Latest / Houselights: A Film Director Podcast / Little Women (2019) - Greta Gerwig | Houselights #175

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Little Women (2019) - Greta Gerwig | Houselights #175 · Houselights: A Film Director Podcast

0:03
Welcome to the Node Party. Welcome back to house Lights our director. Sorry,
0:23
sorry, I just I pictured myself yelling at the computer. Ah,
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I'm shurtle work, I'm gonna win the bet. What no is that we
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have to Yeah? No, no, who knows? Oh man. I
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was almost gonna try it in another browser, and then it's like, reminder,
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you have to use this browser. So I'm like, uh, all
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right, here, I'm gonna move this screen. So John is off my
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window so I can't. There you go. That's much better, hurtful.
1:02
Yes, Welcome back to house Lights, our director discussion show here on the
1:10
Nerd Party Network. Today, we're continuing in the House of Gerwig with her
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twenty nineteen retelling of the Little Women Story. I am Darren Doe Moser and
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I'm joined again by my friends John, Joe Mills, and Tristan tou Riddell.
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Gentlemen, this is going to be an interesting time as the three males
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of us discuss Little Women, and I think it's also the first time for
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all of us with this movie, so it's going to be a very interesting
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discussion. The discussion that the Internet has been waiting for just kiddings, not
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at all, but this wasn't your first time in watching or reading the story.
1:53
Correct, correct, I've never read the book, but the nineteen ninety
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four version of this movie, I guess the story as it were, was
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a staple at my wife's house. She has two younger sisters, so they
2:08
lived practically the little woman. Aside from you know, being set during the
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Civil War. Besides that exact same scarlet fever. No, I guess one
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of them didn't die and the dad wasn't in the army. But besides all
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of that, it was well, he did say that there was two other
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sisters, not three, So I mean, well, you know, I'm
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just trying to establish how how relatable a story it was. For No,
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apparently, very very relatable, and I could see a lot of Yeah,
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just that One of the things in this movie that definitely comes across is that
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sisterly camaraderie. I mean that is a major aspect of this whole movie,
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and how they're acting with each other, how they're night being at each other
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sometimes and hugging each other moments later. But yeah, so I had been
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aware of the or had seen obviously the ninety four movie several times, and
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that brings an interesting point to this movie because it is in a different category.
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I don't have exactly a name for this category, but meeting movies that
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touch on something that is that definitive classic and not that we don't want to
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see more of that same story, like we just had it with Dune,
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Okay, bad example. No one was saying the nineteen eighties Dune is the
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definitive classic. But on that point, this movie was coming back into that
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type of story. So that was how I was introduced to it. What
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about you, Tristan, So I'm assuming you have not seen this before,
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but you do have a daughter and a wife, So did you feel the
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little women connection? I know I have. I had never seen any interpretation
3:53
of this, and I think I think there's something like seven versions of this
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something around around those lines. I know, like five have been nominated for
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Oscar or something like that. Yeah, they started adapting this like real early
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into you know, the talkies era, didn't they like it was? It
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was pretty early on. Yeah, I think it was like thirty three and
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sixties seventies version. There's been a lot. Yeah, but I never read
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the book. I never saw the nineteen ninety four Winona writer Christian Bale version.
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And when I told my wife this, she was like, what how
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how is that possible? No, And like she she's read the book several
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times, she's seen the ninety four movies several times, and so as we
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were watching this because this is her first time seeing it as well, like
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we watched it too. I'm glad you watched it with her. That's it's
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going to be exciting. Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, we watched together.
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And there's actually after like after like five minutes, after the first five
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minutes, she she like leans over, hits the remote, hits pause,
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and she's like, Okay, they're tarantinoing this for some reason. Yeah,
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we'll talk about the temporal modifications of this story eventually. But yes, it
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was. I like to say, they're momentuing it, but maybe Tarantino is
5:12
a little less insulting. No, momento is pretty rach except for going backwards.
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I mean, but like the splitting up of the of the timelines,
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Yeah, yeah, I think that is. You know, I'll go ahead
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and I'll put it right out there. I think it makes it a challenge
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to plug into the movie emotionally at the beginning, because it is jumping and
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like I haven't had the opportunity to build a real emotional connection with anybody before
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it starts jumping, And as a result, I think it does a very
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interesting thing of making it a more intellectual exercise, at least at the start.
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And I think it's obviously a very conscious decision on Gerwig's part how she
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approached the story and how she flipped stuff, But it put me in the
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mindset of as soon as I plugged into that being how it was going to
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be done, I unfortunately mentally went down the rabbit hole of Okay, I'm
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paying more attention to how the palette and the lighting hues are changing as we
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flip back and forth, the blue, the orange. Yeah, because I
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really wanted to make sure I was tracking with when the flips happened. Because
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the switches. Gerwig, I think makes a very bold choice in not making
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it very apparent when you've suddenly shifted gears. It's very jarring at points where
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you're like, oh wait, okay, I'm back now, sometimes forward again.
