Greta Gerwig on Little Women: Reel Pieces with Annette Insdorf

Oh such a warm welcome for get it right again we get I don't blame any of you for cheering I have seen all the previous film versions and we were just talking about this and and they've all I think been true to what Louisa May Alcott was presenting in terms of young women's moral integrity creativity individuality loyalty but you have done something I think even more special than the previous versions and I must say that it's precisely because as we know Hollywood films have tended to present male heroes and little women is going to be finding its audience amid the rather testosterone-fueled films of the year like the Irishman and Once Upon a Time in Hollywood and all I can say is thank goodness that you have made this film so first I was curious whether in writing the film you were already thinking of saoirse ronan for Joe and Timothy sha'lame for Laurie because you had just directed them in Lady Bird or was it that you started writing the script before Lady Bird yes well first of all this is amazing I really had no idea that this is you all should be here when that curtain went up and all can I apologize I'm I'm a little under the weather but I think I'm very well miked everyone can hear me and I'm too far away to breathe on you so you're safe no I started I actually started writing this script hmm well to go back for a second I I'm in this book I loved this book when I was growing up and I read it over and over again it was it was like it was my book it was one of my books and it was so intertwined with who I was it was kind of indistinguishable from my own life and then I I hadn't read the book until I like since I had been like 15 and then I read it again when I was 30 and I was I couldn't believe it I felt like it was so much stranger and more urgent and modern than I had remembered there was all this stuff that I thought I'd never heard the first time and I instantly wanted to make it into a movie I had an idea for how I wanted to do it and so I talked myself into the rooms at Sony and I told them I wanted to write it and I told him I wanted to direct it but I hadn't I hadn't made Lady Bird yet so the there was no they were like who are you like are you do you act are you funny I don't know what's happening but I but they luckily they said yes to me writing the script and so when I wrote the script I didn't actually know Timothy or associate yet so I wrote I wrote I guess I guess now it was like five years ago that I wrote God was that five years ago oh yes but in any case I wrote a few drafts and then I went away I made ladybird I directed it came out and then I went back and I worked on the script again as we were leading up to making it so I did by the time I was working on the the more recent draft I knew I knew it was them okay and I think one of the reasons that the film works as well as it does is the casting this is an ensemble piece and some of my students know that I have a particular love for collective protagonists as opposed to the sole hero or heroine and there are no villains in this movie you've cast it in such a way that even the small roles they breathe and your actors are remarkable could you talk a little about the casting for example previous versions have had Friedrich as an aging German professor and you've got Luigi he'll the French actor if you could talk about the decision for example to have him and I'm also curious of course about the greatest actor living in our world Meryl Streep those were the two that I was most curious about well I I'm you know I adore my cast I think one of my very favorite things about being a director is working with actors because of that very thing they got the thing I've always wanted is that that that sense that any one character you see on screen you could follow them and they'd have their own movie I always loved that when I feel that in a movie and and you need great actors to give you that so I mean everyone from obviously Queen Meryl to - I mean Chris Cooper it's extraordinary I mean the Jane who D shell who is plays Hanna is and one of the best actresses in America in case anyone saw the Glenda Jackson King Lear Jane who Dashell was wonderful as the gloss I forgot the name but excellent performance she's yes and she's um she was also I mean I I saw her when I was in college actually I was at Barnard and I saw her in the yeah Barnard I saw her in the lisa krone play well on Broadway and I don't know if anyone else saw that but it was great she was amazing and and I I've always had her in mind in my mind I mean one of the nice things about like going to theater and being in New York is you just collect this list of actors you hope you get to work with and and then you know make them be in your ear movie but yeah so oh so Louis yes he well in the book they describe professor bear as being they say he has not a single handsome feature on his face and I was like no also my feeling was always like I mean it's I mean we don't love Jo March because she marries a German professor that's not like the reason girls have have looked to her so I took some liberties I also felt like I was allowed to take liberties because they feel like for the history of cinema men have been putting glasses on hot women and saying that they're like awkward and so it was like I can do whatever I want and then meryl streep she is I mean she she basically told me she was gonna be in the movie and that was a wonderful day no she was she we we had a lunch and she talked about how much the book had meant to her and and and she I mean she's just I mean in addition to being one of the greatest actors as it's ever been on the screen she's also just one of the smartest people I've ever talked to she's so she's so astoundingly intelligent about story and character and and how to build a film and so what I took from her in that meeting was not just her and the character she was gonna play it was it