of the "jazz age" ^{[1, p. 91]}. Readers' attention is attracted by one of the main problems of the novel – the search for ways to realize their dreams. "Numerous works by writers, philosophers and politicians are devoted to the American Dream; this novel is interesting because it does not so much idealize the American dream as debunk the myth of this dream. It is precisely due to the conceptual ambiguity that the work has attracted and continues to attract the attention of readers and viewers" ^[2]. 

Analyzing F. S. Fitzgerald's work, researchers pay attention to many aspects characterizing the artistic component of his works, for example, intertextuality and biblical allusions ^[3], the description of the interior as one of the components revealing the inner world of a person ^[4], conceptual aspects of the novel, in particular the concept of "dream" ^[5], are analyzed researchers and various historical subtexts of the author's works ^[6].

F. S. Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby has been filmed five times. The first film adaptation dates back to 1926. The film was directed by Herbert Brenon. This is a black-and-white feature film that F. S. Fitzgerald himself watched.  The second film adaptation of 1949 was also a black–and-white movie, which will be directed by Elliott Nugent. Despite the interest of readers in the work, black–and-white film adaptations are not able to convey the aesthetics of the book. The next three film adaptations are works in which the color solution in the frame is given a very important role. In 1974, Jack Clayton made a film of the same name, which was highly appreciated by the world cinema community, nominated for prestigious film awards and still has a high rating among the audience. More than 25 years later, in 2000, Robert Markowitz began the film adaptation of F. S. Fitzgerald's novel "The Great Gatsby". This work is distinguished by a special lyrical atmosphere of the narrative and a peculiar solution to the image of the main character. R. Markowitz's version, created in a softer and less contrasting color palette, in our opinion, served as one of the reasons to create a brighter and enchanting version. In 2013 Baz Luhrmann is filming the fifth film adaptation of The Great Gatsby. A bright coloristic solution and a galaxy of famous actors (Leonardo DiCaprio, Carey Mulligan and Tobey Maguire) made it possible to create an artistically interesting interpretation of the novel.

The interest of cinema in this work is explained by the figurative and metaphorical series of the novel and its artistic concept. Cinema is an audiovisual art form based on visual aspects. F. S. Fitzgerald, filling his works with vivid descriptions and a thoughtful color approach in creating images, describing landscapes, recreating the interior, provides directors with rich opportunities for the color palette of the film. The article "The evolution of expressive means in the art of cinema and the problems of cinema aesthetics (using the example of the analysis of film adaptations of F. S. Fitzgerald's novel "The Great Gatsby")" examines the film adaptations of this work from different years in the aspect of the evolution of the film language and the use of various cinematic techniques to create images ^[2].  

Within the framework of this study, the film adaptations of the novel are of interest, since the director's interpretations of the literary text from different years complement the semantic concept of the work and emphasize the ambivalence of the perception of color symbolism. Together with the characters of the novel and their prototypes in the films, readers and viewers, reflecting on their fate, plunging with them into the world of dreams, dreams and disappointments, gradually rethink and re-evaluate each of the characters and their understanding of the American dream ^[7]. 

One of the most important components of the concept of the novel "The Great Gatsby" is the color symbolism. In many types of art: in painting, literature and cinema, color symbolism plays an important role in recreating the images of the characters and revealing the idea of the work, therefore, scientists are exploring various aspects of the influence of color on the reader and viewer. There are works in which artistic techniques of image construction based on color as the main artistic component are studied. It is important to note that in the art of different countries of the world, despite some differences in the perception of color symbols, there is a special interest in works with an original color solution. Literary and cinematic examples of both Western and Eastern creators are interesting in this aspect. Of particular interest are the studies of Oriental traditions, in which the semantic meaning of color and various symbolic coloristic components are given an important role.  Interesting works by researchers can be noted, for example, studying the light symbolism of female mythological images in Japanese and Chinese culture ^[8], color semantic concepts in films ^[9], analysis of the cultural code in Chinese folk tales ^[10], coloristic solutions to the artistic concept of films ^[11]. The works that study the symbolism of color in the cultural traditions of different peoples, manifested in the design of clothing and interior details, deserve attention, since these aspects are present in the creation of images of heroes in literature and cinema.  For example, the study of the reflection of cultural values in traditional costume ^[12].

