«From Patti Smith to Beavoir, many creators admire« "Little Women" »


D ebutó with «Lady« Bird », a film of those who give the bell and that brought with it an unexpected surprise: the actress Saoirse Ronan. Greta Gerwig, who was one of those intense girls with an unusual love for the arts and philosophy, started "Little Women." A film that can take you to the door of the Oscars, where you would compete with your partner, Noah Baumbach, the director of "Story of a marriage." The director, who has had Ronan again, has embarked on this project because, since she was a child, she feels the text as something close to her and harbors the hope of bringing this story to the new generations of women.

- When did you read the book for the first time? And what did it mean to you?

- "Little Women" has been part of my life since I can remember. I did not read it as a child. They read it to me and I still remember Jo March. He was my idol, someone I wanted to become when I was older. It has been a reference in my life.

- He became known with «Lady Bird», which reflects how to grow older and mature in a current way. What has caused, again, wanted to direct a film that recounts the process of maturity of some girls?

-When it reached my ears that I was going to have a remake, I set out to get it. I did not hesitate. I got down to work immediately to achieve it. In my head I had a specific idea of ​​what the book was like and what it tries to convey.

-And what is?

–This work is about women and artists, about women and money. Everything is very well entwined under the pen of Louisa May Alcott. But there is one aspect of the story that made me decide and jump into the pool: I feel this movie in a more autobiographical way than any other in which I have participated so far.

- Not only you, but also other women of today feel reflected in Jo March despite the time that has passed. Why?

- When I was documented about the novel, I kept meeting very different women, but they all shared the same common denominator: they professed an immeasurable admiration for Jo. From Patti Smith to Simone de Beavoir, through Elena Ferrante and Anna Quindlen. Jo has meant a lot to creators, writers and philosophers of cultural backgrounds who are very different from each other. I promise you that I would never have thought of some of them. I would never have imagined being admired.

- What was the most difficult thing for this adaptation to be modern and current?

–Alcott's language is fresh and exciting and I have not had to do too much on my part to achieve what he asks. So much so that we hardly had to modify the dialogues.

- The film begins when they are already adults, while the opposite happens in the book.

- Every time I read it I felt it in a different way. When I did it for the first time, as a young man, I had different feelings than I have had now. I get the impression that when you read it more, you distinguish aspects that previously escaped me ... But when I wrote the script I immediately realized that the part I felt closest was the stage in which the sisters are adults and have among them touching relationships. It is the moment in which they pay their tribute for the intrepid youth they have carried. Precisely this is the subject on which I try to reflect. When I thought about filming, I concluded that I preferred to start with them when they were adults and introduce their childhoods through flashbacks. They are two very differentiated timelines.

- It is the second time that he works with Saoirse Ronan. How was the experience with her this time?

- All I can say is that he is a genius. I don't know what his trick can be to act as he does. But I feel it is a blessing to have worked with her again.

–In spite of the love he professes for Jo, he reflects all the sisters with equanimity.

- I see them all as artists and I wanted to take each of their aspirations seriously. There is an extreme love between them, a very strong bond. They are both very competitive and fight each other. My intention was to introduce these nuances, because it is what really makes their relationship so powerful and extraordinary.

- Sometimes, the tape looks like a vintage painting.

- My intention was that the photography would be attractive and that from the beginning it had a personal "look" and transmitted a certain youthful energy. I wanted the camera movement to follow those of the sisters. In a way, the film is a living painting.

–What were your expectations when directing this project?

- I had a tremendous desire to put myself in front of him. I think that is something that shows in the final bill that I have managed to give the film. It was very important for me to tell the story of these women through different facets: creating, making money ... I wanted to reflect how they were able to choose a destination for their lives in that very hard moment in which they pass from girls to women. I truly believe that this story is still very relevant and current for all of us from a humanistic point of view. What it demonstrates is that it is a modern text, that is capable of transcending its time and that it faces the passage of time very well.

CRITICISM OF “WOMEN”

It is possible that the Jo of "Little Women" was crouched in the stunned "Frances Ha" or in the resplendent and creative teenager of "Lady Bird" or in the verborrheic university of "Damsels in Distress." In the ungainly body of Greta Gerwig and his alter egos there is always the impression that a battle is being waged against his singularity. That's why Jo confesses to feeling alone. That is why, perhaps, "Little Women" looks like such a personal film for Gerwig. That is admirable, considering that, at this point, the nth version of "Little Women," that film that, in black and white or bleeding Technicolor, decorated our Christmas as the illusion of a false fireplace fire, could contain a film that we have seen a thousand times. The first thing Gerwig does is violate the temporal structure of the story, so that it constantly stresses the past and present of the March sisters, emphasizing what the novel has of meditation on the loss of innocence and entry into adulthood. This structure allows him to focus on Jo's literary work (which Saoirse Ronan embodies with a vivid and shrewd attitude), which is none other than Louisa May Alcott's own, explaining the abrupt happy ending of the novel as the imposition of an editor Patriarchal that Gerwig films with affectionate irony. That is to say, the structure concludes a metafictional game that enriches the reading of this incontestable classic of American popular literature, emphasizing its feminist dimension, but without burdening the inks on critical discourses and empowerment, only underlining that these «Little Women »–Jo, but also Amy (magnificent Florence Pugh), the most jealous, the most ambitious of the sisters– are aware of their condition as museum pieces or barter, and that any dissent will be punished with poverty or singleness. Above all, in "Women" highlights the vitality of the tone, the contemporary interpretations, the dynamics of overlapping the dialogues, the energy, free of revisionist cynicism, which give off their images. As if he had learned from his friend Mia Hansen-Love, Gerwig changes his plane before the emotion overflows, as if the cut served to contain it while moving forward, with the urgency of those who do not regret anything . Not an iota of resentment, with abundant doses of generosity. That is why «Little Women» is beautiful: because it seems that, for Gerwig, it was a necessary film to follow. Filming, running, loving.

Sergi SÁNCHEZ

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