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I mean, there's a few moments until well, until you discover that
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rhythm. Hmm. But but until you discover that rhythm, that's it's kind
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of it takes a bit to get in there. I was the same way
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with it where it was it was really it was. It was jarring at
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first because like it was, it was that moment of almost like made me
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blink kind of thing where I'm like, wait, what's going on? Like
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what are we doing well? And then you know, like John, like
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you said, like you start to see the cues here and there, like
7:11
the color changes their clothes, and then and then of course later on you
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get Ronan's chopped off hair, you know, like that that's an easier way
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to do it, and it's, uh, yeah, it was. It
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was challenging at first. And I don't know, I guess I'm not saying
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it right straight up that it was a negative right off the bat, but
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from from my wife's perspective, who who is very much knows the story,
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you know, it's it's a little bit harder. Like she had more criticism
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of it than I did because of because of knowing the story, and when
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she told me about like, oh what what what the original story kind of
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sounds like I was just like, oh, yeah, I'd be I'd be
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upset by that too, Like when she says with Joe Publishing, her story
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or getting something published, like that's a big deal at the end, like
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you're building towards that, right, And with Amy France, right, it's
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not the framing device, and with Amy being in France, like that's supposed
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to be a big reveal that she's going to France, not Joe. And
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so I feel like it as a first time viewer, I feel like we
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were kind of robbed of those big emotional moments. But if you knew the
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story, if you were raised on the story, you could go a little
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bit more like, oh, okay, I can see what they're doing here.
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But do you think that is a smart decision on Gerwig's part to say
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to I mean, it's a dangerous decision because it feels to me then that,
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and it felt to me through it that there was an assumption that I'm
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coming to it familiar with the material already, right, so that yes,
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your wife might have that moment where she goes, wait a minute, okay,
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hold on, I know how this goes, and it's gonna it's going
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different than where as the three of us, you know, I mean me,
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this is my first encounter with the who hasn't heard of little women and
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stuff? Like that, and it's actually forgive me. There's a great moment
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on a Simpsons episode from the past where you find out that Moe, the
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hard hearted bartender reads stories in a shelter, and then you know, one
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of the times you catch me goes they would no luck little girls, they
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were little women, and like, that's what I think of whenever I think
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of little women. But you know, I think that maybe there is that
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baseline assumption of well, this is old material. This would be like somebody
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coming to Dracula and being like, how do you not know this already?
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How have you not seen a version of this already? And I think with
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it, it's kind of that situation of Gerwig saying, because there's been so
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many friggin' adaptations, even if we're late to the party as first time viewers
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of the material. I think it was definitely a creative choice, and it
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was a bold creative choice to flip it around to do something different. And
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it would have been very easy for her to just do straight linear like everything
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else, like every other adaptation, but she she had to stand apart.
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And this is one of the Like, again, I'm not saying it's positive
10:16
or negative, but I think this movie was very well received and holy crap,
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did it make money? I would offer, actually, because Darren you
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mentioned Memento, it is like Nolan approaching Batman begins. We still got Batman's
10:30
origin story, but he baked it in in a different way where it wasn't
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the same sort of like, Okay, we're building that inevitable moment. It's
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like we jump around in Bruce Wayne's life. I'd say that the discussion to
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have really is about, you know, once it settles down. I mean,
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Darren, you're familiar with the material before this, right, was it
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jarring for you the way it was for Tristan's wife? Yeah, I mean
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I was in the same boat where I was. Really, I was leaning
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on my prior knowledge to make sense of it, because especially in the beginning
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when it's like, oh, are we in the past? Are we in
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the future. The other big difference in the ninety four version is they use
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a different actress for young Amy, and so that makes it well, they're
11:18
not jumping through time. But that also there's a kind of a key moment
11:22
when you switch to Kurts and Duns who plays older Amy in the ninety four
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version, and you feel like, oh, a period of time has passed
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because it's no longer a little girl. So this one is also just weird
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because for twenty nineteen, you know, you have Emma Watson, who is
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It's weird because I'm watching her and she's playing a young girl and and eventually
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like a mother at the end. So it's this big range for an actress
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that doesn't change very much. But yeah, ultimately I did find my safe
11:56
self leaning on just where the story was and what I knew, and then
12:03
it was more like checking the boxes like oh, and here's where Laurie does
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this, and oh, here's the burning of the hair and the cutting of
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the hair and all of that. So it it got better, but it
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was a rough first thirty minutes. I will say I'm glad you mentioned Lourie
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because I'll be I guess the controversial one here. I don't think Schalome was
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the right choice. Much the same way. In Francis Ford Coppola's Dracula,
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Keanu Reeves plays Jonathan, and I see Carrie always come on screen. I'm
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like, you got the right guy right there. What's going on here?
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It's not that level. I think Shalomy performs the role correctly, but there's
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a certain type of charisma missing from him that makes me believe in Joe falling
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for him. She's so independent, she's so sure of herself, and I
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don't It might be the linear thing messing with my perception of Lori, because
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I see him be a jerk with Amy in France, and a lout and
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everything before I get a chance, Like, there's a whole bunch of stuff
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in the back half of the film that happens where I go, oh,
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that's the guy I see Joe falling in love with. I get that I've
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gotten to know him as sort of a jackass before that, and I think
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that speaks to also the way that the chronological treatment being jumbled up. I
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needed somebody else in there with a type of charisma where even when he's being
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a jerk, I would understand why somebody would swoon for him. Does that
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make sense. I think it makes sense, especially when you're talking about the
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chronological aspect. But at the same time, I feel like that's not Charlamage's
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fault with the with that aspect. I feel like, if it wasn't for
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that aspect, I feel like you might not have that criticism true. True,
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But then again, I mean, we're this is the movie, so
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it's a valid because this is the movie that we're presented in the way that
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it's cut. I personally didn't see that, Like, I mean, no,
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I totally agree with you with like, oh Man, like he was
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a jerk, Like why would I be invested in his journey with Joe,
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in his friendship with Joe? Like why like knowing that he's a louse and
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he's a jerk to Amy and you know, it makes a nass of himself
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and everything like that. I guess it kind of makes you wonder like,
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Okay, well where did he fall or was it because of Joe that he
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fell? And everything like that? And it was I thought Chalame did a
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very good job. I thought that was uh And also I mean that bone
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structure. How can you not fall for that bone structure? But you know,
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speaking of Chala may in performances like good Lord, like I only knew
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that Sirsha Ronan was in this. Actually no, Sirsha Ronan and Florence Pugh,
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that's those are the only people that I knew there was in this.