Color accents and leitmotifs in the novel "The Great Gatsby" by F. S. Fitzgerald and the film adaptations of the same name

 F. S. Fitzgerald's color symbolism has attracted the attention of researchers more than once. E. V. Sidorenko's articles can be cited as an example, in which the author studies the writer's works in this aspect, in the novels "The Night is Tender" and "The Great Gatsby" the author of the article notes that "color in fiction is a means of expression, expression and serves to model an abstract visual image… Creating images of heroes, Fitzgerald combines the role of an artist and a writer and portrays his characters using color, which throughout the novel will be associated only with him" ^{[13, p. 346]}. Reflecting on the novel "The Night is Tender", E. V. Sidorenko draws attention to some individual features of the perception of the writer's color palette, due to his personal life experience. "The world around us is full of various shades and colors, and color names not only indicate the color of an object, but also represent artifacts of national cultures on the one hand and the personal worldview of an individual on the other" ^{[14, p. 377]}.  

V. F. Poznin in the article "Color as an element of the drama of the film" notes the interest of directors not only in the work of writers, but also in the canvases of artists. "It is not surprising that cinema, in search of an expressive frame solution, immediately turned to the experience of fine art. The direct influence of the aesthetics of painting on cinema has already affected the compositional structure of the frame, the light and tonal solution of a number of scenes ... With the advent of color films, the influence of painting on cinema is even more intensified. The directors, relying on the experience of the old masters, successfully stylize the color scheme to the picturesque manner of one or another artist..." ^{[15, pp. 411-412]}. Reflecting on the dramatic concept of color, V. F. Poznin emphasized, among other things, the complexity and ambivalence of color perception.

Ambivalence is determined by many factors, including shades of color. The color palette performs various visual tasks, contributing to the segmentation of objects, the perception of their shape and depth, the reconstruction of the contours of the scene, the rendering of shadows and the movement of complex objects, helping their perception and identification ^[16]. The ambiguity of color perception is also manifested through the context of the entire work. "The symbolism of color cannot be considered outside the context in which one or another color accent or color leitmotif is used, and the genre of the film, because the coloring of an object in different situations and different artistic space can carry different symbolic content" ^{[15, p. 425]}.

Understanding the significance of color symbolism is a question that has been repeatedly addressed not only by art historians, but also by famous philosophers, writers, artists such as Leonardo da Vinci, E. Delacroix, V. Kandinsky, I. V. Goethe, A. Schopenhauer, K. Roerich and others. Studies of the meaning-forming components of individual colors are also of interest. For example, a series of books by M. Pasturo, in which the author explores every color from Antiquity to the XIX century, analyzing in detail colors such as blue, black, green. Cinematography, being an audiovisual art form, since its inception at the end of the XIX century.  It is based on scientific and practical research of such types of arts as painting and literature.  Historically, the issues of using the color palette and the influence of color perception have been worked out in detail precisely when studying various aspects of painting. From the very first steps, the art of cinema begins to think about the issues of the viewer's perception of the information seen on the screen, therefore, professional artists were actively involved in working on cinematic works in the first decades. Despite the fact that it was a black-and-white movie, the directors thought about the issues of constructing the image in the frame in such a way as to maximize the viewer's attention on certain objects. And here it was extremely important to consider the use of light and shadow, white and all shades of black and gray. For example, in 1920, a film was released that was highly appreciated by cinematographers – this is "The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari", directed by Robert Vinet. This work is of interest due to the fact that in this film, for the first time, it was professional artists who were entrusted with the function of conveying the ideological content of the painting.  Expressionist artists Herman Warm, Walter Roerig, and Walter Ryman were involved in the work, who were tasked with building an artistic concept for the film.

