THE GREAT GATSBY Production Notes - Visual Hollywood

THE GREAT GATSBY (2013)
PRODUCTION NOTES
tor, was the obvious choice.
"I'd read the book in junior high school and I was very moved by the story," says DiCaprio of the
project. "When I picked up the novel again, it was when Baz had handed me a copy and said, 'I've
got the rights to this.' It was a very daunting concept; there was a responsibility to make a memorable
film that will be forever connected with one of the greatest novels of all time."
That novel reveals a world and a story of New York City, the city that Fitzgerald called his "splendid
mirage," the city where Fitzgerald found early success and initial inspiration for the book. For
Luhrmann and the Bazmark caravan, that city was the critical first stop. At a suite at the Ace Hotel
in Midtown Manhattan, and then on the corner of Canal and Broadway, on the 24th and 26th floors
of building number 401, Bazmark set up shop, including: his wife, Oscar®-winning costume and
production designer Catherine Martin, who has collaborated with Luhrmann on the distinctive look
of all his films and theatre productions for over 20 years; Anton Monsted, executive music supervisor
and co-producer on the film; Craig Pearce, scriptwriter, friend and writing partner on
Luhrmann's "Red Curtain Trilogy"; and the rest of their creative production team.
New York City, "the racy, adventurous feel of it at night...the constant flicker of men and women
and machines,"* was a source of inspiration. The whole team fed off the energy and the history of
the place, in its way its own character in F. Scott Fitzgerald's novel.
"While in New York, we did a lot of reading about the time—particularly the financial system, the
bond and stock markets," says Pearce. "We were in the middle of the global financial crisis...or just
coming out of it."
"I think The Great Gatsby feels more relevant now than ever," Wick offers. "In a time with a glittering
but unreliable economy, and a prevalent sense that we have lost our way, Gatsby could have
been written yesterday. But it wasn't. The book takes you to another time and place, a lost world of
blinding allure, of extravagant hope and crashing dreams, which we knew Baz, more than anyone
imaginable, could deliver for an audience."
"Fitzgerald, I think, sensed a fundamental crack in the moral fabric of the 1920s, that things could
not keep going up, up, up, as they were, couldn't last," says Luhrmann, "and that felt very relevant
to the global financial crash of 2008. It felt parallel. If I think about it now, this fact is what told me
I had to do Gatsby now and in this way. We came to New York because we had to be in New York
to learn about and understand for ourselves those parallels of place, culture and mindset—Jazz Age
and today."
"Baz is a very literary director. If he's going to make a movie based on a book, it's because he wants
to reveal what he believes is the center of the story," Martin explains. "So, we always start with the
descriptions in the book and then we try to make discoveries and, like a detective, unearth certain
things."
"When I first start working on any project, I always begin by collecting," Luhrmann describes his
process. "In terms of a visual language, I'll just start collecting photographs and making collages
and my terrible scribbles. This is how I start with CM: terrible scribbles that no one can read, and
she's so lovely. She says, 'No, they're full of emotion!' What she means is only I know what that
scribble is, right"
"We're blessed because the photographic image and also filmmaking was extremely prevalent in the
© 2013 Warner Bros. Pictures
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