was also a new understanding of the film I was trying to make she has sat in that chair twice in the history of real pieces and I can add that she's also she's also extremely kind and generous she's not just brilliant as an actor and as in an inter understanding of narrative and I love the way that she's essentially playing against type because from the moment you see Aunt March she is so imperious and exacting and judgemental all of the things that Queen Meryl is not no she's she's none of those things although she does she does in in a wonderful I mean it's not method at all but it's it's she just has this wonderful gentle way of when someone says something about aunt when we were working and someone said something about aunt Marjan sad or said like our Aunt March's this way or that way and she'd say but she's right oh you're a real advocate for your own character which is I don't know it was it was it was sort of wonderful but I mean she's I could I mean I was just one thing about her well she is when she shows up on set she comes she's completely ready she's in her full hair I never see her look at sides her lines it's all in her head and she sits for her own lighting so she sits down and everyone lights around her like usually you could have a stand and sit for your lighting and I just it it's the most wonderful thing she's like I mean it makes everyone work so fast when the merit right now when Meryl sitting for her lighting and and and it makes everyone else sit for their lighting and it's just I mean she just really is um she's all-around a superstar no I mean she leads by example yes and and I can just imagine how every young actress on the set would have been looking to her for a certain not just guidance about how to play a part but how to be an actor in a respectful set and she and Chris Cooper co-starred in adaptation Charlie Hoffman film years ago so when he asks her you know to dance I just had this little shiver because I remembered that and I know I don't know if that was something you were thinking about I know no I I did well it certainly when they were standing around and making jokes and and having this shared history and it was just it was extraordinary yeah yeah now Timothy sha'lame said about you in directing this film that you make an actor feel scene and I found that really evocative and I I was wondering what that might consistent so if you could talk whether you have a sense of what that means or not but for example did you do many takes like if an actor wanted to do something or did you prefer fewer takes in order to not you know I mean I do I like I like doing I wouldn't say I'm not like a Fincher take person like I'm not it's not hundreds but I do like to do a lot of them primarily because I like to give I do like to give the actors face to explore and I mean we do a lot of rehearsal so I mean III like I like working with actors ahead of time and I don't I don't do improvisation I like the lines said as written I've actually remembering something you said on the Telluride Film Festival panel be together about lady Berg you said that you did four weeks of rehearsal with them yeah and then sent them away for a while before coming back to actually shoot yeah did you have the luxury of that here sadly well no I didn't have quite the luxury of that here because I was I had two weeks with them in a kind of concentrated amount right before we started shooting but I would do many rehearsals with them in wherever they were so like Timothy was in Europe so I was there with him in Florence and Saoirse and then I found Eliza in New York and I was kind of catching them where I could but I I I like I like giving actors space to spread out i I never because I mean movies are strange because movies are they're one of the only time two art forms you know it truly they're made in prep because once you're on set and that clocks running you're not really making new decisions at that point you're you're you know the pressure is on but within that I want the actors to feel like they have all the time in the world and not only do I want them to feel like they have all the time in the world I want them to feel like if they didn't get it today we can come back tomorrow and so creating that kind of environment it's not about the number of takes it's about the feeling of of getting everyone - yes stretch that feeling of time because I think that it allows people to do their best work because they feel safe and they feel supported practice although it's interesting to hear you say that the film is made mainly in prep in the preparatory for example you did the script and then you're what I presume you did a storyboard yes but I the second time watching this tonight I got the feeling that so much seemed to be a function of the post-production of editing have these graceful transitions this is one of the only films I've seen recently anyway where flashbacks are not announced but I always knew what the time frame was and I realize how intelligently you did that not only in terms of something we talked about earlier the visual palette where the present day is more pearly gray blue sad with bets death the past is more vibrant warm it's also the way you have these um you know elegant transitions like a beach scene - a beach scene or Lauri looking at Jo writing in her attic cut - Jo in her attic but were in New York yeah and we somehow know that was that in the script or was that primarily in the editing that was all in this in the script I tend to write two cuts in my in my script and I'm when I'm when I'm on set I'm always I mean I'm I've shot listed in storyboard but I've also I'm always asking my script supervisor a script supervisor who's sitting next to me not that I know exactly how I'm gonna cut a scene but I always think okay if I end on this can I cut to this you know if I'm ending on like this coffee cup and then the next thing I see is a wide of this thing and you know of you know