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Like I hadn't really don't. I don't didn't remember any trailers. I didn't
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remember any posters really, and people just kept coming like as we were watching
15:03
the movie, I was just like, and you're like, oh my gosh.
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I actually when when I saw Chris Cooper, that's when I threw my
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hands in the air. I was like, who else is in this movie?
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Right? Oh? And he's but that he's always such a delight to
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see. He He inhabits that role so well, and I think that that
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he's he's got a real the way he embraces that role, I think it
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is so good and for the rest of the cast like that, that's a
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sort of charisma I'm looking for. And I think you're right, I'm pinning
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too much on Schallomey. But it's almost as if, you know, Cooper
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becomes that anchor around which all of these other great performances can revolve. And
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maybe that's what I was looking for with LORI was. I wanted them,
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you know, I wanted him as a part of that that system more than
16:00
Chris Cooper's role, you know. But he's a different generation though. I
16:04
mean you on one end, you have like the Laura Dern's and the Chris
16:08
Cooper's and they're gonna play those kind of roles. I mean, for me,
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I think when Bob Odenkirk showed up, I'm like, Okay, anybody
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could walk on screen at this point and I would not be surprised. Yeah,
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I'm I'm a big fan of Bob Odenkirk. I think he's a terrific
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actor. I think that his career taking that turn because somebody had the wisdom
16:33
to cast him as Saul Goodman in in Breaking Bad. I love the opportunities
16:38
that that's given to him because he's proven himself time and again as a great
16:41
actor. But to your point, when he walked on it's almost distracting at
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that point to be like, I would not have cast him as far the
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movie. Yeah, yeah, that was okay. I'm glad that you prefaced
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all that, John, because I feel the same way about Odin Kirk.
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Like, I've been so impressed with the career from way back into his early
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comedy days and sketch comedy days to the dramatic roles that he's gotten and then
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he like even dabbled in action star status. I mean, it's been amazing
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to see nobody. It was a good movie but this was like, not
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only his appearance was strange. I just didn't get he didn't fit. It
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just didn't feel like he belonged in that world. It was so strange and
17:26
foreign to me. It was just like, oh, I'm not seeing Father
17:30
March, even though I've never seen a version of Father March before. I'm
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seeing Bob owen Kirk. Like when he's laughing, and when they're at the
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dinner table and they're laughing, I'm like, oh, Bob owen Kirk is
17:38
eating a meal, you know, like it's just yeah, it's so.
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I think his performance was the only performance where I was like, this is
17:45
this is weaker than it should be. It's like Brad Pitt showing up.
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It's almost too big for the role at this point, and you're kind of
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like I'm taken out of it. Not that he's not a good actor,
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it's just not Father March. I don't even know if it's a situation of
18:00
too big. I think it's just too foreign to the world. It's this
18:07
is a very clumsy and probably terrible example, but it is in a lot
18:14
of ways, like when Harvey kai Tel shows up in a period piece,
18:18
you know, like I love Harvey Kite tell but not now, this isn't
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right, I think that, but to shift gears and go over to praise.
18:29
Tristan was teasing me before we started recording that you know, I don't
18:33
have the same love of Meryl Streep's career as others do. I really,
18:40
I'm I'm more critical of her arc and her appearances than others are. We
18:47
we can't even use the phrase that I used. We'd have to bleep it
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on how you feel about Meryl Streep? Untrue? Don't you dare try to
18:52
get me little women canceled? Okay, but like she was actually delightful in
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this Well, it was one of those things where I was like, oh,
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maybe I've just seen the wrong Meryl Streep roles because she disappeared into Aunt
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March, like I lost Meryl Streep. I really liked her that March.
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I don't know if it's because she changed her body language sufficiently. I don't
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know if it's because she changed her speech patterns enough, whether the way they
19:26
dressed her up or whatever, but everything came together with this perfect alchemy.
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I was so grateful for her, because I thought she was a terrific character
19:36
to illustrate the competing social forces that the girls are contending with, like they
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have their own little like safe nest at home, and then Aunt March is
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that representation of sort of the social expect spectator coming for them. Such an
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all terrific job of illustrating that. And so, you know, while Bob
20:00
Odenkirk was a distraction, I you know, Meryl Streep, I think in
20:06
terms of the balance, I would say that you actually had a terrific actor
20:11
in here who probably could have played father March. And that's Tracy Letts,
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who was with worked in Lady Bird with Gerwig as the dad. And it's
20:22
like, maybe that's too expected to make him the dad again, but man,
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he would have been so good in that role. He would have been
20:27
so right, so right, He's great where he is in the in the
20:30
film. But I almost wish they had inverted him and Odinkirk. That would
20:37
have been Yes, I could totally see that. I could totally see Bob
20:41
Odenkirk as mister Dashwood. Yeah, that man, I would buy. Yeah,
20:47
that's a delightful switch. Yeah, but that might that might have felt
20:49
like stunt casting though, having Tracy lets as the dad again with Sirsha Ronan,
20:56
that's true as the as the daughter, it's a fair criticism of the
21:00
idea. But if this movie, if this movie existed in a vacuum,
21:06
I think that would have been a solid, solid choice. I think he
21:10
gets forgotten most likely as Eliza Scanlon. You want to talk about a thankless
21:17
role. Yeah's main character in this Florence Pugh gets to play the scene stealer.
