In Love With ‘Gatsby’

The stone mansion majestically overlooks a large body of water. Just beyond is the dock from which to dreamily gaze upon others, who seem to have even more. It’s all meant to evoke the end of the summer party season of the East End of Jay Gatsby.

But we are in Canada (the favored and less costly place to make movies these days), so the water is not the Long Island Sound but the St. Lawrence River, and those multicolored leaves are looking suspiciously fall-like. And what about all those very ‘90s high-rises just beyond the river? Computers will conveniently morph them into the 1920s of F. Scott Fitzgerald.

Yes, they’re trying it again. This time it is A&E; that is bringing “The Great Gatsby” to the screen in a two-hour version airing Sunday. Last time out, Robert Redford and Mia Farrow starred in an adaptation that was heavily anticipated and quickly scorned. But the folks at A&E; feel they have the right script (by John McLaughlin), the right cast (Mira Sorvino, Paul Rudd), the right audience.

On this October day, it certainly looks right. The cars outside include a blue 1924 Buick and a white Rolls Royce from that era. The men are wearing pinstriped suits and vests, the idle rich looking very idle, indeed. There has been a real race against the changing color of the leaves, so most of the exteriors were shot earlier in the month and filming has shifted to mostly interior scenes.

The mansion is meant to belong to Daisy and Jack Buchanan, played by Sorvino and Martin Donovan, who on this day are enacting a pivotal scene with the other key players: Daisy and her friend Jordan (Francie Swift) are lounging on the sofa attempting to tame the “hot” breezes (in fact, it is about 40 degrees); the narrator, Nick (Rudd), is observing as Daisy and Gatsby (Toby Stephens) try to hide their renewed affair from Jack. The words are fanciful but loaded. (“What do we do with ourselves this afternoon, or tomorrow or the next 30 years?” asks Daisy.)

“Our words seem flippant but, in fact, this is the day of reckoning,” Sorvino says during a break. “Gatsby is there to tell Tom that he’s in love with his wife.”

“It’s the most un-television scene possible,” adds director Robert Markowitz, “because it’s about what’s not being said. It perfectly captures all the underlying tension that the book is really about.”

Opulence will still be on the screen, as this is one of A&E;’s costliest projects since the network began originating its own films (“Dash and Lilly,” “P.T. Barnum”) about two years ago. A&E; took over the project when ABC, citing high costs and the wrong demographics for its audience, let it go. Executive producer Tom Thayer, the man who has been with it from Day 1 and guided the network switch, says that while A&E; worries less about things like ratings, even it had some stipulations.

“They did want a director and a key cast member set before they gave a green light,” says Thayer, who nabbed Markowitz right away and was told by the director’s agency that “we had a shot at Mira Sorvino if we went for her right away. The two of them were enough to make it a go.”

Sorvino, dressed in light blue linen with her wavy hair pulled back in a matching scarf, had long been a fan of the book. But she says she never dreamed she’d one day be playing the woman described as having “a voice full of money.”

“I just jumped at the chance,” says the Oscar-winning actress, “because she’s so different from anyone I’ve ever played, so much more lyrical. And she can change moods midstream.”

While at one time the Gatsby possibilities numbered near 90, the producers ultimately went with Stephens, whom A&E; consultant Alan Sabinson had seen on the New York stage in “Phaedra.” Stephens is son of actors Maggie Smith and the late Robert Stephens.

“First, I assumed Gatsby would be an easy part, just Jay on the charm,” says Stephens. “But he’s cultivated such a veneer, a facade, and the question becomes: Where does the facade end? It’s very difficult because he has to remain enigmatic.”

Gatsby may be tough to get a handle on, but nothing as compared to his West Egg mansion. Six different sites are used to depict his home--what Thayer describes as “the virtual world of Gatsby.”

Aside from Sorvino, the actor probably best known to audiences is Rudd from films like “Clueless” and “The Object of My Affection.” On this particularly day, Rudd sits amid the other actors for a long time but does not utter a word. It’s a pretty fair representation of his role as the new man in the neighborhood, Nick Carraway.

“It’s not the flashiest role, sort of like trying to tell a story without saying anything,” says the actor. “But you’re seeing everything through his eyes. The goal is to participate without just being a voyeur. I’m just trying to keep it very contained, completely unsentimental.”

So the question remains: Can this so far unfilmable novel be done right?

“There’s no doubt this is a ‘prove it to me’ project,” says director Markowitz. “I figure we have about five minutes [to interest viewers].”

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“The Great Gatsby” can be seen on A&E; Sunday at 8 p.m., 10 p.m., midnight and 2 a.m. (early Monday) and again on Saturday at 8 p.m. and midnight.