whatever the street is that gonna work and I'm always thinking of what are we going out on what are we coming to that's I've thought about that in the writing and then I think about it all the way through while I'm shooting I think some of that is a function of coming from independent movies because you don't you're always you just need to get the thing exactly as it should be so you're always and also because just as you make a movie in prep you also when you're writing a movie that's that's that's also free I mean in terms of for you you can spend all the time you want working that and making sure like this cut will work that cut will work this moves this way you can that's that's your time before you involve everyone okay obviously you have the most wonderfully into graded and coherent sense of how from the very beginning this film is going to gradually just state you know and grow into something that has its own internal rhythms and and peaks and values and whatever else I'm guessing though because I know for a fact that we share a passion for a particular filmmaker and I wouldn't be surprised to learn that you made a lot of choices to have French collaborators whether it's an actor like Luigi Hale or a composer like Alex Ong with this plot and that's Francois Truffaut yes now as some of you know I I first book was about Truffaut I was his translator and I have been teaching his work for many years and in watching your film I just was so moved by a few things that I suspected you got not from independent films but from French new-wave especially that's right so for example the very notion of somebody a letter that's being read he Frederic delivers it directly to the camera no that's right that's straight from to English yeah so I guess I do want to push this just for a moment I hope the audience will indulge me because I'm sure that you're here more to talk about little women and all the inspirations but from the very beginning of the film yeah I felt that you were simultaneously telling the story of Joe March and her family which is a wonderful thing to do and that you were also in a gentle way self-consciously celebrating the process of telling a story in other words the way that a book becomes a living thing we see the book Little Women with its red cover and gold emblem at the end of the opening credits and of course it comes back so beautifully at the end where we see as in true foes films the process of making a book of The Binding of the tactile nature the physicality of a book as a living thing right and was that also always in your screenplay or did that come later yeah yes well speaking letters to camera was always in my screenplay and Truffaut was on my mind because I when I wanted to make this movie I think often period pieces can feel quite heavy they can feel quite nailed to the floor like you can like how much everything costs you can really feel it like and I wanted it to feel light on its feet and I wanted it to feel irreverent I didn't want it to feel chaotic I wanted it to feel very very choreographed but I wanted it to feel ever vents effervescent and pit Cecotto and it for me Truffaut movies are our period pieces that just feel lighter than air and I you know I've I think a lot about the opening sequence in Jules and Jim of them just running around and he's cutting and using all this stuff that you see in five minutes anyway but he's just gonna put it here and it just has this kind of like we're just doing this and you feel totally at ease with this world and so and I've always loved I've always loved reading letters to camera and I think it's a subtle cue that to me when a character reads to camera it's it's like a sign that the movies in charge it's not it's not something that's being intravenously delivered to you it's something that's speaking directly to you but it's you're breaking the fourth wall yes so there's always for me a little bit of an eye wink at the audience that obviously this character is not speaking to us yeah but yes because we're aware that there's a camera and now we're again aware of the process yes movie coming to us the process of the movie and then with the book - and to your point I mean this is um this is probably just because I'm I I miss I miss college is I making I made this movie like I'm like multiple layers of meaning like I was writing a paper but but it's it's a you know it's a it's it's about this source material but it's also about it is a movie about making movies it's a movie about making art I mean it is I reread the essay the are in the age of mechanical reproduction when I was when I was thinking about shooting the the printing press it's because it's something that is from in here that suddenly gets out there and then it's being made by a machine into an object that people buy and then similarly with film manok it's being constructed and I I think I'm always fascinated by those questions of how that transmits and I think further because because it's adaptation and now I feel like this is I'm just no I mean this is just me I have a fever and I'm just describing what's inside my head but but I but I truly feel like what's so fascinating to me is like there's Louisa May Alcott and then and that's in her real life and then there's Jo March who's sort of her avatar and there's all these things that are different between Louisa May Alcott and Jo March you know that the Alcott's were wretchedly poor they were not the genteel poor and you know she never got married she never had children Jo March does all this other stuff so those are those two that there's that distance and then you're adding me and I'm writing her writing her writing her like and and then and and then it because just it's like this kaleidoscope and I felt like there was no way for me to represent all of these layers except for by making something cubist and and that's part of what I was kind of trying to do with all of that your ending it's I call it the you