21:22
Everybody. Everybody's like, oh look hermione, and then Eliza Scanlon is
21:26
playing this very subdued role, and that I think is also where the structure
21:32
sort of hers is. I didn't I didn't feel her loss at the scale
21:37
that I wanted to. I knew I should have felt worse about what happened,
21:41
but instead it just felt inevitable because I was jumping around and I was
21:45
like, yeah, okay, she's going to die, and it's like I
21:48
didn't want to approach it like that. I didn't want to feel that way
21:49
about it. You mentioned the Simpsons, Now I'm thinking of Like Friends,
21:53
where Rachel and Joey are snipping at each other for spoiling books, and she
21:57
spoils that Bet dies and she has like take it back because Joey starts to
22:02
like cry, It's like that doesn't actually die, does she? Yeah,
22:06
I think you lose some of that because of the nature of not telling it
22:10
as linear. I mean I remember, yeah for the you know, for
22:15
Beth dying in the ninety four movie. Not to keep comparing, but to
22:18
compare, it's like Littlefoot's mom dying. It's like it's a nineties moment and
22:25
you know, it comes and it happens, but it is very impactful for
22:30
anyone who's watched the ninety four version, and yeah, it wasn't quite the
22:34
same it also because it kind of cuts away, like she comes down and
22:38
she's not there, and then it's like match cut to the funeral, and
22:42
I'm like, oh, so we missed all of the emotion that's gone.
22:47
No, but it's it's even weirder than that. Though. It's even weirder
22:51
because like we're supposed to have this big emotional moment, like when joe goes
22:56
downstairs and she sees her mom and her mom just kind of gives her that
22:57
look like, oh, she's gone, and then they start crying together.
23:02
What do they do with the body? Joel was in the bed with her.
23:06
Do they lift her up and say like, no, no, no,
23:07
she can sleep. But I'm trying to remember in the ninety four I
23:11
believe it's and I could be misremembering this, but I'm pretty sure she comes
23:18
to her as to kind of like rouse her or wake her up, and
23:21
discovers that she's passed, and it's like a very tender moment, and you
23:26
don't get any of that in this. It's just kind of like she dies
23:30
off screen. Basically. Well, it's it's unfortunate because I think, again,
23:37
we keep harping on the structure sort of thing. But it's like,
23:40
if I were more invested in the flow of the story, I wouldn't sit
23:45
there and when when you Tristan said well what did they do with the body?
23:49
I wouldn't sit there and go oh yeah, I'd be like, oh,
23:52
you heartless monster. This is such a big moment. Who cares?
23:56
But you're saying that, I'm like I had the same reaction where I was
23:59
like, well, yeah, what why did they Why didn't they wake her
24:02
up when they she's somewhere in the house right Like did they throw her out
24:06
the window? Because yeah, I was gonna say, is she out back?
24:08
She went to a farm upstate, and she's okay, okay. But
24:17
that's the thing is that, like I shouldn't be thinking these things now when
24:21
I should be feeling something else, Like don't make me think logistics, when
24:26
I should be just working off of pure emotion. Because you could have had
24:30
that moment, like it would have even been even more impactful, like when
24:34
you know, Marmie goes up to wake up sirsha Arnan or just to check
24:40
on Beth and then all of a sudden, you know, you know,
24:44
Joe wakes up to her mother bawling because her daughter's dead. You know.
24:47
Anyway, I just, yeah, it was just such a weird, weird
24:49
moment, and I at first I cut. I kind of liked the going
24:55
back and forth between her first getting scarlet fever too than getting a fever again
24:59
to when she died, because like it showed the possibilities of shifting timelines,
25:06
of like building up, like making a dual timeline create a singular moment.
25:12
I thought that was really well crafted and well edited, even though it made
25:17
us lose some emotional resonance, I felt like it was an interesting exercise.
25:26
Well, my question, though, legitimately becomes we're sitting here, we're offering
25:32
these viewpoints on it. So whenever we have a conversation and it sort of
25:37
like goes a little bit like this. You all know by this point that
25:41
my brain is like, but it got Best Picture nomination, Best Actress,
25:48
Best Supporting Actress, the performance stuff. I can reason out. It's the
25:52
best picture one that I struggle with. I know, awards shows me nothing,
25:56
but there were a lot of accolades for this. The Writer's Guild named
25:59
this is one of the great screenplays of the twenty first century so far,
26:03
And there's legitimately it's a weird moment because I'm like, what am I missing?
26:07
What did I What am I not getting? What do I not understand?
26:11
Why? I can look at this and I can say, you know,
26:15
flash forward here, right, All of these problems we're talking about almost
26:19
ameliorate themselves in like the last thirty forty minutes of the movie, Like it
26:25
finds a rhythm. It found a rhythm I could really plug into in the
26:27
last like thirty to forty minutes of the movie. It's just getting that last
26:33
thirty and forty minutes. Do you think it's literally just the fact that the
26:36
ending was so was strong, and so people sort of bias themselves toward a
26:41
more forgivable attitude for something that ends quote unquote correctly ends strong, that they
26:48
forgive sort of the missteps of the earlier acts of the film. Yeah,
26:52
it's well, I'm trying to think because to me personally, I didn't really
26:56
feel like it it ended that strong. Felt like, this is so rare,
27:02
this is so absolutely rare. But I felt like the second act was
27:04
the strongest in the movie. And oftentimes the second act is where it kind
27:11
of peters out, like as you usually, you know, movies have a
27:14
strong, you know, beginning where it kind of built, like it builds
27:17
the world and it draws you in, and then it establishes the plot,
27:19
and then it just kind of meanders as the plot continues, and then the
27:23
ending has your you know, rising action and climax and moments of decision and
27:27
things like that. But with this one, I felt like, I don't
27:30
know, it just kind of meandered to the ending. I felt like it
27:34
was and also just the like when we get to the point where Joe is
27:41
negotiating with mister Dashwood, I was just like, oh, is she is?
