THE DARK GATSBY

"You're meeting somebody who is unholy. He was a beckoning into a world that didn't seem to exist but for him as the doorman. He felt rich in a movie sense which is not something you find amongst rich people. It was like gold beaten into gold foil so that it could cover a vast area and leave an impression of a solid gold life but it was really probably a mid, nine-figure fortune that had been used to buy islands and planes which is not what any nine-figure person is going to do." - Eric Weinstein on Jeffrey Epstein

In keeping with my habitual trait of comparing reality to art, I've always maintained that Stanley Kubrick's 'Eyes Wide Shut' (1999) was an unconscious foreshadowing of the Epstein scandal. One of the reasons the late director's final film is so easily misunderstood is that it deals with the unfashionable notion of the virtue of fidelity in a world where sexual temptation is so readily available with privilege. It was clearly ahead of its time as was often the case with many of Kubrick's most iconic films that had the uncanny ability to exist both within the zeitgeist and outside of it.

Perhaps a less obvious fictional comparison to make in light of the ongoing revelations regarding the Epstein Island scandal might be with the enigmatic bootlegging protagonist of F. Scott Fitzgerald's masterpiece novel 'The Great Gatsby'. I would argue that both Jay Gatsby and Jeffrey Epstein epitomise the age in which they were created and both had lives that ended in sinister circumstances, one killed in an empty swimming pool, the other hanging from the end of a rope in a high security prison cell (famously prompting the infamous meme 'Epstein didn't kill himself').

"Jeffrey Epstein's main product was silence, which he used to intimidate and scare people."

Both men are 'constructs' (self-made and engineered) who appear to attract rich and famous people to them as a form of collective projection/aspiration. The magnetism of their wealth, hospitality and the ability to connect people in the upper echelons of society through the illusion of the power they appear to exude proves ultimately irresistible to those hoping to break through the diamond chandelier of top end finance and immortal celebrity. In this sense, both men (one fictional, one real) are conductors that draw out the very essence of society's deep material and sexual desire. For Gatsby, his currency was booze; for Epstein it was sex. Eric Weinstein expounded on this idea relating to the financier in a fascinating interview with Chris Williamson.

"His (Epstein) product was silence. Rich people can get sex but they can't necessarily get people to shut up afterwards. Epstein's unsettling behaviour and focus on silence created a disturbing and abnormal environment."

Trafficking young women to sleep with rich and powerful men was clearly Epstein's currency and he did well out of it. Until he didn't. For just as Bernie Madoff became the poster boy for the 2008 financial crisis so now, too, has Jeffrey Epstein become the face for the last days of 'Rome burning' in 21st Century America where corruption, privilege and sexual decadence run riot.

And could it be that Ghislaine Maxwell was Epstein's Daisy Buchanan? After all, she, too, was a wealthy, well connected socialite and one whose father's wealth enabled Epstein's own social ascension after he assisted the media tycoon from hiding a huge amount of his financial fortune off-shore. Except we've learned that it was more likely a partnership of social convenience and we may never fully know whether Ghislaine was a pawn in a larger web of shadowy geo-political intrigue or simply an enabler of a serial embezzler of an elite variety.

Gatsby becomes corrupted in his pursuit of something pure because his desire to possess Daisy using any means available to him becomes ultimately an extension of his excessive materialism. Still, none of the darker aspects of Gatsby's character come close to the sinister sociopathy of Epstein on his island where his objective to mix in elite social circles seemed devoid of anything remotely noble.

Fitzgerald’s protagonist’s obsession with the green light at the end of Daisy's dock seems to have (in the case of Epstein) become a red light where the incentive of romantic love to spur on the pursuit of the American dream was replaced by a dark animalistic lust that has only further symbolised an increasing American nightmare born from an age of greed and secrecy.

Perhaps if F. Scott Fitzgerald were alive today he might have updated his great American novel to encompass the heart of darkness lurking at the core of America's elites where “in his (Epstein's) blue gardens men and girls came and went like moths among the whisperings and the champagne and the stars.”

And if Stanley Kubrick were still alive, perhaps he would have directed 'The Dark Gatsby' with all the chilly horror of 'The Shining' crossed with the seedy decadence of 'Eyes Wide Shut'.