have your cake you needed to ending because if Tracy Letts is the editor opens early on if your charge was a girl she has to be married or dead at the end either one yeah and so you know that the correct ending is the one that sells okay for a studio to I'm sure so you get to show us you know Jo who will run after Frederick and presumably have the happy end in Hollywood turns but what you really show us is that the book the book is created and she is smart enough and brave enough to go to her editor and argue and bargain for the copyright and higher percentage yeah and this is where your film is totally different I think from previous incarnations cinematically of the novel it is exceedingly modern interpretation or contemporary interpretation that acknowledges that women have to understand how economics fits into the world not just love or desire or motherhood but how do you make your living and that is what you give us in Joe well that that question of I mean authorship ownership women are money that that's that's a what I what I sort of thought was at the center of the book and it's underneath the book and you know I it's that it's the the the thing that Virginia Woolf wrote about the in a Room of One's Own the everyone remembers as you know to write you need a Room of One's Own and it's very romantic but what she actually said was you need a Room of One's Own and money that's I mean [ __ ] is what she said and the she said you need it and she gives a number of mount and she's like that's how much money you need and she says she said the the question because she was asked to speak on why are there no great women writers and she said that's not the question the question isn't why are there no great women writers the question is why have women always been poor because women have always been poor and poetry depends upon intellectual freedom and intellectual freedom depends upon material things right and so what how are you gonna write and so I felt like when I researched Louise's life and her and what she I mean I put this in the movie but she taught herself how to write with her left hand as as well as her right because was she she had to go out to work - so when she was a teenager because they they were so they were so poor and she would write the stories in her head while she was sewing during the day and then she'd get home at night and write them down because she was gonna sell them to like sort of Penny dreadful papers but her hands would cramp and bleed so she taught herself how to write with her left hand to keep writing I mean that's how much writing as a thing for her to make money to make her way in the world meant for her and and then you know I and then you cut to later and I included this line in the movie because I thought it was so great she'd published a novel which was which was panned by Henry James which like go [ __ ] yourself who was born you know this is a fancy guy and then she you know he he didn't have to sell books you know so for his family to live and so and her response was I can't afford to starve on praise and I was like well that's so great so I gave it to her but that kind of underneath that that thing running underneath the the novel and her life is something that's continues to be really interesting and emotional to me and it's just another it's another way it was another thing that made me feel like I I had to look at this anew but you also have that wonderful line that it's Laurie says to Amy what women are allowed into the club of geniuses anyway and so you acknowledge female aspiration as well as limitation and for me the most moving moment in this context is when Joe and Marmee are together and Joe actually says to her that women it angers her that women exist for more than of but then at the very end is that poignant moment but I'm so lonely yes and I I read somewhere that you actually added that later yes could you talk about that a little first I just want to save the line about what women are allowed in the club of geniuses anyway and then Florence pew says as Amy says the Bronte's like I when I wrote that I literally said I was like this is gonna kill this joke will kill I don't know who I was imagining everyone be like oh it's true the Bronte's like but I was certain and I've kept it in the cat I don't know it's ever gone no laughs but a chuckle but I but I I was like there's some English professor who's gonna be like so happy because actually the price it's funny because you know I'll explain why it's funny because actually the Bronte's were acknowledged as being geniuses like they would look at people in the 19th century we're sort of like I don't know women but like those girls like they are pretty smart anyway so that was my joke with myself I yes the the line about women they the speech about women that Saoirse gives and then she says but I'm so lonely that's actually the speech is from another book that Louisa wrote but the line but I'm so lonely I added that I added that because I mean that was one of those lines I just her III her I read I like read that section and then I just added but I'm so lonely and I just heard searches saying it just as she does in the film and then and then I went on set and and it was there and she was and she did it and it was it was it was exactly as I would have heard it in my head and it was amazing no I to me it's the difference between a very good scene and a great scene yeah because it's what she's saying is a it's a speech for our time it's very much a galvanizing agenda piece but that little human element of acknowledging that she is lonely and this is before she also acknowledges I maybe shouldn't have said no to Laurie and she becomes just so much more humor vulnerable and not simply a strident you know poster idea yes so yeah no I mean well there's a beautiful section in the book where which is essentially what I took that that scene from where I mean the book is not narrated by Jo its Louisa