27:45
She not playing Joe anymore. Like it's like she didn't feel like the
27:49
Joe March character. She is like, oh, she must be playing the
27:53
the author. She must be playing all Cot right now, and you know,
27:57
Gerwig said that she kind of was. But at the same time,
28:00
I was like, this, I'm too taken out of it, Like I'm
28:03
really I'm really all of a sudden, I feel like I'm in never ending
28:07
story. Yes, but see I thought that was the intent. So maybe
28:12
maybe that's why I was forgiving of it. Was I was like, oh,
28:17
okay, her, this whole thing I was watching was just her conceit,
28:21
her story made up right for the book and everything, and so I
28:26
thought that was a good enough spot to land. And so I was like,
28:30
oh, this was all like the story of the sisters and the life
28:34
and everything was the magic trick like that the prestige is like, but guess
28:38
what, it's really the author telling us a story the whole time. And
28:41
I'm like, okay, that was pretty clever. I mean see, maybe
28:45
that's why I was okay with it, but it's yeah, I did not
28:48
like the ending as well, because it cast that doubt of is this just
28:56
a story? Did this actually happen? Is is this really their life or
29:00
is it just especially the very very ending where she's like, oh and she
29:03
didn't get married and he's like, oh no, they need to get married,
29:07
and then they do. It's like, but in the book they do.
29:10
That's the actual ending, Like she does go to him and stop him
29:15
from going to California and they get married and all that stuff happened. So
29:18
why would you say, oh, her original intent was not that they got
29:23
Like that was very confusing to me. Apparently there's extra contextual knowledge to that,
29:30
which feel like, which was one of those things where like I didn't
29:33
know this until I looked it up. But apparently all Kott didn't want to
29:37
end Little Women that way, and because it was released in parts kind of
29:41
another Dune reference, kind of like Dune where I think the first half was
29:45
relief released and then she was working on the second half, and then her
29:49
publisher said like, Okay, yeah, no, she's she's got to get
29:52
married to to Friedrich and she's like, well, I don't know, she's
29:56
she's her own person. She's going to go on. He's like nope,
29:59
it's it's got to be this way. People are going to be too upset
30:03
and so she follows through just like in the movie, but in real life.
30:07
So oh but see, I you know what though replaying it in my
30:10
brain, I get it now where it does mismatch is you could take this
30:15
as all of the sad stuff is like the reality part, and then like
30:21
the orange colored happier stuff is the story part. So like you're seeing her
30:25
real life while the happy stuff is what she invents for the story and everything,
30:30
except for the fact that you have amy break the boundary between the two
30:33
of them right in a way that makes it not work. That's the that's
30:37
the structural problem with it. Your European stuff kills that. You're right,
30:44
Yeah, okay, well, and there's I do know. One of the
30:47
differences in this version to the ninety four is that Grete Gerwig did look at
30:51
other sources besides just the book. She was looking at diary entries and other
30:56
things, and I think that's what probably gave her the idea to frame in
31:00
that kind of literary selling the story. But yeah, it it was just
31:07
it was a weird turn at the end of just the casting doubt on again,
31:11
what is real? What happened? What didn't that? I do want
31:17
to say on a positive note, I think, and this probably is strongest
31:21
to just the story in general of Little Women. Little Women has a lot
31:26
of very invested moments in it, like when you know, oh, man,
31:32
every time, like when they go to help the family and you know
31:36
they're going to get sick because of it, and or I guess I knew
31:38
because I knew the story, but like you know, where they have the
31:41
fight and then she falls through the ice and just so there's a lot of
31:45
key moments that Little Women packs a punch where you're just like, ah,
31:51
man, like you you want them to do well, you want them to
31:52
succeed, and life is just throwing these hardballs at them and there and they're
32:00
trying to adapt to it and move from you know, girlhood into womanhood and
32:06
marriage and life and all of that. So those are all still there.
32:10
That's you know, that's the story. That's not necessarily how it's constructed.
32:15
But yeah, the choice to wrap all of that in a non linear narrative
32:22
and a future framing device, and you know, and to play all the
32:27
actresses at the same age relatively speaking, that is just what gave us this
32:35
version, which you know, again we've said this is one of many.
32:38
I also just want to say it's an interesting aspect in the fact that I'm
32:47
wondering how did Greta approach telling the story, because you're kind of telling it
32:53
to two audiences. You're telling it to ones that loved the nineties version and
33:00
it is like their heart, and you're telling to people who have no idea
33:04
who this is and they don't care about the nineties and they just want a
33:07
new story. And I think it's a hard thread to balance because you're not
33:14
deasily dethroning, but you're telling a new tale on a beloved classic, and
33:19
that can be very difficult to not make it look like, oh I changed
33:22
everything, or oh I'm gonna you know, they're all going to shave their
33:27
head. It's going to be completely different for anything like that. But what
33:30
did you guys feel for that? Did you see were there moments where you
33:35
felt like this is kind of trying to tell its own thing. I mean,
33:37
obviously neither of you have seen the ninety four, so it's kind of
33:39
hard to contrast. But I feel like for me, one thing that was
33:45
super obvious that it was trying to be its own thing was some of the
33:50
European stuff where the with Florence Pugh as Amy talking to Laurie where there was
33:58
this. I thought it was a cool scene. But at the same time,
34:01
I'm like, this feels really modern. It was when she was talking
34:07
about what it's what it's like to be a woman during that time. Again,
34:12
I thought it was a great speech. I thought it was well played.