Reflecting on the issues of the history of the use of color in cinema. it is necessary to pay attention to the first steps in the field of working with a color image in the frame. Georges M?li?s, one of the founders of world cinema, was the first to try to introduce color into the image on the screen at the end of the XIX century, starting to color the film, circling each frame with a brush. The work "Journey to the Moon" (1902) is interesting in this regard, already in the first scenes of the film the viewer sees painted objects in the foreground. The colors allowed us to focus on the most important details in the composition of the frame. In this case, the color scheme does not look quite natural, but the color here is already becoming an artistic device, as it attracts the viewer's attention to the most meaningful details in the frame.

Analyzing the color solutions in a particular work of art, it must be emphasized that the perception of any color is largely individual and based on subjective assessments. The mediated perception of a particular color is associated with many factors. "Sometimes the symbolism of color is rather a kind of metonymy of some concept or phenomenon" ^{[15, p. 428]}. Reflecting on the ambiguity of color and its role in the drama of film production, V.F. Poznin emphasizes, on the one hand, the stereotypical aspects of perception of a particular color solution, on the other hand, noting its original interpretation. In particular, as a vivid example of the author's peculiar approach to color symbolism, he cites the works of the artist Vasily Kandinsky, who "perceived white as a deep, creative silence ... red as something hot, rebellious, powerful..." ^{[15, p. 429]}. The color red is shown in a completely different way, for example, in B. Bertolucci's film "The Last Emperor". In this cinematic work, red is the color of unfreedom, in many episodes it "symbolizes the emotional state of the hero: closeness from the whole world and dependence on stereotypes and prevailing living conditions, the inability to go beyond the imposed restrictions" ^[11].

In terms of color symbolism and ambivalence of color perception, one of the interesting examples is the work of F. S. Fitzgerald, since the author pays special attention to the artistic solution of characters and details in his works, which are quite picturesque, since it is the color palette that plays an important role in describing the scene, the event series and the images of the characters.

Green and gray colors play a conceptually significant role in the book. In the aspect of this article, this color palette is not the subject of research, as it is traditionally treated odiously. At the same time, it is impossible not to touch on the significance of these aspects due to the fact that they are important for revealing the main idea. For readers and viewers, green is visually associated with two points. Firstly, the novel contrasts the lifestyle of two social strata: high society, living in expensive houses, beautifully located on the shore of the bay against a background of bright greenery and flowers, and the society of those who live in the Valley of Slag.

From the first pages of the novel, the writer immerses the reader in colorful descriptions of the scene, emphasizing the beauty of the landscape, the greenery surrounding the facades of elite houses, and the greyness, smoke, and dust of the Slag Valley. "A cheerful red and white Georgian-colonial house faced the strait. The green lawn began almost at the water's edge, ran for a good quarter of a mile to the house between flowerbeds and paths strewn with brick chips, and finally, jumping over the sundial, it seemed to fly up the wall with climbing vines" ^[17].

"This is a real Valley of Slag – a ghostly field in which slag rises like wheat, piles up hills, hills, spreads out bizarre gardens; in front of you there are slag houses, chimneys, smoke rising to the sky, and finally, if you look very intently, you can see slag-gray men who seem to blur in the dusty fog" ^[17].

This color antithesis is actively used by directors in color film adaptations of the novel, since it is the color that helps the cinema, along with other details of the intra-frame composition, to recreate the atmosphere of the scene most accurately (Fig. 1, 2).

Figure 1. A frame from the movie "The Great Gatsby" (2013). Tom and Daisy's house.

Figure 2. A frame from the movie "The Great Gatsby" (2013). The Valley of Slag.

