Baz Luhrmann on Netflix’s ‘The Get Down’ and trend of nostalgic series

TORONTO – From HBO’s 1970s rock ‘n’ roll drama “Vinyl” to Netflix’s ’80s sci-fi hit “Stranger Things” and its new hip-hop origins series “The Get Down,” it’s clear there’s an appetite for the past.

And “The Get Down” co-creator Baz Luhrmann believes it’s partly due to the U.S. presidential election.

“I think I can say it pretty bluntly, there’s no doubt it’s amplified by the current election cycle,” says the Oscar-nominated filmmaker behind “The Great Gatsby,” “Moulin Rouge!” and “Romeo + Juliet.”

“You have a youth that’s pretty disappointed with the world that they’re inheriting from the incumbent, adult world. They’re pretty disappointed with what’s been handed down … and so what you see them doing is reaching out to (the past to) sort of identify their own sense of self within that.

“It’s a way of examining yourself through the prism of the past.”

Debuting Friday on Netflix, “The Get Down” traces the birth of hip hop as a group of teens try to make their mark through rhymes and graffiti in South Bronx, N.Y., circa 1977.

It’s set against the backdrop of a heated mayoral election, racial tensions, and a disco scene rife with drug trafficking.

Luhrmann says he first thought of the story idea 10 years ago in a Paris restaurant, where he saw a Jamel Shabazz photo of Brooklyn kids from that era.

“I went, ‘I wonder how a pure, new creative thought got borne from a time when there was so much difficulty,’ and just answering that question has got me to where we are today.”

The native of Australia acknowledges he may seem an odd fit to tell a story about the origins of hip hop.

“You couldn’t get anyone further away from the centre of hip hop than me,” he says. “But over the years, hip hop, in its essence, is collage without prejudice in that there’s no prejudice.

“It might take a German record, Trans-Europe Express, and mix it up with beats from James Brown and it makes something new out of these two disparate elements, this collaging to make a third idea.”

Plus, he recruited some hip-hop legends, including Grandmaster Flash, DJ Kool Herc, Nas, and Nelson George for the creative team.

Most of the cast members, however, are relative newcomers — with the exception of co-stars including Jimmy Smits as a political boss and Jaden Smith as a graffiti artist.

Fresh faces include Justice Smith as a teen with a gift for spoken word poetry, Herizen Guardiola as a talented vocalist, and Shameik Moore as a mover and shaker in the nightclub scene.

“That was the big risk,” says Luhrmann of the unknown cast.

“There’s all sorts of concerns about that in terms of the economics.”

But, “Nelson George, who’s been my partner in this … he says hats off to Netflix,” adds Luhrmann.

“With ‘Orange is the New Black’ and this show and other shows that they’re doing, they really are fearless about diversity, they really are. They’re playing to a global stage.”

Luhrmann says he loved working in a new medium, noting TV is “in a golden period of transition.”

“I think television is no longer the right term. It is, but it invokes all sorts of constraints whereas the medium is now the most unconstrained medium, as opposed to film, which is very constrained when you start to get above a certain fiscal number — it becomes very constrained in terms of what you can do and creative freedoms.”