34:15
I thought it was well acted, especially knowing that it was written just
34:20
like a couple minutes before they shot it on handwritten notes. Apparently it was
34:25
Meryl Streep's idea. She spoke to Greta Gerwig and said, there needs to
34:30
be something in this scene, like in this movie that gives audiences contextual knowledge
34:37
of what it's what it was like to be a woman in this time.
34:42
And so it's a little what's the word I'm looking for? John, What's
34:46
what's the word I'm looking for? When it's when something is out of its
34:50
time anachronistic thank you. So, while this speech was well done, well
34:54
written, and well performed, it felt anachronistic. H just the way that
35:00
she was talking and how she was everything again, everything was spot on,
35:04
but that one felt like, oh, this is Greta Gerwick This is truly
35:08
her writing style here. You know, it's interesting because that's right, and
35:14
what is What is something that every film that's set in a time period struggles
35:21
with is getting the characters to quote unquote sound right in the time period.
35:25
And while I agree with you that speech and specific, it's like, oh,
35:29
okay, this is a modern person saying what it's like in a modern
35:34
way. At the same time, just to turn it into a compliment sandwich
35:38
as the kids say. One of the things I actually really like to say
35:43
about Do the kids say that when you're eighty three years old? They're all
35:46
kids? True, But I actually really liked a moment when Sarsha Nan was
35:53
talking with Laurie and she goes, oh, that's capital. It was the
35:58
first time I've heard somebody use a phrase like that from that time period where
36:02
it sounded in a nat like a naturalistic fashion. Usually when people use slang
36:08
from an era, you can tell that it's somebody like, I don't know
36:13
why they're using this word, but I'll say it it's capital right the way
36:19
they can say oh, that's so cool, and it's like, yeah,
36:21
that's how people would have said it, right, But that's the way somebody.
36:25
I imagine somebody would have delivered it back to oh, that's capital right,
36:29
Like they're not going to make a big deal of cap. It's just
36:30
like saying, hey, that's cool, you know, and it's so,
36:35
but how could you see? That's one of those things though, where I
36:38
consider that an odd choice, because Streep is correct that, hey, and
36:45
that's a great director listening to their seasoned actress saying I've done this sort of
36:52
thing before, trust me, you need something like this director listens works it
36:55
in absolutely the correct choice. That's a that's a smart director, but it's
37:00
a director moving too quickly who doesn't say that is a great idea, we'll
37:07
shoot it tomorrow, spot on. But is that just a function of Gerwig's
37:13
inexperience by that point, that's an indie director who does a ninety minute film.
37:19
That's how you put it together. Somebody doing a period piece needs to
37:23
shift gears and say, I'm in a bigger production. I have another day
37:29
where I'm going to have a camera setup like this, We'll come back.
37:34
So it might just be a function of the fact that this is film number
37:37
two for her and she just or later she might approach that decision differently,
37:44
and this was her first studio film with studio money, and which is which
37:51
is fascinating to me because just this got me thinking, like apparently she had
37:55
a conversation with Steven Spielberg, which you can do that when you're running those
38:00
circles. She was talking with Steven Spielberg about like, hey, you know,
38:04
like I got this chance to do Little Women, what do you think?
38:07
And you said, shoot it on film? And I think that was
38:10
a very very smart thing to do, because like she wanted to shoot Ladybird
38:17
on Super sixteen, couldn't afford it, but with this huge period piece,
38:23
she can't afford it. They shot it on thirty five and it totally works
38:28
because it's a period piece. Like we whether we notice it or not subconsciously,
38:34
we do as an audience because we feel when we see film, we
38:38
think older, when we see digital we think newer. And it's just it's
38:44
there, it's ingrained in us. It's almost at an evolutionary thing, and
38:49
she's just gone black and white even farther into the past. And it was
38:53
strange to me because there was a few times when I saw some some I
39:00
don't they're not cigarette burns, but like I can't remember what they're called,
39:02
but like little white flashes here and there like that you can see. No,
39:08
it was like an imperfection in the film that there's a there's a term
39:10
for it, and I completely blinking on it. I hate that I'm blinking
39:13
on it. Schindler would be so disgusted with me, but he is.
39:17
She originally wanted to shoot the film vertically on an iPhone, and I'm glad
39:22
for one that she didn't. But yeah, Spielberg told her shoot on a
39:25
film. Soderberg was just like shooting on an iPhone, It's totally easy.
39:29
Yeah, But no, I thought that was It's so great, like when
39:34
you when you look at the direct like if you were able to divorce yourself
39:37
from the nonlinear storytelling aspect, which is admittedly hard to do. But we,
39:44
the three of us, were clearly in the minority when it came to
39:45
that. When you look at what she achieved with what she got out of
39:50
the performances, what she got out of the costume design, the editing,
39:54
the production design, the color timing, just like, so oh much of
40:00
it is so well directed, And I didn't know until I looked it up.
40:05
That this was nominated for Best Picture like John, like you mentioned,
40:07
and so holy crap. So her first solo film nominated for Best Picture and
40:15
she was nominated for Best Director. This film's nominated nominated for Best Picture,
40:19
but she wasn't nominated for Best Director, and that pissed a lot of people
40:22
off. And then Barbie comes out and not only is that nominated for their
40:28
Best Picture, it makes over a billion dollars, you know, like,
40:31
holy crap, like this this woman Anti and she gets talked about on house
40:37
Lights. Boom boom boom boom boom boom truly, boom truly. Her career
40:43
has meaning now is just amazing. Like three pictures in a row and those
40:50
are your only pictures that you've done, all nominated for Best Picture. That's
40:53
amazing. In I mean what we'll get to this when we talk about Barbie,
40:59
But in all honesty, a trajectory like that, I know everybody would
41:04
say I'm nuts for this, but I honestly think the smartest decision for her
41:07
is just to stick to producing, because they're the long knives are They're like,
41:13
you've used up all of the anything, any any kind of graces you're
41:17
going to get from the world at large. Just make the money at this
41:21
point, just make the money. Be an overly involved producer. And I'm
41:23
retiring from directing. No, it's it's the Dark Knight all over. Well,
41:28
she's she's writing, she's writing the Snow White live action remake for Disney,
41:34
but she is not directing. I think that that is the wisest possible
41:38
choice because the film after Barbie, she needs to give that time. Otherwise
41:45
peace of time. They are ready to come after her right now. Several
41:49
years. Yes, she needs several years to cool off, because yeah,
41:53
she deserves all the praise. But John, I totally hear what you're saying.