The second aspect associated with green is the green light of the lighthouse, which is visible from Gatsby's house, it symbolizes the main character's dream and hope. For the first time, the reader gets acquainted with him precisely when he looks at the green light of the lighthouse against the background of beautiful evening nature (Fig. 3). "The wind died down, the night shone full of sounds – bird wings flapped in the foliage of trees... A cat crept past a black silhouette in the blue, I turned my head after her and suddenly saw that I was not alone – fifty paces away, separated from the dense shadow of a neighbor's house, a man stood and, with his hands in his pockets, looked at the silver peppercorns of the stars... he somehow strangely stretched out his hand to the dark water, and despite the distance between us, it seemed to me that he was trembling all over. Involuntarily, I looked in the direction of his gaze, but saw nothing; only a green light shone somewhere far away, probably a signal lamp on the edge of the pier."^[17]

Figure 3. A frame from the movie "The Great Gatsby" (2013). The light of the lighthouse.

Within the framework of this study, we will mainly consider two colors: white and yellow, the ambiguity of perception of which in the novel creates a special aura of revealing the images of the main characters and the idea of the work. N. A. Kormin in the article "Art and aesthetic structures of the metaphysics of color" emphasizes an important idea about the aesthetic significance of the use of color symbols in art. "The visual world is replete with colored fields, shapes and objects for contemplation, through which we establish their identity and identification, their aesthetic expressiveness and charm. The aesthetics of color is an offshoot of the metaphysics of light itself, the entire photonic sphere, the idea of which can be considered as a source, in the language of Edmund Husserl, of intentional radiation in a wide variety of ranges. Color as such is perhaps the most mysterious aesthetic phenomenon, the idea of which is the life of various types of art, primarily painting, theater and cinematography ...^[18].

It is on the ambiguity and ambivalence of the perception of white that one of the main ideas of the work is built. E. V. Sidorenko, analyzing the prototypes of the color meanings used in the novel, notes that most often the reader encounters white, which was used 48 times in the text. The author uses the white color, which is usually associated with innocence and purity, to create a metaphorical contrast ^{[13, p. 347]}. Of course, one cannot disagree with V. F. Pozin, who emphasizes that "with the introduction of digital technologies into film production, work on the visual solution and color harmonization of the screen image in many ways becomes similar to the art of the artist" ^{[15, p. 410]}.

In the context of this work, F. S. Fitzgerald from the first pages of the novel emphasizes the color scheme of the image of the main character – Daisy. The narrator in the work, Nick Carraway, tells a story that happened to him many years ago. The main characters are Nick's cousin Daisy, her husband Tom and Gatsby himself.

Nick Carraway, who has not seen Daisy for several years, pays special attention to the atmosphere surrounding the heroine. F. S. Fitzgerald, describing their meeting, emphasizes two points. The first is a white color palette: a white room, white curtains and white clothes of the heroine. It is white, her favorite color, as she said, that accompanies her everywhere: clothes, flowers, interior. The second point is the mobility and variability of everything external that surrounds Daisy. This is evidenced by the constant moving of the characters, and the psychological fullness of the character. Getting to know Daisy, the reader quickly begins to realize the emptiness and superficiality of her inner world. She talks about nothing, does rash things, is frivolous and impulsive. These features of the heroine are visually associated with the surrounding atmosphere. "A light breeze walked around the room, fluttering the curtains on the windows, which fluttered like pale flags, then blew them in, then blew them out, then suddenly threw them up to the ceiling, which looked like a wedding cake covered with icing, and a shadow rippled across the wine–red carpet, as if on a sea surface under a breeze. The only stationary object in the room was an enormous couch on which two young women were sheltered, as if on an anchored balloon. Their white dresses trembled and swayed, as if they had both just landed here after flying around the house."^[17] Curtains swaying in the wind, which Nick draws attention to, occupy an important place in all film adaptations of the novel, as a significant feature that complements the image of the heroine (Fig. 4, 5, 6).

Figure 4. A frame from the movie "The Great Gatsby" (1974). Daisy's room.

Figure 5. A frame from the movie "The Great Gatsby" (2000). White curtains.

Figure 6. A frame from the movie "The Great Gatsby" (2013). White curtains.