presumably so she'll poke through in different areas and she and in this section where she says maybe I should have said yes to him which I feel like everyone understands even if you don't you know even if you don't want to really like you you know you just think maybe I've made all the wrong choices but she has Louisa has this beautiful long just speaking as the narrator she says you know girls who are 5 and 20 joke about being old maids but they they secretly don't think they will be and then girls who are 30 stop talking about it because they know what's happening and you're like oh and then she was different times and then but then she she does this whole beautiful thing about like she said be kind to the spinsters you don't know she says you don't know what passions beat under their sombre gowns and she says what chivalry was having that isn't that isn't kind to them she's speaking to men and women and saying like you just don't know when you meet someone why the this is what where they they are and you don't know what nasty thoughts they have one of the reasons though that the film packs a punch when Joe asks maybe I shouldn't have turned Lori down is that there is such a natural charismatic connection between the way Saoirse Ronan is Joe and Timothy shall amaze Laurie dance in that party scene at night when they have to be outdoors so that her scorch dress isn't visible and I don't know if it's primarily their natural you know buoyancy or the way you shot it you know where you were directed it first their walking then their manically dancing when no one's looking then their stately yeah it is such a beautiful moment that you can't help but subconsciously yearn for this couple to be together because you think they belong together their rhythm their understanding of each other is so wonderful and and it becomes a little painful when the rift is obvious yes no they're I mean they're so wonderful on-screen together to know we those actually the the the dancing was all choreographed by Monica bill Barnes who's just a she's a great choreographer she's she's here in New York and I love her her as a performer and her as a choreographer and I wanted her to create dances that were tradition I wanted them to be traditional I wanted them to be grounded in traditional dances of the time but actually I had all the dances throughout the entire movie they were being danced to they were dancing to Lake like the Cure or Nirvana or like you know I'm never ever like James Brown like they were dancing to like modern music because because even though they were doing traditional dancing it there's something about the way people move in their bodies when they're hearing music that feels modern that's different and it's more because like the thing is like if you if you lived in the 19th century and you heard a waltz you would be like [Music] they can't be like losing your mind it would be like their minds are [ __ ] their minds are blown by Strauss they loved it and also I just felt like it gave it that ability to communicate that so that so she made the dances we they danced to modern music and it had that kind of feeling but Timothy inertia the what was so wonderful about them was that they vibrate on the same level they have the same kind of spark of I've just just pure light within them and I think they they are you know what I was hoping for is that they are each other's kind of androgynous other half that's how they always felt to me and I mean to me the the proposal scene it's not just that Laurie wants to be with her and that she doesn't want to it's that he's leaving childhood without her that he's leaving that kind of pact that they never talked about and saying I don't want to do that anymore I want to I want to do another thing and I just I mean it just that scene kills me and the two of them kill me together but then you know Amy's really gonna shape him up yeah and Florence Pugh is such a wonderful actor yes I saw her in three films this year fighting with my family as a professional wrestler and mid-summer Ari Astor is extremely horror horror film and then he or she's remarkable as well but but I must say Timothy sha'lame you capture something in this film that is also visible in the other superb film that he has out this year the king where he's getting henry v he plays dissolute very well like when he's yeah he can't be bothered to get up from his drunkenness and then the group the dawning of a maturity of a nobility of a kind of coming into his own as a young adult yes that's in both of the Elms he's dating so well that's interesting yeah he just come off of the the King it was actually he just come off of the King he kept texting me pictures in a mud pit like surrounded by a bunch of men in armor and I was like he was like he just was so instantly like I have my flowy shirt and I'm ready to do this no he's he's he's he's an extraordinary actor and it's been so much fun to get to to watch him as which come into his own and try different things and yeah I mean he and so I mean him he insertion and him in Florence just really fascinating dynamics the the different kind of acting and and they're all great we're gonna take a few questions from the audience but I did want to ask you something when you finished shooting this film about six months ago a year ago actually yes a year you were six months pregnant yes and you have since had your baby yes and I was wondering you know because the simultaneity do you feel like you have in essence given birth to two living beings I mean do they do they have that sort of well they kind of I mean there is a way I mean one's a little more important yeah no I mean both know why I actually I was six months pregnant when I stopped shooting and then I I cut I was I was in the editing room the next day after we start stop shooting because I knew I had like a limited amount of time and and and then I worked I think I showed the movie to the studio on March 10th and