Baz Luhrmann

0:02New York, 1922. The beings in a fire. The tempo of the city had changed sharply. The buildings were higher. As they might have heard. The parties were bigger. The morals were loose around the licorice chief man. The restlessness, no proutied. Istaria. Shall we? You know him? Who is this Gatsby? Do you know him? Oh, you missed a Gatsby. Doesn't exist? Gatsby? What Gatsby? When we made it, I made it as a charity record. I was producing it. And we made that record. And I said, I'm going to say, I don't know, what was it 15 years ago? It was 97, 98. It said, class of 98. Right? And so we made the record. And I had the guy do the voice over.

0:48I said, maybe we might have to release it again next year. So we did class of 99, class of 2000. We got to like 2002. We'll never need to be on there. And I'm never going to get beyond it until whoever it is. Because it would have been going on and on and on and on. Well, still poignant. And it applies. But we should talk about the movie. I'm happy to. So hello old sport. How are we doing? Oh, well. I'm not Gatsby. I'm more your Nick Caraway. I am both within and without. That's going to be one of my questions actually. Which one do you identify most of? I think everybody, it's funny now. I do actually identify with Gatsby. I mean, if I sort of avoid that question because it could sound huge to the pretentious. And with Nick Caraway. Because I think I identify with the part of Gatsby, which is he's from a very small humble beginnings,

1:35which I am. He sort of sees a vision of his life with, you know, I'm 50. So I can kind of say, I can say what I like. I don't really care what people think. You know, and I did. I had a vision of my life. And it's not exactly, as you imagine it, as a 15 year old boy. I might imagine Gatsby. But I kind of pursued that life. You know, so I relate to that part of it. On the other hand, Nick Caraway is a storyteller. And he watches his story and he's in it. So I relate to that part, you know. Talk about imagining, there's a quote from you saying, all the films I make are about 60% of what I imagine them to be. Yeah. So how does this one? About 60%. About 60%. What about, see, the party scene is everything we hope for out of a buzz in film. The color fold, the dancing, the choreography and everything.

2:22So how do you create an atmosphere like that? On set that day? I'm part of a large team. I've got a great collaboration with my wife, C.M. Catherine Martin, she has a couple of Oscars. Just a couple. Just a couple. But it extends beyond that. I've worked with my music coordinator and co-music producer for 15 years and so on and so forth. My writer I went to high school with. You know, we're a circus troupe, you know. Having said that, you know, we were together like five generations of assistants. They all produce now. Right? Having said that, the one trick in these party scenes is that every single person on screen is a character. No one is an extra in these movies. You know, who they are, they know where they've come from. They are characters. And when we were collaborating with Moochaprata, who's an old friend of mine who did the costumes,

3:10she makes clothes. I don't know if you've heard of her. But, you know, she was blown away with the idea that each person was a character. She was really happy to be dressing each person in the party scene as a character. When they're characters, you can crank up the music and, you know, we've had a few brothers of alcohol and crazy people. I got to let you go. So we'll do something called Five Questions. Five quick questions. One more answers. I'll try. I'm not a one word guy. I've noticed. We'll work on it though. Lendenham McCartney. Greatest songwriting partnership, I think. Which one? Which one do you have anything with? Oh, I got it. The question is, what am I going to do with Moochaprata? Lendenham McCartney. I can't do it in Moochaprata.

3:55I can actually tell you something. As individuals, they're absolutely brilliant. Together, there's something else. Cool. Writing or directing? It's all the same thing. Hitchcock or Kubrick? Well, it will help me. Cool. Spielberg or Scorsese? They both help me. These are good answers. And in one word. The great Gatsby. I'm going to use a few. Go for it. The American hamlet. Thank you so much. I'm going to try on one words next time. Yeah, next time. Here's one word. Thanks. That was a good ending. Hopefully you got that. I'm sure you can just run away. I've just heard the most shocking thing. Yeah. You can't repeat the past. I'm not sure. I'm not sure. I'm not sure. I'm not sure.

4:41I'm not sure. I'm not sure. I'm not sure. I'm not sure. Should be the past. Can't repeat the past.