41:58
People are ready, always ready for the fall. People always want to
42:01
see failure because people want to see field. Yeah, it makes people feel
42:06
more important when they can criticize somebody who has achieved. So then they shut
42:10
down and on podcasts and just rip movies apart. Those people tear those people,
42:16
those people. But you know, and just as a quick aside,
42:21
though, I will say that I understand people's frustration with her not getting like
42:29
a Best Director nomination and everything. It's a pain that I remember all the
42:34
way back to the late nineties when bos Lhrman didn't didn't get nominated for Mulan
42:39
Rouge. I was outraged, and I I'm not saying that to be glib.
42:45
I'm saying I know that Mike, with you falling out of love with
42:47
the oscars, as any measure of greatness started, it took, it took
42:52
a while, and I think that was one of those ones where that was
42:55
like I might have like gotten up and tried to keep fighting after that,
43:00
but that that was like the death blow, and it had so many cuts
43:02
by that point, and then like that one, I was like, oh,
43:06
come on, Like that was just that was nuts. But like,
43:09
what is it about the Academy that they don't want to get it. I'm
43:14
firmly of the belief that if you get a Best Picture nomination, director should
43:19
be bundled in there, because the director is the person who brought it all
43:22
together, for God's sake. Although there's ten in the Best Picture slot and
43:29
there's five in the director's slot, so you can't bundle like that. But
43:32
I say that that's those are the rules they just made up. So that's
43:37
bulls. That's bulls. Basically, just thirty first slot, everybody gets in
43:44
and everybody's not happy. But I was that way when Ridley Scott lost for
43:52
Gladiator for Best Director and it won Best Picture. But at least he was
43:57
nominated. You know, Yeah, that's true. And I think with this
44:00
movie being so well received this this has a ninety five percent on Rotten Tomatoes,
44:07
I think there was like two guys who didn't like the story structure like
44:09
we did and tanked the one hundred percent, and at least two guys who
44:15
are willing to admit it. And but I like, I saw some very
44:19
valid criticism as to why, Like I you know, I think so many
44:24
people just in this past Oscar run were saying, like, oh, snubs
44:29
don't exist, because you know, like you have to admit that somebody else
44:34
who was nominated didn't deserve it. I think that year someone didn't deserve it,
44:38
and that was definitely what's his name? Who directed Joker? Oh?
44:45
Yeah, Todd? Is it to Phillips? Phillips? Yeah? He Like,
44:51
I know, no, And I'm a fan of the movie. I
44:53
am. I'm a fan of the Joker film. I wasn't in love with
44:57
it, but I thought it was well done. Totally DI need Best Director,
45:00
especially over Joker is one of those ones that works against me. Well,
45:07
you know, obviously the director brought something together, but it's like Joker
45:09
really is a film where it's like, if you took Joaquin Phoenix's performance out
45:14
of it, that's that's an okay film at best. You know, it's
45:19
like there's nothing dynamic about the structure. And Gerwig at least deserves credit for
45:23
saying, I'm going to try something different from what people expect with a period
45:28
piece and as a part of that, because we're we're getting so close to
45:31
the end here of our own discussion her and obviously i'm lifting this from Wikipedia.
45:37
Her quote that she went to the composer and I always murder this guy's
45:42
name, So please forgive me Alexander Displot. Is that how you pronounced his
45:45
name? The composer, sure, Desplat Displot whatever. There are people here
45:51
on the nerd party, Lee, give me a call. Let me know
45:53
how I should pronounce his name, because you love them. But he said
45:58
that Gerwig described that she wanted them to be and this is the quote I'm
46:00
pulling here is a mix of Mozart meeting Bowie. So I want to ask
46:06
specifically, did you guys get that sense from the music. Did Was there
46:09
anything special about this music where you were like, hey, this is great,
46:15
I can't remember a single bar. Okay, I'm not alone. Then
46:17
okay, cool, cool, cool, all right, but it wasn't bad.
46:21
It felt it didn't take me out of music. Yeah. Yeah,
46:24
you know, the electric guitar didn't kick in during the you know, future
46:29
scenes, but it worked. Okay, yeah, you know, I mean
46:32
it's it would have been funny if the future scenes were all synth and we're
46:35
like, oh my god, we're in the future color palette. It's really
46:39
the music that tells you what time you're in. I'm not rejecting that because
46:43
Last Mohicans has synth and it completely works. We're like, oh my god,
46:46
is that daft punk? We all can't be last of the most heicens.