then I gave I had a baby a couple days later so it kind of all went together so it did certainly feel like there was a lot happening yeah I would say so I think for most people not just women but for most people the idea of having a baby that's one huge thing and the idea of making a film and of this scale Lady Bird was wonderful but it's small scale and independent film and this has a kind of heft to it yeah it was ya know it was him it was amazing it was amazing it was I mean I to be honest it was it was something where I you know at the beginning you don't tell people because you don't tell people and then as it went on I just it there was never really I don't know I guess people were just like I guess the thing is no one's paying attention to you is what I've learned like no one really noticed okay we are gonna take a few questions I'm I see one on the island one in the middle I will repeat them yes the woman right there I think it's a woman I can't see very well the person who's turning around and you were four oh it's a gentleman I'm sorry now that the lights are up feel free to ask your question hi thank you thank you for the unbelievable [Applause] the question from a senior in an acting school is how has your work as an actor informed the work as a director yeah oh sure oh well I'm so glad I'm so glad you're here I'm happier in your your you're in acting school I'm I'm not I feel like well for me acting and sort of how I came I came to everything because it was like my way it was my way of it was my way participating in things that were we're ahead of where I was we're better than where I was I mean even you know what I loved I loved it acting and I loved writing when I was in high school but I didn't really have a sense of being able to do it with as my job but I mean even in scene classes or in student productions when I was in high school or in college of like it's your way it was my way of interacting with great writing it was my way of interacting with you know Tennessee Williams or Caryl Churchill or Arthur Miller it was it was sort of testing myself against something that had something enduring so for me that that process of like this is great and you're kind of trying to figure out how to get get yourself there that's that's how I learned what good writing was I mean for me that was that was kind of the basis of writing and then and then I I guess in terms of directing it's just I have such utter empathy for what what it is you're asking someone to do because I know how hard it is I mean I just know it's it's um it's the most marvelous feeling when it's working as an actor and when it's not it feels like you it's like you you can't it's like there's wood chips coming out of your mouth and you can't figure out how to not make it feel like that so I think for me both as a writer and as a director being an actor has been the most important thing for me but yeah also acting it is it's also it's it's it's a I think Tracy Letts who's in this movie is also a great actor and a great writer and I saw him speaking of Arthur Miller he did a production of All My Sons on Broadway which was astonishing I'm I couldn't believe I couldn't even look at him afterwards like I I mean I don't know how many people know that play well yeah okay so I mean he I mean he plays the character I mean you know it doesn't end well for him but afterwards there's like Tracy and he's like well when the play is over all my troubles are done and I was like how are you doing this eight times a week but but I so I'm actually gonna be in a play in the spring which is sort of terrifying but Tracy told me because I'm gonna be do check off and I was really scared about it and he said what better thing could you do for your directing or your writing than to try to measure yourself against check off every night like you're not gonna you're not gonna come out behind you know so I'd say acting has everything to do with it and may I add that for those who want to get their tickets early it's going to be three sisters in the spring with Oscar Isaac and Sam goals off-broadway production at the New York Theatre Workshop yes I think I got all those details right now I have something to look forward to after the crazy movie season is winding down there was in the middle and then to the right there yes hi you have a way of letting your female characters have choices without judging them like in ladybird you'll be saying about going to Community College but there's no direct condemnation of that and could you expand on how also in this film each of the daughters goes on her own journey and he's not jut and there's no judgment oh thank you well I I guess um I guess I'm not really I'm not really interested in a sense of I'm not interested in a hierarchy of lives I think I'm I I think every I mean I think something I I think about a lot is well particularly with women's stories they think there tends to be an idea that maybe they're not as as epic but I've always said you know there's just as much epicness in kitchens as there are in battlefields it's the same and so I don't I try to in in so far as as a filmmaker you're a world builder I try not to give the value of life choices in that way because I because I think I don't know now I sound kind of crazy but I think all of them I in I believe in great grace for everyone and I think that that's that's I hope I try to communicate and but I was gonna go on some tangent but I don't know it left me but thank you know I that means a lot to me because I I care I care very much about about that about about stories feeling like the paths have value it was a hand right there yes really grateful you're here because I'm a reader in addition to an action a writer I would like to know more about other stories that have inspired you well I will say just this is dude this is okay Middlemarch that book and like a jet that book is one that I think taught if a book can make you be a better person yeah