Another color accent that is important for the psychological content of the character is pink. F. S. Fitzgerald does not often mention pink, however, when he first meets the heroine, this is a conceptually important aspect. Nick's first impression is a feeling of an atmosphere of comfort, warmth, softness and tenderness. It is the pink color that helps to maintain this feeling. "We walked through a spacious hall and entered a shining pink space, barely fixed in the walls of the house by tall windows to the right and left... The setting sun touched Daisy's rosy face with a parting caress; I listened to her whisper, involuntarily holding my breath and stretching my neck, but the pink glow faded, slipped from her face, slowly, reluctantly like a child who is forced by the coming evening to leave the fun of the street and go home" ^[17]. In the 2000 and 2013 film adaptations, the directors pay special attention to the pink shades surrounding the heroine (Fig. 7, 8).

Figure 7. A frame from the movie "The Great Gatsby" (2000). Daisy's room.

Figure 8. A frame from the movie "The Great Gatsby" (2013). Daisy's room.

The entire color palette of the beginning of the first chapter of the novel, colorfully recreated by the color scheme of the film adaptations, causing a feeling of lightness and joy from the meeting, is quickly replaced by disappointment. White is one of the most ambiguous colors in the culture of different peoples.

Ambivalence, a change in the perception of color depending on a particular context, is inherent to one degree or another in all colors.  "The fullness of a particular color with special meanings has a complex, indirect character, since it can be associated with various myths, beliefs, as well as with certain personal associations and attitudes" ^{[15, pp. 427-428]}. In the context of this work, white is important to emphasize the contrast between the light white-pink color palette and the emptiness and worthlessness of the characters' pastime. This is important because this contrast allows Nick to understand the inner world of the heroine. It is the antithesis that is most significant in this episode. It sharpens the contrast between the external environment and the internal content.

The white color begins to be associated with Nick, and after him, readers and viewers with emptiness and coldness. And the white and pink shades of the interior, and the flowers surrounding the heroine, and the space saturated with air due to the swaying of the curtains – all this turns into a feeling of deception. "Sometimes she and Miss Baker would suddenly start talking at once, but there was no lightness in their mocking, meaningless chatter, it was cold like their white dresses, like their indifferent eyes, not illuminated by a glimmer of desire..."^[17].  The feeling of discomfort is aggravated precisely due to the coloristic solution, the white color becomes a symbol of wealth and deception. "But as soon as her voice sounded, forcing me to listen and believe, I immediately felt the untruth in her words. I felt uneasy, as if this whole evening was designed to make me worry about someone else's excitement through deception and cunning."^[17]

Gatsby, who is in love with Daisy, has not seen her for many years and does not have the opportunity to meet just like that. He is influenced by her charm and the outward embodiment of purity, sincerity and wealth. For him, white and pink are colors in which he believes in sincerity. Therefore, at the first meeting after many years, he appears in a white suit, surrounding himself with an abundance of white flowers. This episode is shot by directors with varying degrees of emotionality and expressiveness, but all the film adaptations emphasize the importance for the hero of his white suit and white colors. The white color scheme in these episodes symbolizes, on the one hand, Gatsby's desire to create a color palette of shades close to what surrounds Daisy. On the other hand, his emotions are perceived more sincere against the background of the heroine, who was quite insensitive before this scene. In the film adaptation of J. Clayton 1974. the image of Gatsby is outlined quite schematically. The coloristic solution of many scenes is made in muted tones. He is excited, but often more restrained and less expressive, sometimes more self-confident, his estate is represented in a large number of yellow and gold shades, symbolizing wealth.  (Fig. 9.10).

.

Figure 9. A frame from the movie "The Great Gatsby" (1974). Meeting with Daisy.

Figure 10. A shot from the movie "The Great Gatsby" (1974). The Gatsby Mansion.

In the 2000 film adaptation by R. Markowitz, the image of Gatsby is created with a lot of details and fragments of his life. The hero is perceived as less defined and unambiguous. He is often agitated and sometimes more emotional (fig. 11). The interior of the manor is similar in many details to the interior of Daisy's house: viewers see a similar color scheme of white and pink shades (Fig. 12).

Figure 11. A frame from the movie "The Great Gatsby" (2000). Meeting with Daisy.

Figure 12. A shot from the movie "The Great Gatsby" (2000). The Gatsby Mansion.

