“I’ll put everything out in front of me when I’m writing, and I’ll almost arrange it like a quilt. But she undercuts the effect by slouching a little, laughing unguardedly and demonstrating odd and endearing mannerisms, such as the stiff handshake of a Victorian industrialist packing his son off to boarding school. She has a very natural confidence that comes from the knowledge that she’s the best person to be doing the thing she’s doing. That said, I have loved all the movies that have come out that are directed by women – and not just because they’re directed by women.’, Which ones have struck a chord?‘I loved “Wonder Woman”. She tells us how her memories made it to the screen. “You feel like you could look straight through her, like you can see her insides and her brain working. “It’s thrilling and it’s also part of what the dream of making films is.”, Then Gerwig’s eyes narrow; these are defining moments both for her personally as a director and also as an inspirational member of the too-small band of female film-makers. It’s exactly the kind of humour I like, which is based on a tremendous amount of pain.’, ‘Lady Bird’ is out now.Picture credit: Getty Images. But that’s not what it felt like, did it? You feel like it’s almost a photo album you’re looking back on.”. “Because it’s like your flitting brain can be completely satisfied by this machine that can give you feedback for all of your passing thoughts. She confesses that she was surprised at how much she fell in love with directing. She’s in her final year at an all-girls Catholic high school and, after graduating, she wants to move to the east coast to study, “where writers live in the woods”. “I thought, ‘I must tell him it’s a masterpiece,’” she explains. That feels satisfyingly strange.”. Yet the revolutionary spark of “Lady Bird” is embodied not just in Ronan’s go-for-broke, inner-fury performance but in the film’s brilliantly executed structure and design. And it seems like it’s going to be less and less its own category. And then, ‘Different crops and the water usage for each of them.’ You are creating this weird feedback loop for yourself.”, This is a very Gerwigian conundrum: hem-hawing about restricting access to the internet because she’s worried she’ll waste time Googling avocados. “When studios are looking to hire now, they’ll ask themselves – as they rightly should – ‘Is there a woman who is qualified for this job?’ That’s tremendously important. Gerwig acted a little at school but became more serious at college. Swanberg knew the director Noah Baumbach and he then cast her in his 2010 film Greenberg, opposite Ben Stiller. I was crying for the first 45 minutes, watching a female superhero on an island of awesome women. “Again, it’s not what literally happened, but it does rhyme with the truth. Because I don’t know if you remember, being bored as a kid, just so bored. “So as I’m jumping over the bench, it clipped my shin and I went sprawling. That’s something I was working through when I was writing with Noah Baumbach and I just kept moving in that direction. I know, everyone needs it.”, Even though it isn’t literally autobiographical there’s a core of emotional truth that’s very resonant. She’s testing herself all the time.”. And “achievement in directing”. You were at a grocery store with your mom and you were like, ‘It’s just excruciating!’ But then you get to a point where you start making up a game for yourself or you’ll start imagining things or whatever it is. “‘Did you bring your resumé?’ I looked such a nerd.”, Payne she knows less well, but is an ardent fan. And I loved the girls; I had total girl crushes on all of them.’, Lastly, is it true you’re an Alan Partridge fan?‘Yes, I am. The first, “Frances Ha” (2012), is a remarkable little movie, and watching it you can see the formative stage of the Gerwig aesthetic: It, too, is a film that finds its truth in the flow of moments. The effect is to create a flow of coruscating emotion in which each moment becomes special — not because it’s servicing an “arc” but because it simply is. “John Hughes movies I love; they loom so large for me. At 5ft 9in, with credulous sea-green eyes, and today wearing a pink, pleated cocktail dress with buckled black-and-white heels, she presents an image of impossible glamour. “The goal is that everything in a movie has meaning. This is one of many, though perhaps the most irreconcilable, point of contention with her mother, Marion (a heart-wrenching Metcalf). “There are surprisingly few movies about it,” says Gerwig, “and I think that speaks to the fact that there are surprisingly few female film-makers.”, I knew I needed actresses who could punch the same weight class and they really can. We used to call it “girl power,” and it’s true that movies, over the years, have given us a great many strong and liberated young women. I wanted to show what it was inside.”