Middlemarch made me a better person and it speaks to actually what you were asking about different paths it's a book for me that when I first read it it it like take it took me beyond the my kind of juvenile first impressions of people and then it and it walks it beyond it and it says oh no you didn't look at it from this side or that side and then I read it there's a actually Rebecca Mead I think wrote a book like my life in middle March but she read it at different points in her life and anyway I read it there's even characters that I saw it the last time I read it I was sure I hate it and I don't and I think that that I I would I think that book is it is a great one I mean this is a boring I mean not boring but it's it it's an obvious one but I do think I mean an Akron and a just read it I mean because that when I read it I'd have waited it for so long cuz I was like I don't know there's something about a train like I didn't I was like that's like I can't do this and I read it I was like oh like I couldn't it made me so happy when I was reading it it was just so wonderful and and and I feel like it's so complete it's so I can't even believe it exists I think poetry is really great to read lots of poetry because I think it's um it teaches you to how to focus differently I'm not even particularly well versed in it the so to speak but I think it's a I think that that that 'men helps with my ear and my sense of rhythm um but those are suggestions okay I think we have time for just one question there's all the way in the back on the aisle yes yeah I hope I heard this correctly because I was a further back going back to this what you were describing as you're telling Alcott story telling Jo story and how the moment of 2019 impacts on on that like yeah I get that right well I will say that the when of the it's like Louisa and Jo and me and all of this and then there was him once I had the movie and then there's like an additional layer of meta Nisour cubism or whatever it is then when I'm having a conversation with a bunch of people executives about what the movie is myself so I'm then having a conversation about whether or not we should do the [Music] romantic ending just as a romantic ending so that's like the movie with in the movie within the movie that's happening still so I mean you know I don't I think it's uh speaks to the constraints well if I can just add one thing the moment of 2019 mmm among other things differs from previous times in which movie versions of this novel were released because you have a lot of strong female producers working with you presumably to ensure your vision making it out there yeah Amy Pascal Robbins Y chord Denise de novia these are just some of the names yeah in the old days it was male executives male studios male marketing everything I'm guessing that there was a slightly greater support system within which you could argue your vision of inter putting these steps yes yes III mean it's hard because I've only it's hard for me sometimes I think to speak as as like how is this the the question of like sort of how has this been for me as a woman is always a little hard for me to talk about because I don't have an alternate reality like I don't know what it would be another way I but I so I feel and I have had such amazing good fortune to meet collaborators and champions who've gotten behind the things that I've wanted to do but I mean I think I'll just to say something Merrill said because it's because she's smarter than me is um what I find fascinating is and this is she said this is she said so the whole book Joe Joe says I want to be a boy and she says it the whole time she's like I should have been born a boy I want to be a boy and there's lots of ways to read that but one one way is just that why wouldn't she want to be a boy there was literally nothing women could do in the 19th century nothing they couldn't do anything they had no options why wouldn't you want to be the person who had the options and Merrill said something she said women have all kinds of practice imagining themselves as men we do it all the time and as as as readers as moviegoers you're always projecting yourself into the the headspace of a male protagonist and it's really fun to do it and that there on the flip side men do not have quite as much practice imagining themselves as women the the I mean starting from that it's not their fault if it's starting from the time they're little kids they'd be less likely to be taken to a movie about a group and that sort of not being able to imagine that is something that I think is being changed right now which i think is excellent is that kind of being able to take the imaginative leap into the into the space of not just the feminine but the space of another of another narrative arc I think it's happening and I think that's wonderful and I think that Louisa actually conceived of something like that because she can had a feminism that was not exclusionary it was a it was a rising tide that lifted all boats she could see already that Lori Lawrence is just as happy to put down the masculinity stuff and come be a March sister I mean that's he's the t he wanted to be one of them and and how pleasurable that was and how needed it was and so I think I think that's to say that that that that that active imagination and something she already knew it's something we're coming to and it's the thing that movies can do their empathy machines and so I'm hopeful well not every film is an empathy machine this year there have been a few that fulfill that title and Eva don't but I would say that you have given us this wonderful gift for Hanukkah and Christmas of a beautifully crafted motion picture that is empowering thank you [Applause]

Channel: The 92nd Street Y, New York

Views: 177,664

Keywords: 92Y, 92nd Street Y, greta gerwig, Annette insdorf, little women, lady bird, film

Id: Z-4Ahn6lV-Y

Length: 55min 25sec (3325 seconds)

Published: Thu Dec 26 2019