The Great Gatsby

A BLACK SCREEN.

The blackness is pierced by a single, pulsing green light...

We drift, as if by boat, across a dark bay toward the light.

Then, we hear a troubled voice.

NICK (V.O.)

In my younger and more vulnerableyears my father gave me someadvice: “always try to see the bestin people,” he would say...

A gentle snow begins to fall, obscuring the light...

NICK (V.O.)

As a consequence, I’m inclined to

reserve all judgements.

The snow grows heavier.

NICK (V.O.)

But even I... have a limit.

DISSOLVE TO:

EXT. SANITARIUM - WINTER - DAY

Continue drifting, through the snow, across an icy lake...

NICK (V.O.)

Back then all of us drank too much.

DISCOVER:
A stately Victorian building...

NICK (V.O.)

The more in tune with the times we

were, the more we drank.

CLOSE ON:
The sign, “The Perkins Sanitarium.”

NICK (V.O.)

And none of us contributed anything

new.

DISSOLVE TO:

INT. SANITARIUM - DOCTOR’S OFFICE - WINTER - DAY

DISCOVER:
A man shrouded in darkness. He leans against an oldfireplace, hand covering his face.

2.

NICK:

When I came back from New York I

was disgusted.

REVEAL:
NICK CARRAWAY (37), unshaven, morbidly alcoholic.

NICK (CONT’D)

Disgusted... with everyone, andeverything... Only one man wasexempt from my disgust.

REVEAL:
A kind, elderly DOCTOR.

DOCTOR:

One man...? Mr. Carraway?

NICK:

(whispers)

Gatsby...

DOCTOR:

Was he a friend of yours?

NICK:

He was... the single most hopefulperson I have ever met... And amever likely to meet again. Therewas something about him...

Nick wanders slowly towards the window, remembering.

NICK (CONT’D)

A sensitivity. He was like one ofthose machines that registerearthquakes ten thousand miles

away...

DOCTOR:

Where did you meet him?

Nick stops and stares out the window, haunted.

NICK:

At a party. In New York.

DISSOLVE TO:

EXT. NEW YORK CITY - DAY

THROUGH THE CLOUDS: New skyscrapers pierce a clear blue sky.

3.

NICK (V.O.)

In the summer of 1922, the tempo ofthe city approached hysteria...

ON WALL STREET:
A fever pitch of buying and selling...

NICL (V.O.)

Stocks hit record peaks. And WallStreet boomed, in a steady golden

roar...

IMAGES OF DECADENT NEW YORK FADE IN, ILLUSTRATING NICK’S V.O.

Dancing girls, speakeasies, bootleg kings, fat cats countingfresh fortunes, and the stock market climbing up, up, up...!

NICK (V.O.)

The parties were bigger; the showswere broader; the buildings werehigher; the morals were looser; andthe ban on alcohol had backfired...

making the liquor cheaper.

FADE IN:
A sea of boater hats crowds a Manhattan street.

NICK (V.O.)

Wall Street was luring the youngand ambitious.

PUSH TOWARD:
One of the hats. Its wearer stops, and gazes up.

NICK (V.O.)

And I was one of them.

REVEAL:
A clear-eyed, hopeful, 29 year old Nick Carraway.

DISSOLVE TO:

EXT. LONG ISLAND - WEST EGG - DAY

AERIAL:
The city is still visible in the distance...

NICK (V.O.)

I rented a house twenty miles fromthe city, on Long Island.

DISCOVER:
A unkempt bungalow, hemmed in by enormous mansions.

NICK (V.O.)

I lived at West Egg...

DISSOLVE TO:

4.

EXT. NICK’S BUNGALOW - DAY

Nick is moving in...

NICK (V.O.)

...in a forgotten grounds-keeper’s

cottage squeezed among the mansionsof the newly rich.

INT. NICK’S BUNGALOW - DAY

Nick is unpacking...

NICK (V.O.)

To get started, I bought a dozenvolumes on credit, banking andinvestments-

CLOSE ON:
A row of heavy red and gold-bound bonds books. Nickplucks one up.

NICK (V.O.)

All new to me...

And turns on the radio.

RADIO VOICE:

The stock market hit another record

high today!

DISSOLVE TO:

INT. PROBITY TRUST BUILDING - NICK’S OFFICE - DAY

Countless identical grey-suited CLERKS, yell into telephones!

CLERK 1 (INTO PHONE)

It’s like pickin’ up money in the

street!

CLERK 2 (INTO PHONE)

I got a dandy tip on Burlington;

who’s comin with me?!

DISCOVER:
Nick, speaking much more moderately.

NICK (INTO PHONE)

Yes sir, of course nothing is onehundred percent. Well, I wouldn’t

go investing every penny. But...

DISSOLVE TO:

5.

INT. NICK’S BUNGALOW - DAY

Nick, still unpacking, eyes a mountain of unpacked books...

NICK (V.O.)

At Yale, I’d dreamed of being a

writer.

He resists the temptation to swap bonds books for literature.

NICK (V.O.)

But I gave all that up.

EXT. NICK’S BUNGALOW - PORCH - DAY

Nick emerges onto the porch, greeted by dazzling sunshine.

NICK (V.O.)

With the sun shining and the greatbursts of leaves on the trees, I

planned to spend the summerstudying.

Nick sits and places his bonds book in front of him...

NICK (V.O.)

And I probably would have-

When woman’s shriek startles him...

NICK’S POV:
On the neighboring beach a group of revellers arefrolicking. A scantily girl clad waves and then disappearsinto the trees, drawing Nick’s eye to his neighbor’s house...

NICK (V.O.)

Were it not for the riotous

amusements that beckoned from

beyond the walls of that colossalcastle...

Through dense foliage Nick spies the mysterious spires andtowers of the neighboring Gothic folly.

NICK (V.O.)

Owned by a gentleman I had not yetmet, named...

In a high tower window, a curtain flutters ominously...

DISSOLVE TO:

6.

INT. SANITARIUM - DOCTOR’S OFFICE - WINTER - DAY

CLOSE ON:
Nick, still staring out the window.

NICK:

Gatsby.

The Doctor concludes:

DOCTOR:

So... He was your neighbor?

NICK:

My neighbor? No, Gatsby was-- Well--

If I think about it... The historyof the summer really began thenight I drove over to my cousinDaisy’s for dinner...

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