In the 2013 film by B. Luhrmann, the image of Gatsby is characterized by greater expression and self-confidence. Performed by Leonardo DiCaprio, the character is filled with new colors. The color palette is the same, but there are many more shades of color, and due to this there is an illusion of authenticity and vitality of the character. In the scene of the first meeting, the same white suit and flowers are still there, but flowers of different shades, and due to this, the atmosphere of this scene does not seem artificial and fake, as it may seem in previous film adaptations (Fig. 13). The interiors of his mansion are more extravagant and pompous. The color palette is saturated with bright colors, many colors, many shades of yellow and gold (Fig. 14).

Figure 13. A shot from the movie "The Great Gatsby" (2013). Gatsby is waiting for Daisy.

Figure 14. A frame from the movie "The Great Gatsby" (2013). The Gatsby Mansion.

F. S. Fitzgerald, describing in his work people with finances and a certain power, tries to recreate through visual visual images the ideas of people of his time about what wealth and power are. Gatsby, coming from poor backgrounds, having raised funds from the illegal sale of alcoholic beverages (during the prohibition of alcohol), creates a myth about himself among the residents of the city, writing various stories from his life, and, one might say, invents life itself, recreating the interiors of the mansion and buying things and clothes according to the criteria which, in his opinion, should symbolize the level of his income and wealth. Interesting in this aspect is the work "Values and symbolization of success in modern cinema", in which the authors reflect on how "the cinematography of the mass cultural reflection of mankind in recent decades has led to the fact that it was the images and symbols of successful activity created on the cinema screen ... that formed something like ... in fact, a reference, mass representation of human success in all his possible hypostases. Thus, they created something like a canon of success in the form of a kind of catechism offering precedent answers to questions: what is success, how to achieve it, what components does success assessment consist of..." ^[19]. In fact, this is exactly how the hero of F. S. Fitzgerald acts. He creates himself according to the standard of a rich and successful person who seems to him the most faithful.

Reflecting on the image of the main character, it is necessary to comprehend the meaning of yellow in the coloristic solution of the character. V. F. Poznin, agreeing with Sergei Eisenstein, emphasizes the idea that the ambivalence of color symbolism is most actively manifested in the interpretation of two colors – red and yellow, in this case "ambivalence of color, forcing to perceive one or another having a color an object in a completely opposite sense to its usual perception occurs most often due to a certain change in color shade." Bright yellow, golden color can symbolize loyalty and constancy (for example, a golden ring is perceived as a sign of loyalty), while turning into just yellow, the color begins to fill with the opposite content: it symbolizes envy, impermanence, betrayal (for example, yellow flowers) ^{[15, pp. 426-427]}. 

Shades of yellow are present in everything that surrounds Gatsby. For him, this color is a symbol of wealth and luxury, which is why there is so much yellow and gold in the interiors of his mansion. The hero's car is the most revealing. He drives around in a car that is described by the author as a huge sparkling cream-colored car or the color of thick cream. In the film adaptations of different years, this detail – the color of the car – makes the image of the hero more or less extravagant. The importance of this detail in creating the image of Gatsby in the film adaptation is emphasized from the first seconds of the film by J. Clayton's. The viewer sees the credits and a standing yellow car. This moment immediately attracts attention, since nothing is happening on the screen yet, but the yellow car in the frame raises questions, in the future the yellow car is a bright color accent of many episodes. This is one of the features of the yellow color – it is impossible not to pay attention to it (Fig. 15).   

Figure 15. A shot from the movie "The Great Gatsby" (1974). Gatsby's car.

R. Markowitz, creating the image of Gatsby on the screen, refuses such a color accent, it would be too defiant for the character he wanted to show. The car is almost white in color (fig. 16). Gatsby in R. Markowitz's film, largely due to the introduction into the narrative of memories of meeting Daisy, of the first youthful love, is perceived by the audience emotionally more intense, more sincere, in some episodes less arrogant and narcissistic.    

