THE GREAT GATSBY Production Notes - Visual Hollywood

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THE GREAT GATSBY (2013) PRODUCTION NOTES "I felt really excited about the film," says Tobey Maguire, who plays Nick Carraway. "I think it's certainly got a lot of beauty and spectacle, but it's very grounded in character stories." Luhrmann recalls one of the highlights of the experience, when he and Pearce had just installed themselves in the suite at the Ace Hotel, where many of the surrounding buildings were built in Fitzgerald's time. "There was a bay window, New York was outside, and Leonardo sat down in the window, and literally there was someone playing a trumpet somewhere, or something...it was so Fitzgerald," recalls Luhrmann. "Leonardo just started reading and Tobey started reading, and then suddenly the sun set and Tobey read Nick's final line, 'So we beat on, borne back, ceaselessly into the past.' I remember Leonardo just clapping, and I clapped, and off we all went on this journey, into Fitzgerald and into his story and his time and place, as well as into our own." CASTING A CLASSIC "My life has got to be like this... It has got to keep going up." —Jay Gatsby "I'll bet he killed a man." "It's more that he was a German spy during the war." "He doesn't want any trouble with anybody." "I'm scared of him. I'd hate to have him get anything on me." At first, everything we know about Gatsby is drawn from "the bizarre accusations that flavored the conversations in his halls"*—he is the fabulous but mysterious party-giver, the man who drifted "coolly out of nowhere to buy a palace on Long Island,"* who opens the towering doors to that palace each and every weekend to anyone and everyone, but who no one has actually met. That is, until he invites his new neighbor and the narrator of the story, Nick Carraway, to one of his lavish parties. This begins a chain of events through which Gatsby will ultimately reveal and be ruined by his romantic obsession, Nick's cousin, "the golden girl"* Daisy Buchanan. "What is eventually revealed is that Gatsby grew up poor. When he was younger, Gatsby had this grand vision for his life. And then, one day, he happens to fall in love with this girl, Daisy," says Luhrmann. "He'd known other women, so he thought he might just take what he could get from her and go off to the war, and that it'd be nothing. But she's this extraordinary girl and he gets hooked. He goes away to the war, and she promised to wait for his return, but then the rich and powerful Tom Buchanan sweeps in and steals her away. Gatsby loses his girl, comes back from the war penniless, and so begins his quest to erase and then repeat the past more in line with that grand vision he has always had for himself." Gatsby hopes to win Daisy back by "making something of himself." His entire existence—the ostentatious mansion, the extravagant parties, the library full of books he's never read, the hundreds of silk shirts he's never worn, the flashy fast car—is an accumulation for which he cares not, but with which he intends to recapture Daisy's heart. "Gatsby is an incredible character to play," acknowledges DiCaprio. "I think he's very much the manifestation of the American dream, of imagining who you can become... and he does it all for the love of a woman. But even that is open to interpretation: Is Daisy just the manifestation of his dreams Or is he really in love with this woman I think that he's a hopeless romantic but he's also an incredibly empty individual searching for something to fill a void in his life." © 2013 Warner Bros. Pictures 6
THE GREAT GATSBY (2013) PRODUCTION NOTES "What Gatsby represents is this romantic ideal," notes Pearce. "By saying that, I don't mean he's just a lovely guy, because actually there are some really dark aspects to Gatsby. I mean he represents this purity of vision, of what he is prepared to do for love." DiCaprio sought to bring new depth and an arresting darkness to his version of Gatsby—a version closer to the character in the novel. "When James West first saw footage of Leonardo as Gatsby, he said, 'Now, this is Gatsby, Gatsby's dark obsession, his absolutism,'" says Luhrmann, who adds, "He's the Gatsby who will not let anyone rewrite the script he has written for his life.'" Although Gatsby is a tragic figure, his "incorruptible dream"* and his commitment to that dream, are what ultimately make him inspiring, "worth the whole damn bunch put together"* in Nick's eyes. "Nick realizes that Gatsby, for all his flaws, is 'great' because Jay Gatsby has a gift for hope that is unparalleled; even if it is ultimately out of reach or doomed, his purpose is pure and real," says Pearce. "Characters like Gatsby are inherently wedded to tragedy," Luhrmann observes. "What they seek to attain is unattainable. And they don't change. We know that Fitzgerald was a fan of Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness (1899), which has that Orpheus-like structure where an innocent journeys into the underworld and meets an iconic figure; the iconic figure, in the case of Gatsby, doesn't transform, he lives and dies with 'Daisy' on his lips. In the process though, he inspires us mere mortals to be better, to transform ourselves, to look for a purposeful life. And Nick does. Nick begins the story turning his back on his artistic inclinations in order to focus on making money on Wall Street, but ultimately comes to the realization, through finally writing a story about this guy Gatsby, that he, too, must pursue a meaningful and purposeful life, as Gatsby did." And what is it that Nick gives to Gatsby "I think Nick is Gatsby's only real friend in this world," says DiCaprio. "And that's shocking to Gatsby... he has no real friends. Nick is the one guy who actually takes an interest in him as an individual, and not as this sort of mega rich spectacle that is 'Gatsby.'" "I have always tried to see the best in people." —Nick Carraway The role of Nick Carraway is played by one of DiCaprio's closest friends, Tobey Maguire, who recalls, "I got a call from Leo and he said, 'I just talked to Baz and he's thinking about doing The Great Gatsby... He was talking about me for Gatsby and you for Nick. He's in town... What are you up to tonight' So, the three of us got together and hung out for a few hours, and then I picked up a copy of The Great Gatsby and read it for the first time." Nick Carraway is the story's narrator. Like Fitzgerald did, Nick comes to New York from St. Paul, Minnesota, to make his fortune in New York (Fitzgerald's attempt was in advertising, Nick's in the blossoming bond business). In doing so Nick is, by his own admission, giving up his dream of being a writer. He rents a small bungalow on Long Island's West Egg, the nouveau riche part of town, and, unwittingly, right next door to the mysterious Mr. Gatsby. Nick just so happens to be the cousin of Daisy Buchanan, the object of Gatsby's affection. He is lured into Gatsby's world, first to a "little party" and from there into doing Gatsby the favor of inviting Daisy over to tea so that Gatsby can happen to drop by. © 2013 Warner Bros. Pictures 7
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THE GREAT GATSBY Production Notes - Visual Hollywood

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