46:50
Okay, that one was lightning in a bottle for sure. Yeah,
46:53
all right, Well, yes, we're rounding third here. Is It's been
46:59
an interesting discussion because we've we've had pros, we've had cons. We talked
47:02
a lot about the Academy. We rarely do, but we did a lot
47:07
in this regard, and so yeah, let's let's circle around for final thoughts
47:14
and and Tristan, I'll start with you, but I also want to know
47:16
were there any any other words of wisdom from your wife, especially having seen
47:22
the ninety four version and also being female on this one. Oh yeah,
47:29
she she hated what they did with Friedrich. She really enjoyed in the book
47:35
and in the ninety four version how Friedrich was portrayed as older and someone who
47:42
was truly just wanting to inspire her. And apparently this was news to me
47:51
that Friedrich was the entire reason why she got published. And they really built
47:54
up that relationship through the through the entire not the entire movie, but like
48:00
once she met him, and then like they really built the relationship. And
48:05
when I saw this and then they tacked on this this romance at the end,
48:08
I was just like, am I supposed to give a crap about this?
48:12
Like? Am I supposed to want her to chase after him? And
48:17
I felt like I was robbed of that. And then like I you know,
48:21
like my wife talks to me about it. I was like, oh,
48:22
yeah, that sounds much better. And then I find out that the
48:25
reason why Gerwig Minima minimized it was she wanted Joe to be kind of the
48:31
author of her own destiny with getting herself published. I was like, okay,
48:36
I can I can totally get along with that, But that doesn't mean
48:38
that you have to throw it in as an afterthought like Allcott was made to
48:43
do, you know, Like that's what that scene with Dashwood at the end
48:46
was referencing, was that, you know, like, oh, well,
48:49
da, like the publisher made her have Joe Mary Friedrich. But at the
48:53
same time, like I get why you're doing it, but you're making a
48:57
crappy romance out of it, like this is your this is the end of
49:00
your movie. And I don't care and so and I don't have extra contextual
49:06
knowledge to think that it's a wink and kind of cool. You know,
49:09
it's just a bad romance. And so to me, I thought that was
49:15
that was a real clincher for me. So I think, to me,
49:17
like with all the positives and with it being so well received, it had
49:22
a forty million dollar budget, it took home two hundred and eighteen and ninety
49:28
five on Rotten Tomatoes, nominated for Best Picture. I mean, great performances.
49:31
This really connected, But just for me personally, I didn't connect with
49:37
it. And there was just so much where I was just like, am
49:37
I supposed to care about this? I don't. Maybe I'm not the right
49:42
audience. I don't know I'm having I give this one a three. I
49:45
mean as in, I liked it, but it has its issues. No,
49:49
I think that's that's well put. What about what about you? John?
49:53
You have some little women in your life as well. Did you see
49:57
any connection or just you know, have have they shown any interest in seeing
50:01
this? I'm actually kind of curious. No. No, not at all,
50:04
not at all. Not there not there not there interesting. Yeah,
50:07
I I I kid my middle child, uh actually loved it. She asked
50:15
me, you know what I thought of it? And I talked to her
50:19
about it. She was scandalized. But then I was able to adequately and
50:24
accurately say you just have a crush on Timothy shallow May and she said,
50:29
shut up, shut don't. I said, ah, there's my proof that
50:31
you do, because it's the whole reason she saw Doom Part two. I'm
50:36
with Tristan three stars. This is this is a director who, again confident,
50:42
can tell a story and in a technical sense, the color palette management,
50:49
the the the performances that she gets, the management of things, although
50:55
time is a little bit of an enemy to her in this case. I
51:00
see somebody where she was much more comfortable with that hour and thirty run in
51:05
time than two hours fourteen, Like it felt a little bit like the obligation
51:10
to have an epic historical tale got the better of her storytelling sensibility. But
51:16
it's still a director that I see demonstrating. And you know, the box
51:22
office clearly qualifies her to direct a big tent pole film. You get a
51:27
big return on that. It's like, congratulations, you made it to the
51:30
big league. Let's give you a turn at bat. But this is a
51:35
I can, at the very least look at this and say, this is
51:37
a well managed production by a director who's able to communicate clearly to Crewe and
51:42
cast what she wants done, what she needs done, and to appear on
51:45
screen. But it's an intellectual exercise without the emotional aspect for me. So
51:52
it's a three. Now. Yeah, I like how we've done really well
51:59
on pro and cons. I mean, obviously this movie was not meant for
52:02
us. We are not the target audience remotely, But yeah, I think
52:09
I can give it a three as well. Just across the board, it
52:14
isn't a bad film. I almost kind of want to see a re edited
52:20
linear version, which you would probably have to almost cut the entire framing device
52:25
because it would kind of get lost in that, or maybe just the very
52:29
beginning in the very end, and maybe that would shave off fifteen minutes to
52:34
just kind of make it a shorter story. I'd be actually really interested in
52:37
seeing that because maybe your emotional connection grows progressively rather than back and forth.
52:45
I think you really struck me, John when you talked about the running time,
52:52
because we hadn't spoken on it, and I think especially because of the
52:57
time jumps, I think that is really the main reason it is so long,
53:01
because you kind of lose momentum and you have to reacquire the story every
53:07
time you jump. And I think you could easily shave fifteen minutes off if
53:14
you were just telling it straight across. I think that's kind of a side.
53:22
You know, it's just a response to doing a story like that.
53:25
I think you lose that ability. But all things said, you know,
53:30
I'm sure someday when my littles watch this, you know, my daughter will
53:34
enjoy it as well. And although my wife will probably raise her on the
53:37
ninety four version even more, this was definitely that version was one that they
53:45
probably ran the VHS tape into the ground, so, as Tristan would say,
53:49
a family favorite to be sure. So yeah, I think we're going
53:53
to give it three across the board. It's Yeah, it's been a really
53:58
interesting discussion about a Greta Gearwig, and I'm really looking forward to next week.
54:06
As we've alluded in her short run as directing, Great is even more
54:12
going to the big time as she jumps to twenty twenty three's Barbie Here on
54:19
house Lights. Join the Revolution, Join the nerd Party.