. “I talked for a long time with Timothée about his character’s beliefs, and he said, ‘The funny thing is that everybody is going to think you’re Lady Bird, but you’re Kyle’.” Gerwig laughs, “And I was like, ‘I know! Baftas 2018: Three Billboards wins best film and dancing fish-men – as it happened, Blackout on the red carpet: ‘best dressed’ a non-issue at Baftas, Baftas red carpet 2018: from Angelina Jolie to Lupita Nyong’o – in pictures, An antidote to Trump culture: no wonder Greta Gerwig's Lady Bird is the best reviewed film ever, The full list of winners at the Bafta film awards, Oscar nominations 2018: a cautious, comfort-food list in Trumpian times, 'Invisible no longer': women in film on the female directors the Oscars must celebrate, AO Scott described her style as a method without method. “Ms Gerwig,” he wrote, “most likely without intending to be anything of the kind, may well be the definitive screen actress of her generation, a judgment I offer with all sincerity and a measure of ambivalence.”. Which you could be offended by or you could also think, ‘Well, then I’ve done my job. This is the first movie Gerwig has written and directed, and just as she has emerged from the indie world, at 34, as a titanic filmmaking talent, Ronan, after a series of highly revered performances, raises her game to a new peak of emotional purity. As you move from moment to moment, it doesn’t feel like anything’s signposted for you, but a third of the way through you realize it’s starting to catch under you.”. Fusing their voices and talent, “Lady Bird” represents a seminal moment in the careers of Gerwig, the mumblecore actress-turned-indie It Girl-turned-screenwriter-turned-director, and Ronan, the 23-year-old Irish-American star whose performance has made her an Oscar front-runner for best actress. All rights reserved. Greta Gerwig talks about the origins of 'Lady Bird', if she wants to continue directing, and gives her thoughts on 'Shape of Water', 'Dunkirk' and more. Part of the journey is both loving who she is and where she’s from.’, Would you have wanted to play her at Saoirse Ronan’s age?‘I can’t imagine anyone else playing that part. People came to my room and made me look nice. I am secretly Kyle.’ I have all of the same paranoias as Kyle does.”. “Every year they come out with the numbers. We rarely allow ourselves to become properly bored, Gerwig believes, and the internet and smartphones are in part responsible. Greta Gerwig directing ‘Lady Bird’ If you don’t have a track record as a director, you need a damn good script. In any movie, you have to find the thread that connects you. I thought, Oh, nothing [bad] better happen on set, because this is American theatre. It’s a reverse magic show. “No!” she says, laughing. The pair became friends when they were on the jury for the Berlin film festival and catch up every so often for dinner in New York. Kyle’s a pseud, but Gerwig clearly has a soft spot for him. “It’s simultaneously something that’s in your control and utterly not in your control,” she says. She will keep acting – when the project and specifically the director is right – and she wants to collaborate with Baumbach again: “I hope Noah and I will write another movie together because it’s really, really fun.” She also wants to start her own production company one day. And Sofia Coppola’s “The Beguiled”, Kathryn Bigelow’s “Detroit”, Angelina Jolie’s “First They Killed My Father”. A comedy-drama set in her hometown, starring Saoirse Ronan as a 17-year-old high-schooler, it’s a coming-of-age tale bursting with wit, heart and the nostalgia of youth. What, then, are some solid, hard facts about Gerwig? “People are magnetized by Greta’s energy, her personality. Your house is on fire and your children are gone”..I’m interested in the idea of home and what it means to identity and how it plays into the film. Work like that should be rewarded.”. Ultimately, what the triumph of“Lady Bird” means for Gerwig is the freedom to follow her bliss. She didn’t dye her hair pink or assume a strange name or even argue that viciously with her mother. “I felt so badly for all those women,” she says, “and I felt so understanding of where they were, especially the young women, the women who were in college, the women who were just excited about movies and film-making and found themselves in a position that they didn’t know how to say no, but they didn’t know how to leave and that they felt overpowered and then they felt scared to say anything.”, There are tears in her eyes; her voice cracks. But it was quite impressive, because I had a lot of young people in this movie and none of them ever brought their phones to set. She met with me and Saoirse a number of times to go through our scenes, and that allowed the actors to bring what they bring.”. I’m gonna do it anyway.’ And I love the complexity of her. “I think one thing about doing this for a period of time is that you learn how to live through either misconceptions or correct conceptions and just continue doing the work.
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