Figure 16. A frame from the movie "The Great Gatsby" (2000). Gatsby's car.

In the 2013 film adaptation, B. Lurman returns this color accent to the characterization of the main character's image. Gatsby drives around in a beautiful bright yellow car (fig. 17).

Figure 17. A shot from the movie "The Great Gatsby" (2013). Gatsby's car.

The image of Gatsby performed by Leonardo DiCaprio attracts the viewer with charisma, but at the same time the manner of bearing, bright colors in the interior, a defiantly bright car – all this creates a feeling, on the one hand, of a confident person, even arrogant and prone to narcissism. On the other hand, there is clearly an excessive desire to demonstrate their education and wealth to everyone around them, and this artificially created opinion of themselves is perceived by many as fake information, and everything around is a fake, an illusion of wealth. Yellow and all shades of yellow should be associated with wealth according to the hero's idea. But this is far from the case. Yellow becomes the color of illusions. Growing up in a wealthy family, surrounded by wealth, Tom, Daisy's husband, immediately feels the falsity in everything that surrounds Gatsby. His manner of dressing, speaking, communicating with the world – all this gives him away as a man far from high society. Tom calls Gatsby's bright yellow car a "circus van." The ambivalence of the perception of shades of yellow in the film adaptation by B. Luhrmann is felt in many episodes. Sunny shades of yellow, warm, saturated colors in the first episodes of the film cause trusting thoughts about the hero, but gradually they begin to irritate and cause thoughts of excessive overload with too bright details, which more and more create a feeling of illusion.

Conclusion

Quite a lot of works have been written about various aspects of the effect of color, and within the framework of this study, the task is not to turn to the history or theory of color symbolism. The use of a particular color in works of art in most cases is based on archetypal ideas, despite national, religious and personal subjective assessments, the majority of people perceive most of the color scheme in a similar way.  In the aspect of ambivalence of color perception, those works are of interest in which the duality and inconsistency of the assessment of the same phenomenon is the basis of a conceptual idea. In the novel "The Great Gatsby" by F. S. Fitzgerald, it is color that is an important semantic concept. The dialectical reinterpretation of the first traditionally archetypal assessments of the characters of the work becomes the antithesis, which is essential for the reassessment of values. It is no coincidence that the story underlying the plot of the novel is the memoirs of Nick Carraway. It took him years of his life to go back in time and rethink the events of that time. Since the work of F. S. Fitzgerald is not very large, readers and viewers might not attach much importance to some nuances when getting acquainted with the novel or watching a movie if these details did not attract attention with a coloristic solution, therefore it is the duality of perception of individual color accents that plays an important role in this work. For example, Nick Carraway idealizes Gatsby in his memoirs, paying attention primarily to his determination, optimism and faith in a dream. At the same time, it is the expressively bright color palette surrounding the hero, along with the reinterpretation of his words and actions, that draws attention to other aspects and that side of Gatsby's image, which reveals the falsity and contrivance of everything that the hero has created around himself.

The novel by S. Fitzgerald "The Great Gatsby" is deservedly popular with readers, because it immerses in the atmosphere of the way of thinking of the hero who devoted his whole life to a dream. Purposeful, able to achieve his goals is a character who attracts and will attract the attention of readers and viewers with expressiveness, charisma, and faith in hope. However, such characters are often of the same type and schematically the same. Various artistic techniques help to create a vivid and ambiguous image. One of the most interesting and expressive is the color scheme of the image, it is this factor that is most attractive for the art of cinema. Film adaptations of literary works, due to the originality of the director's interpretation of images, create an opportunity to immerse oneself in the disclosure of the idea in a more versatile and meaningful way. F. S. Fitzgerald's novel "The Great Gatsby" and its film adaptations remain relevant for modern audiences, among other things, because they touch on the popular theme of the American dream in art.  The events that take place in the lives of the main characters are a vivid example of the illusory nature of this dream, which is based on money and wealth. The color palette and ambivalence of the color solution of individual episodes allow us to complement the characterization of the characters' images and help to comprehend the conceptual solution of the work.